THE elections office at Malvern Hills District Council is alerting residents that it is not behind a campaign leaflet urging people to vote yes in the upcoming referendum.

Many Malvern homes have received a mailout from the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign in the last week, encouraging them to register for a postal vote with the council and enclosing a form with MHDC’s address on it.

But Nigel Snape, head of democratic services at MHDC, said: “The production and circulation of these forms has nothing to do with the district council which clearly does not endorse any referendum campaign material.”

Pam Wilson. of Lansdowne Crescent, in Malvern, received one of the forms and contacted the Gazette with her concerns.

“At a glance it could easily look as though the electoral registration officer is asking you to vote yes,” she said. “I think because of the way it is designed that the influence is undue. Normally you can read around these things fairly easily but in this case I think there may be people who were unaware that it was not Malvern Hills encouraging them to vote yes.”

The referendum, which takes place at the same time as voting in local elections on Thursday, May 5, is on the system used for electing MPs to UK Parliament.

The question being put to voters is: “At present, the UK uses the 'first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the ’alternative vote’ system be used instead?”

Residents can opt to vote in the elections by post or by proxy, but Mr Snape said: ““We would like to make it clear that If electors choose to use the form sent by the ‘Yes to Fairer Votes’ campaign and also wish to have a postal vote in any of the local elections on the same day they will need to make this clear on the form.

“Now is the time to make sure you are registered to vote and to apply for a postal vote if you wish, before the deadline of Thursday 14 April.”

For more information about registering for a postal or proxy vote call MHDC on 01684 862200 or visit malvernhills.gov.uk/cms/council-and-democracy/electoral-services/voting-by-post.