More than enough left-wing votes to have increased left’s successes
The publication of the voting tallies in Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) elections, whose results were announced today and included three right-wingers, have revealed that more than 6,000 votes were invalidated:
The vast majority of these are likely to have been removed by the party because members resigned from the party before the end of the contest.
To put that number into context, the ‘quota’ for candidates to be elected in the first round of the new and controversial ‘single transferable vote’ system was just 12,955. Around 6,000 votes cast in the first round would have had a massive impact on the first-round result – and on the ‘surplus’ votes transferred to left-wing candidates in subsequent rounds. At least one more left candidate would be likely to have won a place.
The election’s rules said nothing about having to remain a member until the results were announced – yet the party drafted in extra staff and delayed the results today to give it more time to remove left-wing votes from the count.
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