Inaccurate voters list, denying some businesses the right to vote.
After inspecting the official voters list for the Taunton BID ballot we identified many errors, and doing the right thing for all parties quickly informed SWT Council and BID of the situation asap, see the letter below. Although it’s the Council as the business rate billing authority who ultimately have responsibility for the voter list, they will have relied on Taunton BID to help them draw up a fully researched and verified voter list. Clearly Taunton BID have failed in their responsibilities, which just demonstrates further that we just can’t believe everything they say. Sloppy research started a year ago in their feasibility study as we showed here, and it’s still continuing, but denying businesses the right to vote is a negligent step too far and extremely serious. It just makes a mockery of the democratic process Taunton BID have been “selling”, and can they really be trusted?
3rd February 2020
Dear SWT Council,
Re: The inaccurate Taunton BID voters list and remedial actions
Having reviewed your Taunton BID ballot voter list myself and had others verify the findings, we are alarmed how inaccurate the list is, and so suggest that the only option available to the Council is to immediately take the following remedial action:
a. NOT send the Notice of Ballots to businesses this week, as BID ballot rules mean the voter list cannot be changed once you have done this.
b. In order to give you the time required to correct the ballot list and then issue the Notice of Ballot to the right voting businesses / hereditaments, you DELAY the ballot date upto 15 working days. Schedule 2, para 2 (2) of the 2004 BID regulations permits you to do this upto 42 days before the ballot date, and the 42 day point is currently this Thursday 6th February. But para (a) is the first thing that needs to be done immediately before you can action this.
Our findings in regard to your voter list are alarming and really are cause for significant concern. Your voter list categorically includes many such errors as:
Voters in the list who are not even within the boundary map, so they should not be entitled to a vote.
Voting hereditaments not in the voter list, who should be entitled to a vote.
The wrong owner or occupiers for hereditaments listed, possibly denying yet more real voting businesses of a vote they are entitled to.
Missing owner/occupier details, you can’t just send the ballot paper to the address without identifying the voting owner or occupier, possibly denying yet more businesses of a vote they are entitled to.
The nature and large number of errors already presents us with strong evidence we could present in order to attempt to declare the ballot void under regulation 9 of the 2004 BID regulations, for reasons such as:
“persons other than persons entitled to vote have purported to vote in the BID ballot”
“persons entitled to vote have been prevented from voting or hindered from doing so freely in accordance with their own opinion”
But we don’t want to go the veto route if it’s a YES result, it’s only right that a fair ballot is held and the result of a fair ballot is respected, whichever way it may go. But if you don’t do the right thing and re-correct the voter list, you clearly give us no choice given the evidence we already have should a YES result be declared (although we are predicting a NO result anyway, in which case it would of course become immaterial).
Ultimately it is your responsibility as the local authority to compile the voter list, albeit for practical reasons we appreciate you’ll have had the assistance of the Taunton BID team (who really should be more accountable here, we have been pointing out mistakes by them for months in the hope they get things right).
In accordance with BID regulations I first asked your Officers to inspect the voter list on 6th January, and for whatever reason it was not available for inspection until last week on Tuesday 28th January. This was quite surprising in itself considering BID have been working on the hereditament list with SWT for many months, and if it had been available in a more timely fashion, we could have raised the alarm to you sooner. Having initially spotted a couple glaring mistakes from a glance on 28th we alerted yourselves, Taunton BID and the Taunton Chamber of Commerce of our inaccurate voter list suspicions last Wednesday 29th via social media, and having now had the weekend to review the list in detail and verify our findings, we are doing the right thing for all parties, by making you aware of the full situation soonest. We want a BID ballot, but it needs to be a fair ballot, so that the result whichever way it may go, is truly representative of the BID businesses. This is what we’ve been campaigning for since last summer.
From this letter today you now know that in your Taunton BID ballot voter list there are people who will get a vote who are not entitled, and vice versa, and this is serious, it really fly’s in the face of institutional integrity and not upholding the principles of democracy for a ballot. We are doing the Council, Taunton BID (& the Chamber of Commerce as the BID proposers), and all the BID businesses a massive favour by making you aware of our findings.
NO BID campaign “ammunition” we can use aside, the negative reputational risks for the Council now knowing the situation and not immediately acting on it, are I’d suggest severe; it really is local and even national paper headline stuff – “Council denies businesses vote in BID ballot for a levy they may have to pay if voted in, yet allows people not entitled to vote have a vote! The Council was even warned and chose to ignore it!” It really is a crazy situation and could be damaging for the Council and Taunton. But we don’t want that, and by doing the right thing now alerting you to the problem, you have the opportunity to take remedial measures immediately, so that you do not invite such reputational risks and a fair Taunton BID ballot is held.
P.S. We appreciate that your hereditament voting decision was a secret agenda item, but if the Council did vote to abstain then your excuse to keep confidential for reason of possibly prejudicing voting opinion by businesses knowing if you vote YES or NO, no longer stands. If you have decided to abstain from voting for your properties you should be proud, have no reason to withhold that decision from the public domain, and thus make that decision public as other Councils have done. At the same time, if you have decided on and declare abstention, you would actually take away one of our main NO campaign arguments against Taunton BID.
