We request a change in the cut off date for members who join labour to vote in NEC elections

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We the undersigned do hereby wish to voice our strongest objections to the unreasonable "cut-off date" (24th June 2016), for members joining the Labour party, who would wish to take part in the NEC election. We believe that as this will disqualify up to 20% of the whole Labour party membership (around 100,000 members), and that this is unacceptable and misrepresentational of the democratic Labour membership will.

Further, we question that the given reason of the administration excuse, of being to allow "printing and posting time", is simply disingenuous; there are PLENTY of printing firms who could be employed to aid with the printing and distribution of the ballot papers if necessary - if there were an additional cost, we firmly believe that the members would be happy to pay an additional nominal amount to ensure this. In addition, we would suggest the idea of emailing ballot papers out, to members with a registered email addresses, could potentially save both time and money, by greatly increasing the efficiency of this process. Why can't the voting simply done online, without sending out more ballot papers? Further, as the deadline for returning these ballots is not until August 12th, we consider that it is not in the least bit unreasonable to push the cut-off date, for joining members eligibility to vote in the NEC elections, to no earlier than before 11th July 2016.

We appreciate that members who joined after 24th of June, up until the new cut-off date, will receive their ballot papers much closer to the deadline, and so will have less time to consider their vote and return them, but wave our right to greater time, and do not ask for an extension in the deadline for returning completed ballot papers to you, so this should provide no noticeable inconvenience or knock on effect.

Failure to meet with this very reasonable request of such a huge body of members may possibly suggest that the NEC leadership is, in fact, deliberately trying to block the additional votes of the these 20%, indicating some bias. Further, in light of the fact that has been strongly suggested that the vast majority of these new full Labour party members are backing Jeremy Corbyn, and would vote for an NEC team who would also lean that way, it would suggest this bias is directed against Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. We sincerely hope that this is not the case, as such an action would be entirely undemocratic, and counter the core principals of the Labour party: that its members, and not its elected leadership team, have the largest say in the way the Labour party is run.

Such an admission, indicated by a lack of acceptance of this request, could lead to a huge loss of confidence in the Labour party team, and it could be reasonably expected that this lack of confidence would be reflected in the voting loyalty of those who are currently loyal to Labour.

We look forward to hearing an announcement from you for the inclusion of this body of new full Labour members in the NEC election body, for members who were previously excluded having joined between June 24th and July 11th 2016.

Yours sincerely
Your Labour members.

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