A PRINTING error has lead to hundreds of postal vote packs for the upcoming county council elections having to be reissued.

Some 400 voters in Colchester's Drury division were sent bundles with the incorrect ballot paper and postal voting statements.

A decision has now been taken by Colchester Council, which is in charge of distributing the packs, to reissue fresh votes.

Sue Lissimore (Con) who is defending her seat in the election which takes place on Thursday, said she was concerned about the mistake.

She said: "After being informed of the problem last weekend, I was told electoral services were aware of the problem but not to worry but I was told things could carry on as normal.

"Then shortly afterwards I was told things were not fine and 400 postal votes were being reissued and redistributed.

"It means there is certainly the possibility of somebody sending off their postal vote and then going on holiday who will not be able to have their say in this election.

"It is not good for democracy and I would like to know what went wrong and how."

A spokesman for Colchester Council said an outside printing company had made the mistake, but not all postal votes sent out in the ward were affected.

He said: "Due to an error by an external print company, 400 postal vote packs were issued with the incorrect ballot paper and postal voting statements.

"Once this was brought to the council’s attention, they made a decision to cancel the postal votes affected and re-issued fresh ones on Wednesday.

"The re-issued postal vote packs will include a letter to each elector affected, apologising for the inconvenience. "If you do not receive a re-issued letter, you do not need to do anything, your postal vote is valid, as this issue only affects a portion of the postal votes issued for the Drury division.

"We are not aware of any other issues affecting postal votes in other divisions."

Other candidates in the Drury ward are Diane Baker (Ukip), Sioux Blair-Jordan (Lab), Robbie Spence (Green) and Glanville Williams (Lib Dem).