Postal vote printing on target, insists minister

The government last night insisted that the delivery of postal votes for next week's "Super Thursday" elections would be carried out on time, despite reports to that up to 4 million ballot papers have not been sent to Royal Mail in time to arrive before 10 June.

The government last night insisted that the delivery of postal votes for next week's "Super Thursday" elections would be carried out on time, despite reports to that up to 4 million ballot papers have not been sent to Royal Mail in time to arrive before 10 June.

Christopher Leslie, the Constitutional Affairs minister admitted last night that the pilot postal scheme was a "challenge" but denied reports that, despite 24-hour printing of postal ballots, the Government would fail to meet today's deadline for delivery to post offices. "Electors in all-postal regions will have ample time to receive, consider, complete and return their ballot papers," Mr Leslie said.

Papers for the local and European elections were due to arrive on the doormats of 14 million voters in the all-postal areas of East Midlands, the North-east, the North-west, and Yorkshire and Humberside last week.

At least one local authority has said it is reprinting nearly 250,000 papers due to errors, and Royal Mail staff were said to have been put on standby to hand out ballot the forms by hand, although this was denied by a spokesman for the Electoral Commission.