A Labour-run London council has apologised after it failed to count more than 6,500 votes at the general election.
Wandsworth council blamed “a spreadsheet issue” for missing 6,558 votes when it announced that Fleur Anderson, the Labour MP, had retained her Putney seat on July 4.
The local authority’s error, which meant 13 per cent of all ballots cast in the seat were not included in official results, was only uncovered on Wednesday when Conservative councillors noticed that the declared results had been quietly changed on the council’s website.
The missed votes did not affect the outcome of the election, with the order in which the candidates finished remaining the same.
But the error has sparked fury among Conservative councillors, whose party had led the south-west London council from 1978 until 2022.
‘Council needs to explain itself’
Cllr Aled Richard-Jones, the Tory opposition leader, said Labour needed to take responsibility for the “fiasco”, adding: “In any democracy, people need to have confidence their votes will be counted.
“Wandsworth residents deserve urgent clarification about how an error of this magnitude could have occurred, why it wasn’t detected at the time and the steps the council is taking to ensure this can never happen again. Above all, the secrecy surrounding this needs to stop, and the council needs to explain itself.”
Mr Richard-Jones later accused the Labour chairman of the scrutiny committee of refusing to allow discussion of the error at a meeting on Wednesday night.
A statement on Wandsworth council’s website said: “We acknowledge a spreadsheet issue that resulted in not all the properly counted and allocated votes being included in the announcement on the night in the Putney election count for the general election 2024.
“This was identified, and the figures on this page have been updated. This did not affect the result or the order of the candidates. While we are confident this was an isolated incident, we are taking this opportunity to review processes with a particular focus on spreadsheet procedures.”
Total turnout increases from 59pc to 68pc
According to the updated results, Ms Anderson won 24,113 votes, up from 20,952, and a majority of 12,488 rather than the 10,941 originally declared. The total turnout increased from 59 per cent to 68 per cent.
Lee Roberts, the Conservative candidate, received 11,625 votes rather than the 10,011 first announced, and Kieren McCarthy, the Liberal Democrat candidate, saw his total increase from 5,189 to 5,943.
The Greens’ Fergal McEntee saw his votes increased from 3,182 to 3,721, and Reform UK’s Peter Hunter was up from 2,681 to 3,070. Heiko Khoo, of the Workers Party, received 491 votes not 433, and Felix Burford-Connole of Rejoin EU won 332 not 289.
A spokesman for Wandsworth council said: “The acting returning officer has apologised to all candidates and agents.”
