A 78-year-old Fife woman has accused Fife Council of denying her the right to vote in the independence referendum following a four-day phone call fiasco.
Winnifred Owen from Wormit claims she tried on numerous occasions unsuccessfully to get through to the local authority’s electoral registration office to apply for a proxy vote prior to the deadline of September 3.
“I rang the numbers on my polling card from 7am each day over four days and just couldn’t get through,” she told The Courier.
“My son also tried and couldn’t get through although he did manage to leave a message asking for someone to get back to him on my behalf.
“The council did eventually phone back on Thursday to say they were sorry but the lines had been non-stop and that I had missed the deadline to apply for a proxy vote.”
Mrs Owen said she now feels “devastated” that her vote won’t count.
“I won’t be in Scotland on the date of the referendum so that’s that.
“I’m very disappointed and quite frankly don’t think it’s a good enough excuse for the council to tell me I have lost my right to vote simply because their phone lines were busy. It’s just ridiculous.
“I think it was their responsibility to ensure there were enough lines open to ensure everyone who needed to get through got through.
“My concern is if this has happened to me, the chances are it will have happened to others and even the operator my son spoke to admitted it could be the case that thousands of people could have been affected.
“My vote might have been pivotal if it’s a close-run contest and could even have been the tipping point for who runs Scotland, you never know.
“I just feel angry and let down because I really wanted to vote and feel I have had that chance denied through no fault of my own.”
Fife Council senior manager Linda Bissett said: “We have been working for many months to make sure Fifers who want to vote in the Scottish independence referendum don’t lose the right to have their say.
“National and local publicity campaigns have also highlighted the importance of registering to vote and applying for postal and proxy votes.
“Voters were able to access postal and proxy application forms both from our own website www.fifedirect.org.uk/referendum and the national website www.aboutmyvote.co.uk”
“As anticipated, and in common with councils across the country, we experienced a surge in last-minute registration requests, postal vote applications and proxy vote applications before the deadlines this week.
“Extra staff were working to cope with demand and extra phone lines were in use to deal with calls.
“A dedicated email address (voters.roll@fife.gov.uk) was in place for inquiries and we also encouraged potential voters to download applications from our website and email them in to be processed.”
“Every effort has been made to ensure that everyone who is entitled to vote on September 18 has the opportunity to do so,” she said.