Complaint
Speaking on the day before polling day, Laura Kuenssberg reported that, according to both Conservative and Labour sources, the postal vote was “looking pretty grim for Labour in a lot of parts of the countryâ€. Seven viewers complained that this breached electoral law and/or the ±«Óãtv’s standards of due impartiality. Three of them argued, in addition, that it was out of keeping with the spirit, if not the letter, of the ±«Óãtv’s guidelines on election coverage, which (like the law) imposed a ban on reporting how votes had been cast on polling day until the polls had closed.
Outcome
There was no breach of impartiality in reporting information on which both main parties were agreed and, to the best of the ECU’s understanding, there was no breach of electoral law. Neither was there a direct breach of the election guidelines, which contained no provisions about reporting on the postal vote. However, reporting on the outcome of the postal vote on the eve of the poll appeared to some extent analogous to reporting on votes cast while voting was taking place on polling day. Before complaints were escalated to the ECU, ±«Óãtv News removed the programme from iPlayer and acknowledged in correspondence that it would have been better to have exercised more caution in relation to the topic. In the ECU’s judgement, these steps sufficed to resolve any issue of editorial standards arising from Ms Kuenssberg’s report.
Resolved