Rugby Labour Party Renew Rugby Together
Your Labour councillors are very perturbed by the RBC decision to take away the polling booth for the glebe estate without written notice or consultation and without an Equilty assessment. We have undertaken a community petition to have it reinstated.
Please, please do contact RBC on 01788 533533 or email contact.centre@rugby.gov.uk and request that your complaint be passed to the electorate officers/legal team. Don’t sit silent.
We are contacting an equality group for legal advice. We are acutely worried that elderly or infirm voters on the glebe will have their voting rights affected by this decision (irrespective of lab/Tory/lib voting) and that it is anti-democratic and disenfranchisement of the aged, infirm, disabled and those who are less affluent in the village. Historically, there has been a polling station at Robotham community centre off Norman road. This has now been taken away.
We will try to resolve this accessibility issue with the council.
RBC has said:
* There has been no formal of informal feedback in respect to accessibility
* Covid is a risk and residents are vulnerable
* Notification will be alongside the postal vote application
* The council will collect postal votes for residents.
We take issue with all four points.
UPDATE:
Our complaint about the removal of the polling station on Robothom has gone to legal – including the complaints from local residents via the petition to have it reinstated. We expect it to go to the Electoral Commission too. The removal of the polling station will impact the Labour vote substantially. We know the estate is strongly Labour and its removal is likely to skew the local result away from local voting patterns.
Many people say they are not keen on postal votes – but the removal of the polling station shows how people’s democratic rights can just be made harder… more difficult. However – your voice matters – even more!
So we are asking local people who vote labour to register for Postal voting – it’s simple.
Fill in the form. Post it to the town hall and they will mail you your postal vote. Mark your vote and pop it in the post.
That’s it – and you ensure that no matter what changes to polling stations occur – you get your vote in early and securely.
