Lord Greaves – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Greaves on 2016-05-25.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether it is permissible for the ballot papers sent to postal voters to be a different colour to the ballot papers issued in a corresponding polling station.

Lord Bridges of Headley

Ballot papers for any given poll have a consistent appearance in order to reduce the risk of completed votes being identifiable as having been submitted by a particular voter or voters when they are verified and counted. That could happen if, for example, coloured ballot papers were used for postal voting (but not voting in person) and there was low use of them. Different coloured ballot papers are already used to help voters distinguish between different polls where polls are combined, and further use of different colours could lead to confusion.