HUNDREDS of EU referendum polling cards have been sent out to ineligible foreign voters living in Sussex.

The Electoral Commission has revealed that more than 350 polling cards had been wrongly sent because of a computer software error.

Sussex councils accounted for one in ten of all polling cards sent out in error nationally in advance of the big vote on June 23.

Arun District Council had the third highest number of polling cards wrongly issued in the whole country while Crawley and Mid Sussex were also both in the top 20.

The Electoral Commission said the software provider had now resolved the problem so that postal votes cast by ineligible voters will be cancelled and none of these voters will appear as eligible on electoral registers at polling stations.

EU nationals resident in the UK are eligible to vote in council elections but not general elections or the upcoming referendum.

Authorities in the county have also been inundated with voters seeking to register at the last-minute in such numbers that the deadline around the country was extended by an additional 48 hours this week.

By 3.15pm on Thursday Eastbourne Borough Council had received 400 more registrations since the initial deadline of Tuesday midnight in addition to more than 1,000 registrations on Monday and Tuesday.

Arun District Council had 666 online applications on Thursday morning but said some of these would be duplicate or even triplicate applications while more than 1,100 voters registered within the last few hours of the original deadline.

A Wealden District Council spokesman said the authority had taken on extra staff to deal with an increase in registrations with more than 1,000 applications processed on Tuesday – four times the usual number for a last day.

Crawley Borough Council said they usually have 30 online applications a day but had 750 on Tuesday and 521 on Friday, June 3.

An Arun District Council spokeswoman said: "We were affected by the software error which meant 208 EU voters were sent poll cards, eight of these were also sent a postal vote pack.

“All have been advised that this was a software error and that they will not be able to vote on June 23.

“Those affected were less than five per cent of the number of EU voters included on the electoral register.

A Crawley Borough Council spokesman said: “Where an elector has a nationality from an EU nation that is not Britain or Ireland there is a marker placed against their name on the register.

"When we work out who will be included on the register for the referendum and receive poll cards all those electors are excluded.

"There was a fault in our software that meant that where a particular set of unusual conditions applied the marker was not placed on the register even though the correct nationality had been recorded.

"The software supplier has acted quickly to resolve the problem.

"There were 37 electors affected in Crawley and we have written to each of them to apologise and to explain that they will not be able to vote at the referendum.”