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>>> <MichaelChild@aol.com> 11/05/2009 09:38 >>>

Morning Richard I gather that the list of candidates for the

elections is published today could you kindly send me a copy?

Best regards Michael

Subject: Re: list of candidates

Date: 11/05/2009 13:11:59 GMT Standard Time

From: Richard.Samuel@thanet.gov.uk

To: MichaelChild@aol.com

I understand the lists will be published later today on the council's

website under the democracy pages

Subject: Re: list of candidates

Date: 11/05/2009 16:30:10 GMT Standard Time

To: Richard.Samuel@thanet.gov.uk

Richard sorry trouble you again but I have just had a long and somewhat irritating trawl of the council website, many aspects of which do not work well, not least the main search box and I can’t find them anywhere.

As they probably don’t come under the agendas, reports and minutes part of the website I don’t believe it will come up on the what’s new page, so I don’t know if they are not there or I just can’t find them.

Best regards Michael

Subject: Re: list of candidates

Date: 12/05/2009 09:57:28 GMT Standard Time

To: Richard.Samuel@thanet.gov.uk

Hi Richard still no sign of the list of candidates on the council website, I am an elector in this election and I am now asking you as the returning officer to send me a list of the candidates, which I believe you should have done when I asked for it yesterday, failure to do so by 11 am today will mean that I will raise the issue with the electoral commission.

Best regards Michael

In a message dated 12/05/2009 13:56:14 GMT Standard Time, ****@electoralcommission.org.uk writes:

I have had a quick look on the Thanet District Council's website and have found the list of those nominated for the Parish council by-election published on the democracy pages, please find the link below:

http://www.thanet.gov.uk/council__democracy/cllrs_democracy__elections/elections_and_voting/statement_of_persons_nominated.aspx

Regional Liaison Officer

Eastern and South East England

The Electoral Commission

www.electoralcommission.org.uk

www.aboutmyvote.co.uk

Democracy matters

P Please consider the environment before printing this email.

-----Original Message-----

From: michaelchild@aol.com [mailto:michaelchild@aol.com] Posted At: 12 May 2009 11:19 Posted To: info_inbox

Conversation: Website comments - administration of elections

Subject: Website comments - administration of elections

Your name* : Michael Child

Your email* : michaelchild@aol.com

Your telephone number :

I am : a member of the public

Comment/enquiry type: : administration of elections

Comments* : I am trying without success to get the returning officer to supply me with a list of candidates for the forthcoming Ramsgate parish council elections.

My correspondence with him below is self explanatory.

Subject: Re: Website comments - administration of elections

Date: 12/05/2009 15:20:59 GMT Standard Time

To: ****@electoralcommission.org.uk

CC: Richard.Samuel@thanet.gov.uk

Hi John and Richard.

They appeared not long after I sent you the info and I had assumed that you were instrumental in their appearance.

You may wish to ponder that the later less and more obscurely these lists appear the better the main parties are likely to do and the worse the independents are likely to do, in the election.

Try putting the word elections in the main search box on the council’s homepage and you will notice that these lists don’t come up.

You will also notice that whereas the European election list is published in ordinary HTML the parish and county election lists only appear in PDF, which is difficult for many computers to open.

The documents are published as images within these PDF files meaning that none of the search engines will have access to them.

The announcement appears as a press release on the council’s homepage where it will vanish in a few days, as new releases appear.

Pretty much all of the candidates that are also TDC councillors were against the parish council and TDC were obstructive in getting prompt elections.

I am hoping that Richard will send me the lists as MS Word documents so that I can publish them on the internet in a way that the will be accessible to search engines and on a page with proper feeds so the local news sites blogs etc will pick them up.

It is very hard to tell if TDC are trying to subtly rig the elections deliberately by producing late documents that are difficult to access, or if it is just down to incompetence on the part of their part.

Best regards Michael