SHOCKED Elwyn Walker had to look twice when he received his polling card for the European elections.

He spotted that the ‘parliamentary’ was spelled wrongly as ‘parlimentary’ on his slip for the June 4 contest.

Mr Walker, aged 54, of Broadmayne, even dug out his dictionary to double check that there wasn’t an alternative spelling but there was only one way to spell the word.

He said: “It is an official document.

“If they can’t spell parliament right what hope is there for our school kids.

“Someone at the top needs to say that there are standards that should be maintained.”

The polling cards arrived for Bovington worker Mr Walker and his son Andrew, aged 18, who is due to vote in his first elections in June.

Mr Walker said: “I came home and there were two polling cards for the European elections.

“I noticed on the front that they had spelled parliament as ‘parlimentary’ twice on the front.

“But when I turned it over they had spelt parliament correctly on the back.

“There were two different spellings on the same card.”

Mr Walker added: “I thought maybe there was an alternative spelling so I checked in the dictionary and it was the only spelling.

“They could at least have the courtesy of getting the spelling right.”

Mr Walker said that it was a bad error, whether it was the fault of authorities, proof reader or printer.

Voters are issued by the deputy returning officer for the elections.

Thousands of the cards will have been issued for the elections.

Mr Walker said: “It is worrying if these people are in charge of us and they can’t even get the spelling right.”

The elections are being held on June 4 to choose the United Kingdom’s 72 Members of the European Parliament at Strasbourg in France. Voting is on a proportional representation basis with a set number of MEPs representing each region of the country.

There are currently seven MEPS representing the south west.