An opinion poll about the future of two defecting district councillors was closed early due to “significant voting irregularities”.
The poll - which was posted on the Princes Risborough Grapevine Facebook page on Friday - received 1,724 votes in just over 48 hours but more than 1,440 came from a single IP address.
The question posed was “After defecting to the Conservative party, should former independents Alan Turner and Gary Hall resign from their elected offices (town and district council) and fight a by-election?”.
When voting was closed on Sunday afternoon, 90 per cent of the votes (1,556) were against the motion, with 168 votes for.
However at 2:06pm, a message was posted by the same Facebook page which stated that the vast majority of votes against the motion (1,526) came from just three IP addresses (with more than 1,440 coming from one address). There were also eight duplicate votes in favour of their resignation.
The message went on to say: “Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll. Our plan was to run the poll for one week, but unfortunately we've had to close it early due to significant voting irregularities.”
The post said that, if “irregular” votes were discounted, the outcome would have been 160 for the motion and 29 against.
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