Poll chaos boss forfeits his fee

John Mothersole said the authority had launched its own review into the events on Thursday night after residents and students missed out on the chance to vote in the General Election.

Mr Mothersole said he had also written to student union presidents at the city's two universities to apologise after claims queues were divided into "residents" and "students".

The chaos led to angry scenes in Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg's constituency of Sheffield Hallam, where students unable to vote tried to prevent ballot boxes being taken to the count.

Mr Mothersole later apologised and said a large turnout and students turning up to vote without polling cards had led to issues in some areas.

The Electoral Commission has pledged to carry out a thorough review of what happened in Sheffield and a number of other areas across the country, including London, Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle.

Mr Mothersole said: "First of all I'd like to reiterate again how sorry I am that there are people in Sheffield who did not get to vote on Thursday.

"I recognise everyone has a right to be able to cast their vote. In some locations in Sheffield we got things wrong and that's unacceptable. I do not excuse nor hide from this fact."

It was estimated more than 400 people were unable to vote by the 10pm deadline at three polling stations in the Hallam constituency and one in the Heeley constituency.

Police were called to Ranmoor polling station as angry voters refused to leave and one woman was threatened with arrest for trying to stop ballot boxes being collected without her vote. The problems are unlikely to have made a difference to the results in either constituency – Labour MP Meg Munn secured a majority of 5,807 in Heeley and Mr Clegg won by 15,284 in Hallam – but Mr Mothersole said he wanted to take responsibility.

"I have never wanted to be one of those civil servants who failed to acknowledge mistakes and pretended lessons could not be learned," he said. "I have made the decision not to claim the fee for the role of acting returning officer, which would have been paid after the elections.

"Sheffield City Council is responding to The Electoral Commission's request for information as to what happened last week. We are also doing our own review into what happened on Thursday so that we can avoid these problems occurring in the future.

"I have already written to the presidents of the student unions at both the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University to apologise. We are also going to meet up with student representatives soon to discuss the issues and to work together on improvements for the future."

Kate Baldwin, a student of philosophy and French at the University of Sheffield, set up a Facebook group in protest at the treatment of students at St Johns polling station in Ranmoor. She claimed election officials divided the queue into residents and students and has launched on online petition calling for "acknowledgement and apology for discrimination against students".

She said Mr Mothersole's decision not to claim his fee did not excuse the "discrimination".

"We're really glad the council now recognises the situation but just hope they will make sure this does not happen again," Miss Baldwin added.