The above letter was sent to SWT Council on Monday 3rd February, and by Thursday 6th (the last possible day they could send out the Notice of Ballot paperwork for a 19th March Ballot Day) they had revised the BID ballot voter list. We duly inspected it that morning and despite some tidying / correction of some mistakes, it was still inaccurate. So we followed up with this email to the Council as soon as possible on 6th February:
Hi,
It's pleasing to know that The Council has tidied the ballot list to some degree, but after inspecting it this morning I'm still shocked at it's inaccuracy, the main concerns being;
· Voters in the list who are not even within the BID boundary map, so they should not be entitled to a vote.
· Voting hereditaments not in the voter list, who should be entitled to a vote.
There are other errors that cause concern over ballot integrity, but the above are the most worrying ones. I note a couple properties have been found by the Council this week following me making you aware of the voter list issues, but this only represents a small proportion of the corrections needed, and this morning I verbally reported there are still errors to your customer service desk at c09.50 (they said they'd pass the message onto Lisa). So, just to make it clear, if you proceed with sending out the BID Notice of Ballot today, you are doing so in the full knowledge that it is an inaccurate voters list, denying the right of some business to vote, and allowing ineligible businesses to vote.
Just to give you a couple of anomaly examples now to in part prove what I'm saying, whilst allowing you to correct these possible errors in the voter list immediately:
I believe this company should be entitled to a vote:
Kudos Housewares, Baker House R/o 42, High Street, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 3PN £8,100 Offices and premises
I believe this company should not be entitled to a vote:
Taunton Grill House Ltd, 19 Bridge Street £8,800
This SWT listed property is worth verifying whether it is in fact a SWT vote; should it be Mountway Dance Studio? If SWT is not the ratepayer then should the Dance Studio should be entitled to a vote, RV £12,250?
Visitor Centre, Market House, Fore Street, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 1JD £12,250.00
Mountway School of Dancing, Market House, Fore Street, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 1JD £12,250 Dance studio & premises
I could be wrong re the Dance Studio if it is owned by SWT as I don't know the rent/lease arrangement SWT has for the premises if SWT own it i.e. who is the rate payer. Another reason to question this property is it was not even in Taunton BID's own feasibility study when listing council properties.
I sincerely trust that the Council as the Taunton BID Ballot Holder will do the right thing today and not have Civica Electoral Services send out the Notice of Ballot until it has the correct voter list. If not, then there is no other option than write to the Local Government Ombudsman and the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government about this matter, and how SWT is knowlingly breaking legislation and holding an undemocratic ballot.
On 11th February Taunton BID announced that the ballot will be delayed a few days whilst they scrutinise the voters list, but let’s remember they’ve had a year to get right! From the evidence we presented clearly SWT Council as the Ballot Holders weren't happy with the accuracy of Taunton BID’s voters list, so decided to delay the ballot whilst they scrutinise and re-correct. We are pleased to have helped the Council, Taunton BID and all the voting businesses ensure there’s an accurate voting list, so the right people get to vote. But BID not even knowing who all their voting businesses are is disgraceful, whether deliberate or a genuine mistake it doesn't matter, many are worried it's a taste of what's to come from this private BID company if voted in.
The same day as the delay was announced we even offered to help finalise the voters list. Given we’re the ones that initially spotted the errors from SWT Council and Taunton BID, wouldn’t it make sense they ask us to help by checking over the final list? They could have come to us before but haven’t felt the need to.
Gazette article 12/02/20 (click on image to open article in a new window).
On 17th February 2020 (the last legal day the Notice of Ballot documentation could be sent out for the new 30th March ballot day), after pushing for it SWT Council made available the next amended hereditaments list, but again we were disappointed in it’s accuracy and let the Council know. We have offered our assistance on various occasions but there has been no willingness to work together on the list. The good thing though, is that at least SWT confirmed that the voting hereditament we suggested isn’t theirs, isn’t! That’s one less Council vote!
Hi,
Having just had chance to inspect the latest amended hereditament list, I am writing to inform you that there are still accuracies, and so by me telling you this you are knowingly sending out the Notice of Ballot paperwork to an inaccurate voters list. In particular you still have listed; hereditaments not entitled to a vote, other's not listed or you're denying a vote to, and then there are many hereditaments where you have not identified / supplied the name of the occupier or owner (which you are required by law to provide in the public inspection list).
18th February businesses started receiving their Notice of Ballot paperwork, so despite our offers to help finalise the voters list and final warning it was still inaccurate SWT Council and Taunton BID have decided to go ahead with with an inaccurate voters list. By sending out the Notice of Ballot letters no changes to the voting list can now be made.
SWT Council and Taunton BID’s actions from our warnings is their responsibility, we’ve done them a huge favour to help ensure a fair ballot. At the end of the day, the negligence shown here by Taunton BID is staggering, they really don’t even know who all their own voters are, so how on earth could they be trusted for 5 years if voted in?! They only have themselves to blame.
Here are more of our business plan response articles for you to read.
the following articles specifically delve into other problems Taunton BID have had in drawing up their voter list. Clearly it all started with mistakes in their feasibility study! they have had the time and money to draw up an accurate voters list!
Click on image to download our 8 page PDF booklet (opens in a new window).