CONCERN is mounting that the declaration of results in next Thursday's local elections in parts of Kent could be disrupted by problems with new computer technology.

Both Ashford and Shepway council have confirmed they are among local authorities facing problems with software they have been recommended to use by central government to check postal votes.

If the problems are not ironed out before next Thursday, both councils may have to revert to checking thousands of postal votes manually instead.

Ashford council, where 9,125 people have registered for a postal vote, said its problems stemmed from "the integration of two different computer systems, both of which are excellent on their own."

Deputy returning officer Trevor Robertson said: "We have been aware of the problems for some time and a result, a number of back-up measures have been put in place to ensure personal identification returned by postal voters can be verified."

These include staff receiving training from the Forensic Science Service on signature recognition, he added.

Shepway Council, where 9,851 people have registered for postal votes compared to 2,563 in 2003, confirmed it too had to resolve "outstanding issues" with the software.

In a statement the council said: "There are presently some outstanding issues that we have, in common with many other local authorities across the country. We trust Northgate Pickwick [the company supplying the software] is attending to these urgently and that the system for validating signatures and dates of birth on postal votes will be in place in time."

The problems are associated with the capacity of the software to recognise and validate basic personal information, such as the person’s signature and date of birth.

If postal votes are rejected because the signatures on the voting slip and on the registration forms - completed much earlier - are not judged to be the same by the computer technology, votes could be either rejected or have to be manually checked.

Other councils have played down concerns over the technology but emphasised problems may not become apparent until election counts start.

Returning officers at Maidstone, Tonbride and Malling and Tunbridge Wells were guardedly optimistic the compuer software would work.

Tonbridge and Malling council, where 8,000 people have registered for postal votes compared with just 3,000 at the last local election, said: "We have not yet used the system for its main purpose, as postal votes are yet to be validated in full. But so far there have not been any problems."

Tunbridge Wells council, where 8,828 postal votes have been registered, said: "The software seems fine so far and we are confident we have enough back up should it be required."

Maidstone council, where 10,500 postal votes are expected, was optimistic it would face no problems, saying it was using software that had already been trialled successfully in the London borough of Newham.