A BALLOTING error has upset a pair of voters in the upcoming European elections.

Dalton woman Jackie Rothery, 62, was mistakenly issued with two ballot papers for the elections on June 4.

And her husband, John, 63, was sent a ballot paper with the wrong number on it.

The Dalton pair received their postal votes last week.

John, a maintenance engineer, said: “This is the first time we’ve asked for the postal vote and we shall be voting in the European elections.

“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.

“I think somebody has made a mistake and with the ballot papers having numbers on them there’s a problem and everyone after us will have a paper that’s wrong.

“I’m concerned some people might have invalid ballot papers.

“I could have filled mine in and sent it off.”

A leaflet sent out to voters from Kirklees Council states: “Electoral fraud is a crime which may be punishable with imprisonment.

“You must not vote using a ballot paper that is not addressed to you or interfere with another voter’s ballot paper.”

A spokesman for Kirklees Council said: “We contacted Mr and Mrs Rothery as soon as we became aware of a problem with their postal votes.

“We have also contacted our printers who prepared the 50,000 postal votes for the Kirklees area.

“Mr and Mrs Rothery are able to use their postal votes and arrangements have been made with them for the return of the third ballot paper to our offices.

“The printers have a number of checks in place to ensure that any possible problem can be isolated.

“In addition to this, all 50,000 postal packs are returned to us to enable spot checks on a number of packs throughout the area.

“They are then sent to Royal Mail for delivery.”

People without a postal vote will be able to pick their candidates at polling stations across Kirklees.

They will be open on June 4 from 7am to 10pm.

People unsure of which polling station to use can ring 01484 234623 for advice from Kirklees elections officials.

More than 400m people across the continent are eligible to vote in the European Parliament poll between June 4 and June 7.

Six seats in Yorkshire and Humber are up for grabs.

In 2004, two went to Labour, two to Tories, one to the Lib Dems and one to UKIP.