With the General Election just two days away Braintree Council's chief executive has outlined the challenge ahead. 

In addition to the two parliamentary elections taking place in Braintree and Witham, residents in the Braintree district will also be voting within 26 district wards and 14 parishes.

This means over 500,000 ballot papers have been prepared for when the polls open at 7am on Thursday, May 7.

Nicola Beach, who is also the Acting Returning Officer for Braintree and Witham, said: “Running an election, especially on this scale, is a huge logistical operation for councils to undertake, particularly in an area such as the Braintree District with many rural communities.

“It is unusual for a local election to fall on the same year as a parliamentary, and in many stations voters will be asked to vote in not one but three different elections if they also have a contested parish or town council.

“This has meant a great deal of organisation has been required and over the past few weeks the team here has been working non-stop to ensure everything is in place and to make sure the election on Thursday runs as smoothly as possible.”

Ms Beach said a team of sixty has prepared 24,000 postal votes, and staff are primed to man over 150 polling stations across the district, ranging from churches to primary schools and youth centres to pavilions.

She added: “As well as our polling station teams, we have a separate team who will be waiting at the count centre ready to collect the ballot boxes and then sort, verify and count the votes.

"We also have the added challenge of having part of the Witham parliamentary constituency fall within the Maldon district and the Colchester borough, meaning staff will also be travelling to collect these ballot papers on Thursday evening from our counterparts in those areas.”

Results for the Parliamentary elections will be announced at about 4am on Friday morning and district, town and parish results announced later that day from 11.30am.

For more information about the elections visit our elections page.