An election candidate and North West Leicestershire District Council have reacted strongly to a claim from ex-Coalville MP Andrew Bridgen that the General Election vote in the constituency last July was 'rigged'.

Mr Bridgen was the Conservative MP for North West Leicestershire before being told to leave the party because of his controversial views on the use of the Covid vaccine.

He stood as an Independent candidate at this year's General Election, but received only 1,568 votes compared to Labour's Amanda Hack, who became the new MP with 16,871 votes, and Conservative candidate, Craig Smith, who received 15,859 votes.

But now Mr Bridgen has suggested in an article published on the Conservative Woman website, under the title of 'Mystery of Andrew Bridgen's vanishing votes'.

In the article - which can be read in full HERE - it is suggested that the count did not start until 2am, that the electoral services staff worked alone at Stenson House, that the election services department had resigned 'en masse' before the vote and that an exit poll was cancelled.

Mr Bridgen is quoted in the article as saying: "If there was any skulduggery relating to the vote, it would have had to have been before the ballot boxes got to the leisure centre. I have no idea who would have been behind it. I tell constituents who ask, that I'm trying to get to the bottom of it, but without a whistleblower, I'm not sure I ever will."

The article echoes Mr Bridgen's fears that the votes 'were tampered with' as the drop in vote numbers 'seems implausible'.

Andrew Bridgen made the claims in a website article. Photo: BBC

On the night, it is believed Mr Bridgen attended the count early on, but did not stay for the result.

North West Leicestershire District Council denied the claims in the article, but issued a further statement today (Monday) to Ashby Nub News.

Andy Barton, Strategic Director of Communities at NWLDC, said: "There is absolutely no question about the result of July's parliamentary election in North West Leicestershire.

"Equally, there is no question about the legitimacy of our running of the election count. This includes the transfer of ballot boxes from the district's polling stations to the Whitwick and Coalville Leisure Centre, where the verification, count and final declaration took place.

"The assertions made by Mr Bridgen are unequivocally untrue.

Stenson House in Coalville. Photo: Coalville Nub News

"To date, Mr Bridgen has not raised his assertions with North West Leicestershire District Council directly, nor did he raise them via an official election petition within the legal timeframe.

"We refute in the strongest possible terms any accusation that the parliamentary election process in North West Leicestershire was anything other than democratic, valid and legitimate.

"I'd like to address the comments about our election processes and staffing directly.

"Following the closure of the polling stations at 10pm on July 4, ballot boxes were transferred to the leisure centre within an hour, which is normal for our district.

Craig Smith was the Conservative Party candidate for the North West Leicestershire constituency. Photo: Supplied

"The seals on the ballot boxes were only broken in the centre of the hall, in full view of all candidates and their agents, at the start of the verification process.

"With regard to the staff roles within our Democratic Services Team, the then Democratic Services Manager and Electoral Services Officer both retired in 2022 after working for NWLDC for a number of years.

"They both chose this time to retire as it was in the middle of the election cycle and they wanted to cause as little disruption to the process as possible.

"The current Democratic Services Manager and current Electoral Services Officer have worked in the Democratic Services Team at NWLDC since 2006 and 2017 respectively. 

"Since 2022, the current Democratic Services Manager has managed three elections: the Local Elections in May 2023, the Police and Crime Commissioner Elections in May 2024, and the Parliamentary Election in July 2024.

"NWLDC's entire staff moved to new administration offices in April 2023. All 'back office' staff are based at this building.

The building has shared spaces, small meeting rooms and desks that are booked on the day by those who wish to use them. It is therefore not suitable for election administration.

"Stenson House has been retained as the council's civic and democratic building – all committee meetings and various other meetings take place there.

"For the purposes of administering and managing all elections, the Democratic Services Team book rooms at Stenson House. 

"This is to enable all members of the team to work in the same office, and to allow the team the space they need to receive postal votes, organise ballot boxes and other work that requires space.

Labour's Amanda Hack won the North West Leicestershire seat. Photo: Coalville Nub News

"This work takes place at Stenson House for every election. Once this parliamentary election was over, the team reverted to their normal working arrangements, which is to use our shared administrative building."

But one of the candidates, Leicestershire County Councillor Smith, has hit also back at what he says are 'ridiculous' claims.

Cllr Smith alleged that Mr Bridgen's time as an MP 'descended into conspiracy theories.'

He added: "It won't come as any surprise whatsoever that Mr Bridgen is now questioning the validity of this year's election result in North West Leicestershire, an election result so poor it saw him achieve only 1,568 votes and the loss of his deposit.

The count was held at the Whitwick and Coalville Leisure Centre. Photo: Coalville Nub News

"But he has suggested the result of the election may have been tampered with.

