A series of errors which led to the wrong election being named on polling cards in Douglas won’t happen again, the council leader says.

David Christian (pictured) was responding to a question from Councillor John Skinner about the recent council by-election where the polling cards carried the wrong name.

Instead of being headed ’Derby Ward Bye-Election’, the poll cards carried the heading of ’House of Keys Election’.

Mr Christian said the mistake ’was not material to the content of the card which detailed the polling stations and the number of vacancies, and which was accurate’.

He added: ’It is the council’s responsibility to ensure accuracy and to have the cards printed and sent. Proofs were provided and checked by several officers without the error being picked up.

’The officer overseeing the process has accepted responsibility for the error and taken steps to ensure it will not happen again. The situation was very different to that of our neighbouring authority where there had been misleading information about the number of vacancies within the text of the card.’

Mr Christian was referring to Onchan’s recent by-election where the Post Office blundered when it printed polling cards with the wrong information.

The mistake was spotted and the Post Office had to pay for new ones to be reissued after the first batch were for the House of Keys, rather than the local authority and said that people could vote for two candidates rather than one.

Councillors Sam Hamer and Devon Watson won in the Derby Ward by-election while David Quirk took Onchan’s vacant seat.