Johnson Threatening To Review Channel 4's Licence After Replacing Him With Ice Sculpture in Debate

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. I'm trying to work out "what you hear"

You said "Apparently there might be a postal vote problem.

Postal votes handled end-to-end by a private corporation, few checks?"

I'm trying to work out what that meant. "Returning Officers" are the public officials who organise elections. They are who postal votes are sent back to, and whose offices will count them - see eg https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2019-11/UKPE%20Part%20D-Absent%20voting.pdf . So they can't be the "private corporation" you're talking about.

I guessed that perhaps the "private corporation" that is worrying you is Royal Mail. No, they don't count the votes, but they were the only private corporation I could think of that is involved in getting a postal vote from a voter to the count. But it now appears that's not what you meant.

So what "private corporation" handling votes are you talking about? Where did you hear about this? I looked, and couldn't find anything about postal votes being processed differently from before.