A RECOUNT in High Street ward could be held after 'human error' led to 1,000 extra votes being counted for Labour.

At last Thursday's local elections, three Labour party candidates were voted into High Stret ward, in Walthamstow.

However, the Office of National Statistics (ONS) has discovered a "possible error" in the counting of the votes could have affected the outcome of the election in that ward.

The electorate had three votes and returning officer and chief executive of Waltham Forest Council, Andrew Kilburn, admits the block votes - which is voters casting all three of their votes for one party - for the Labour Party candidates in High Street Ward may have been incorrectly logged as 2,451 votes instead of 1,451.

The votes for elected Labour councillors were recorded as follows: Liaquat Ali (3,322), Clare Coghill (3,185) and Steve Terry (2,932).

But their actual votes could have been 1,000 less each, meaning votes cast for Liberal Democrat Mahmood Hussain (2,043) would have exceeded Steve Terry's by 111 votes.

But a recount can only be held if an election petition is presented to the High Court.

Andrew Kilburn said he has notified election agents suggesting they seek advice about the possibility of presenting an election petition.

They have just 13 days remaining in which to do this, he said.

High Street ward Lib Dem candidate and former councillor, James O'Rourke said: "I will be arguing strongly with the party to put a petition in. If the local authority have admitted an error, we are duty-bound to the public to follow through."

Mr O'Rourke said he would like to see a recount at the very least, but preferably a new election in High Street ward.

Mr Kilburn said: "The council takes its role in elections very seriously. We employed over 650 people to ensure the parliamentary and local elections held on May 6 were carried out efficiently, safely and fairly.

"These staff worked in excess of 10,200 hours to process and count the votes of 174,000 local and 157,000 national electors.

"This issue appears to be the result of a very unfortunate and isolated human error, and I can only apologise for the uncertainty and concern this will have caused."

Mr Kilburn said checks show there were no errors in any other ward count.

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