THE Archbishop of York has described the election night chaos which saw hundreds of voters turned away from polling stations as “scandalous” and “an outrage”.

Problems in parts of London, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle and Surrey saw police called to deal with queues of people wanting to cast their vote as the deadline passed on Thursday night.

One polling station saw angry voters stage a sit-in and the Electoral Commission has said both it and the Government will have to look at the issue, with the current laws stating that poll doors must close at 10pm and no ballot papers can be issued after that time, although everybody who has a ballot paper by that time must be allowed to vote.

And Dr John Sentamu, who made a pre-election rallying cry about the importance of voting, said: “It’s scandalous that hundreds of people were prevented from exercising their right to vote due to polling stations closing as people queued and, in one case, due to a lack of ballot papers.

“I have, in my own way, been encouraging people to vote and I am bitterly disappointed that they were not able to do so. We all knew this would be a closely-fought election and how important each vote would be, and I find it hard to believe arrangements were not in place to accommodate increased voter turnout. It is an outrage.”