Making sure your postal vote counts

Postal voting in Haringey has already got off to a shaky start, with the ballot papers arriving late and in some cases with the wrong instructions on them.

If you have a ballot paper which you haven't got around to filling in yet - or you have done the voting but haven't posted it yet - then you might want to consider taking your postal vote along to a polling station instead, just to be on the safe side.

Of course, if you post your vote back to the council today (or even tomorrow) it should make it there on time. But if you want to be absolutely certain it doesn't get delayed in the post then you can take it to a polling station on polling day (Thursday!). You still need to complete the ballot paper in the same way as you would if you were posting it, including the declaration.

Just two more days to go before the big day - polls will be open from 7am until 10pm this Thursday (May 6th), so you have 15 hours to take a few minutes to vote. Whether that's handing in a postal vote or getting your ballot papers at the polling station on the day, you will get two ballot papers in Haringey - one for the general election (choose one candidate) and one for the local elections (choose three candidates). Enjoy.

Local elections in Fortis Green

As I've already mentioned, one of my Fortis Green ward colleagues is standing down at this election - Cllr Sara Beynon. Sara has been great to work with over the last four years, a lovely person and a great member of the Lib Dem team. We're all sorry to see her go.

I am standing for re-election on Thursday, along with my fellow Fortis Green Lib Dem Cllr Martin Newton. In Sara's place we have a great new candidate - Sophie Erskine. Sophie also lives locally and has already been getting stuck into the campaigning work. You can see the three of us together in the cheesey photo above.

Remember, although you cannot vote for more than one candidate in the general election, you can vote for three candidates in the local elections which are happening on the same day here in Haringey. So everyone who is eligible will get two different ballot papers - one for the general and one for the local.

As the ballot paper is alphabetical, you can look for your three local Lib Dem candidates for Fortis Green by scanning for our surnames (Davies, Erskine, Newton) and/or looking out for the Liberal Democrat bird logo. Then you can vote for all three of us and I hope you will consider doing that!

Remember, it's a straight fight between Labour and the Lib Dems in Haringey - there have been no Conservatives elected to the council since 1998. Please help us end four decades of Labour rule in Haringey - last time you elected 30 Labour and 27 Lib Dem councillors and it's bound to be close again this time.

Green candidate multi-tasking or just hedging bets?

I have just noticed that at least one of the Green Party candidates for Stroud Green ward at these elections doesn't seem to be very confident about her chances of getting elected.

Jayne Forbes is standing for election in Stroud Green here in Haringey next Thursday, but at the same time she is also standing for election in South Bermondsey ward in Southwark. She's also standing for election to Parliament in Barking on the same day... wonder where she will be spending polling day??

There's nothing illegal about standing for election in more than one place - and it's not unusual for councillors to be parliamentary candidates in different constituencies. However, it is unusual for candidates to stand for two completely different councils on the same day though. Presumably if she was confident of winning Stroud Green she wouldn't also be standing in Southwark?

Still, perhaps the reason for the Greens' lack of confidence in winning Stroud Green is that they finished a distant third in Stroud Green ward last time. In the 2006 elections, the Lib Dems won the ward from Labour - electing my Lib Dem colleagues Richard Wilson, Ed Butcher and Laura Edge.

You can see the full results for Stroud Green (and all the other Haringey wards) by looking up the official council figures here. But what it boils down to is that the average vote for each party's candidates was as follows:

Lib Dem - - - 1569

Labour - - - 900

Green - - - 515

Tory - - - 196

So, next Thursday the voters of Stroud Green have a simple choice: the hard-working Lib Dem team (Cllr Richard Wilson, Cllr Ed Butcher and our great new candidate Katherine Reece) or the Labour candidates who would prop up the current council which has run Haringey for four decades (or tried to, anyway).

The Green Party can't win in Stroud Green. I certainly respect anyone's right to vote out of principle for a party that can't win, but anyone who wants to finally see the back of Haringey Labour needs to vote for the Lib Dems as the only opposition that can make that dream a reality.

The make-up of Haringey Council was 42 Labour and 15 Lib Dem in 2002, at the last election in 2006 we slashed that majority right down, with 30 Labour and 27 Lib Dems (again, no Greens or Tories). In fact, there haven't been any Tories elected to Haringey since 1998 and voting for them or the Greens just risks letting Labour squeak back in.

If we win Stroud Green and continue to make gains like we did last time then the Lib Dems will end four decades of Labour control in Haringey.

Haringey Conservatives ever more desperate and churning out bogus polls

I wrote a while back about the bogus poll figures that Hornsey and Wood Green Conservatives were using on their leaflets.

They were at it again last month, claiming they had polled 27,000 voters in March... although the Tory candidate had to admit to a local newspaper that these were figures they'd allegedly compiled over a year.

I don't know who the Haringey Tories think they're trying to kid. Again, here are some facts (not bogus party political numbers that are clearly make-believe):

Number of Conservative councillors elected in Haringey since 1998? A big fat zero. Not one.