"So, let me be clear at the outset. As the Conservative candidate who came second, and lost – narrowly – to Labour's Amanda Hack. 

"The election was fair. Amanda was properly returned as Member of Parliament for North West Leicestershire. I fell short by just over a thousand votes. And Mr Bridgen was a long, long way back.

"The election staff were outstanding, as they always are, and maintained the highest standards of probity throughout. 

"Mr Bridgen would have seen that first hand if, perhaps, he had stayed at the count for more than 30 minutes. If he had bothered to wait around for the declaration and to congratulate our Labour opponent on her victory.

The organisation of the election count has been strongly defended by North West Leicestershire District Council and Tory candidate Craig Smith. Photo: Coalville Nub News

"But, I should like to address some of the comments – or questions – that Mr Bridgen has posed in accusations of election tampering, and will do so below:

• Mr Bridgen has stated – prior to election day – that only he and Labour were actively campaigning for the election. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Just like Labour I and my team were out knocking on doors every single day. In politics there is a huge difference between solely delivering leaflets and actively canvassing. It is my understanding that Mr Bridgen and his team did more of the former and much, much less of the latter – many people told me that they received his 'out' card, but no one had knocked on the door. Had Mr Bridgen been actively canvassing he would have known that support for him was weak, and indeed very close between myself and my Labour opponent. I would say the results of canvassing closely mirrored the actual election result.

• Mr Bridgen claims that the 'exit poll' in North West Leicestershire was cancelled. I wouldn't presume that Mr Bridgen isn't a professional psephologist – he is, after all, an expert at most things – but North West Leicestershire, to my knowledge, has never been a location for exit polling, unlike our neighbouring constituency of Loughborough. Exit polling is about measuring voting activity in, notionally, much more marginal constituencies and extrapolating those results nationwide. As a result, in recent years, North West Leicestershire has not been considered a suitable constituency for exit polling, as in normal circumstances, the seat has been much less likely to swing, in no small part thanks to a Conservative government and local authority.

• Mr Bridgen seems to overestimate the weight of any candidate's personal vote. In elections most people vote for the party with a personal vote of – somewhere around – a couple of thousand votes for the candidate themselves. It's arguably why I did marginally better than Conservative candidates in demographically similar constituencies elsewhere, because I had something of a personal vote as a truly local candidate. A personal vote is why Mr Bridgen received around 1,500 votes. To provide Mr Bridgen with a similar example to his own in 2015 Rochdale's MP, Simon Danczuk, then standing for Labour received 20,961 votes. In 2017, expelled from Labour and standing as an independent he received 883 votes. Using Mr Danczuk as a base Mr Bridgen could argue that he outstripped expectations.

• Mr Bridgen would have you believe that there is something dastardly happening in the time it takes between polls closing and the count beginning. There is no such thing. It takes time to transfer sealed boxes from around the constituency, the first task in any election is to ensure the seals are still in place. That check is visible to every observer. It then takes time to verify the contents of the boxes contain the same number of ballot papers as have been handed out, that check can take hours as sadly, inevitably, you always get one or two boxes where there are fewer slips as a result of voters taking their papers our of the polling station with them. Once again, this verification stage is done in front of each candidate's counting agents, and indeed Mr Bridgen had his own counting agents at the count. Although Mr Bridgen had long since departed himself, to my knowledge not one counting agent raised any concern on the evening, certainly none of my own counting agents did, and I'm fairly positive no other candidate's agents did either.

Andrew Bridgen maintains that more people voted for him than the number declared at the election. Photo: Coalville Nub News

• It is interesting to note that candidates are also allowed to send counting agents to the opening of postal votes. I had agents at each day's postal vote openings, as did other parties. To my knowledge Mr Bridgen did not send a registered counting agent to the postal vote openings. Once again there were no concerns around the process adopted.
• North West Leicestershire District Council has an experienced and dedicated electoral services team. When you have been to many counts you get to know them. They always, rightly, maintain a professional distance but are friendly. I won't name long-standing electoral staff, I feel it is inappropriate, but am certain that if Mr Bridgen had that relationship of mutual, professional respect he would understand why some members of the team left, whilst others remain in post. It's the nature of working in an office, but personally naming and shaming local government staff is, in my opinion, pretty low behaviour.

"Just to reiterate. The parliamentary election in North West Leicestershire was fair. Do I like the result? No, I do not, because I came second.

"But I came second because more people voted for Amanda than voted for me.

"I didn't come second because of some wild conspiracy theory. I came second because on this occasion the decent people of North West Leicestershire thought, marginally, that it would be better to have a Labour MP.

"It's those same people of North West Leicestershire who had the final say on what, sadly, their former MP has descended into."