Police are investigating if an offence was committed

Bolton Council said the 3,000 forms had not been delivered to the Rumworth area - it is now setting up stations in two primary schools.

A further 1,600 voters across four other wards in the area are having their forms hand delivered on Monday.

Voters in Horwich, Bromley Cross, Hulton Park and Astley Bridge areas will have two days to return ballots.

Delivery 'monitored'

A council spokesman said: "This is something which has emerged via our street checking systems which showed that certain streets had not been returning voting envelopes.

"We are confident that we supplied the ballot papers for the whole of these areas to the Royal Mail. The Royal Mail confirmed this to be the case.

"We are doing all in our power to make sure that everyone entitled to vote can vote and will be continuing to closely monitor the delivery and returns situation and if special arrangements need to be taken in other areas we will do so."

'Dogged with mishaps'

The government's postal vote experiment has been dogged with mishaps in the North West.

In some cases printers have missed the deadlines to get the papers to the Royal Mail.

Other problems included misprinted ballot forms which had candidates from one ward on one side with another council's ward details on the other side.

A spokesman for the Department of Constitutional Affairs said: "The local returning officer is taking timely and appropriate action to ensure people can still exercise their right to vote in Thursday's elections.

The whole reckless exercise by the government is a shambles Liam Fox, Conservative co-chairman

"Inevitably, in an election involving more than 14 million people there are bound to be some difficulties, but these can be solved satisfactorily.

"The message we are getting back from returning officers across the pilot areas remains positive and that the elections are going well."

Conservative co-chairman Liam Fox said: "The shocking news that 5,000 ballot papers in Bolton have not yet gone out shows how utterly worthless the government's assurances about meeting deadlines have been.