We know some postal voters are concerned they have not yet received their UK Parliamentary general election postal vote pack. This is a national issue.

The Association of Electoral Administrators (AEA) have issued a statement calling for the postal vote system to be overhauled.

Postal votes for the Cambridge Constituency were sent first class and despatched on the following dates:

• 17 June for postal votes that were in place by 4 June
• 24 June for applications made between 5 June and the 19 June deadline
• 27 June for electors added to the register on that date, who had made a postal vote application by 19 June.

How to apply for a replacement postal vote pack

If you have not received your postal vote pack, you can apply for a replacement up until 5pm on polling day, Thursday 4 July. To do this please call us on 01223 457048 or email elections@cambridge.gov.uk.

Before we can give you a replacement postal vote pack, we will ask you to complete a form and if you are collecting your reissued postal vote in person. You will be asked to bring photo ID with you.

We can only send out reissued postal votes by post up until Tuesday 2 July.

By law, any replacement requests made between 5pm on Wednesday 3 July and 5pm on Thursday 4 July must be made in person with proof of identity. We will then issue your postal vote pack to you, and you can complete and return it straight away.

Returning your postal vote pack by hand

If you receive your postal vote pack and would like to return it by hand rather than by post, you can do so at any polling station in the Cambridge Constituency on Thursday 4 July from 7am to 10pm. You can also return it to the city council’s office at Mandela House, 4 Regent Street, Cambridge between the hours of 9am and 5pm.

Please contact us if you wish to hand in a postal vote on a Monday or Tuesday when the Customer Service Centre is closed.

New rules mean that when you return a postal vote pack by hand, you must fill in a form for the pack to be accepted. Please do not place returned postal votes into a council letterbox, as they cannot be accepted without a form.

An individual can return their own postal vote and up to five additional postal votes at this election from family, friends, or neighbours.

Candidates and campaigners are not allowed to collect or return postal votes on an electors’ behalf and can only hand in their own postal vote and up to five others for close relatives or people they care for.

Why aren’t postal votes sent out as soon as an application comes in?

Candidate nominations closed at 4pm on Friday 7 June, so ballot papers can only be finalised and sent to print after that.

Due to the short notice for the 4 July UK Parliamentary General Election, specialist election printers and Royal Mail have been working at capacity to print and deliver an anticipated 10 million postal votes across the UK and internationally to overseas voters.

It is a complicated process, with personalised postal vote statements matched with the correct ballot paper. There is also a need to produce personalised envelopes and instruction sheets. We also need to carry out crucial security checks which add to the time needed to prepare and send votes out.

Postal votes sent overseas were prioritised and a specialist service was provided by Royal Mail, whereby overseas packs were sent direct to Heathrow for sorting and despatch using a priority service.

What happens if it is too late for me to receive a replacement ballot paper?

Unfortunately, if you are registered as a postal voter the law does not allow us to switch your vote to be in-person or proxy once the 19 June application deadline has passed. The only permitted option if a postal vote has not been received is for it to be reissued, as above.

It is also an offence to allow anyone to use your postal vote if you cannot. The signature in the returned postal vote pack will be matched against the one provided when you made the application and will be rejected if it is not yours.

After polling day, we will be undertaking a review of the election, and feeding back our concerns about the current postal vote system to the Electoral Commission and the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (the Government department responsible for elections).