Tory share of the vote at that general election? 12.7%.

For how many general elections has the Tory vote fallen? Every single one since 1992.

And whatever misinformation and bogus polling they put in their leaflets, the Tories here in Hornsey and Wood Green can't get away from those facts.

Why I am standing for re-election

Being a councillor isn't always fun, takes up a lot of time and can be tough going sometimes.

So why am I putting myself up for re-election again?

Simple - the casework. I've enjoyed helping lots of people over the last eight years on a wide range of issues. It is of course always a pleasure to get a decent 'thank you' from residents - so I was chuffed to get an email earlier this week from one resident who told me she had decide to stick the following up on her Facebook profile for all her friends to see:

My hat is off to the Lib Dems in Haringey, North London.... Several times now I have had a serious problem with the local council and have had to resort to writing to my local councillor, Matt Davies or my local MP, Lynne Featherstone. Each time I have received immediate and personal attention that resolved the problem without delay... whether it's during election time or not!

I had to do so a week ago and just now I got a hand-written, hand-delivered card through my door telling me that Matt had, once again, addressed the problem and sorted it out completely... something that has had me consumed with anxiety for days.

As someone who has lived half her life in the US and half in the UK and has seen many parties come and go on both sides of the water since the 50's, I really feel we should give the Liberal Democrats a chance to run this country... we've seen what the other two main parties have to offer.

The Lib Dems have finally got themselves in the running and I am convinced they will stay there. My hat is off to Nick Clegg for his TV appearances on the debates and around the UK campaigning. He has shot into the limelight and landed on his feet walking tall and talking sense... what a lift to hear someone being open and sincere and even suggesting the three main parties cooperate on key issues!

I've already thanked her for her kind words and asked if I could share them on my blog - her comments on the need for a change from the old story of the two political giants and on the stellar performance of Nick Clegg during the election campaigns are ones I'm hearing lots around Haringey.

Tell us your priorities!

As I haven't done any blogging for a little while, I'm late telling you about the Haringey Lib Dem manifesto for the local elections on May 6th.

Yes, there are two important elections in Haringey next Thursday. And they are both a straight fight between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with the Conservatives an irrelevance - just take a look at the results last time on the top left of my blog.

We published our local manifesto last month and plans range from the introduction of more 20mph speed limits on residential roads to improve safety to improving White Hart Lane Recreation Ground in Wood Green, from CCTV for Bowes Park station to improving cleaning and safety in the Sandlings and Sky City housing estates in Noel Park.

You can read the full manifesto here.

But one of the defining differences between Haringey Labour and Haringey Lib Dems is that we listen to what local residents want. We have been asking Haringey residents across the borough what their top five local priorities to improve their neighbourhood are - so we know where they want us to start putting the mess right if we take control of Haringey next week.

The photo shows my Lib Dem colleagues Lynne Featherstone and Cllr Robert Gorrie discussing our election pledges with local resident Eric Wilton from Alexandra ward.

Friends of the Earth's climate pledges

Friends of the Earth came up with a fun, visual way to show which of the three main parties has shown most commitment to their climate pledges - see the YouTube video below.

And, yes, they are biodegradable balloons, apparently!

Haringey postal vote ballot paper error - latest

As I blogged this morning, Haringey sent out some general election ballot papers to postal voters in Hornsey and Wood Green with a very unfortunate error - telling them to vote for "no more than three candidates". Of course, we all have just one vote on a general election ballot paper, not three.

The council have now put a statement on their website, which you can read here. They are sending replacement ballot papers to those who got the incorrectly printed ones and asking people to use those instead.

Many people will already have sent their original ballot papers back, however. The good news is that if you have voted already using an incorrectly printed ballot paper and just voted for a single candidate, then your original ballot will count and you can just destroy the replacement. Also good news for anyone who was confused by the instructions and voted for more than one candidate, invalidating the ballot - you will now get a replacement (with the correct instructions) so you will not lose your right to vote.

Bad news, however, for anyone who got an incorrect ballot paper and voted for more than one candidate (or didn't fill it in at all because of the confusion) and who has already gone away until after the election. Because if either of those apply to you and you aren't available at home to receive the replacement ballot paper then this error has cost you your vote.

On a related note, if you're registered to vote by post in Haringey and haven't yet received your ballot paper then you should call the council's electoral office on 020 8489 2953, 020 8489 2954 or 020 8489 6978. It should have arrived by now and they will need to issue you with a replacement.

Haringey appear to have sent out their postal votes later than many other areas - mine only arrived on Wednesday and many were still arriving on Thursday - which is in itself unfortunate, as I expect many people who knew they were going to be away and applied for a vote thought it would come much earlier. Some may already have left home before the postal vote papers arrived.

Let's hope that neither the late posting of ballot papers nor the incorrect voting advice on some of them has a significant impact on the general election result here in Hornsey and Wood Green, But it will still have an impact on those individual voters who find themselves disenfranchised because the system has let them down.