Polls to open in Huddersfield for European election

Jun 3 2009 Huddersfield Daily Examiner

POLLS open tomorrow across Huddersfield for the European election.

Voters in the town will help elect six Euro-MPs to represent Yorkshire in Brussels.

Some 375m people in 27 countries are eligible to vote in the largest multi-national election in history.

The UK will elect 72 of the 736 Euro-MPs who will serve from 2009 to 2014.

In Yorkshire, voters will mark their ballot paper with an X next to their preferred party. The six seats will then be allocated in a proportional way among the parties.

At the 2004 poll, Labour and the Conservatives won two seats each, with the Lib Dems and the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) each winning a single seat.

Some 49% of people in Kirklees voted five years ago, well above the Yorkshire average of 42%.

The 27 European Union states will vote between tomorrow and Sunday.

A Kirklees Council spokeswoman explained that votes would not be counted until Sunday.

She said: “The count for the European election is on Sunday because we are required to wait to declare results in the UK until after all the polls have closed throughout Europe.

“Different countries vote on different days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and some vote over more than one day.