The report from the Electoral Commission, entitled Delivering democracy? The future of postal voting, recommends that "all-postal voting should not be pursued for use at UK statutory elections". The report presents the lessons learned from the fraught 10 June

"Super Thursday" European and local elections, when four regions, home to 14.8m voters, piloted all-postal voting for the first time.

It supports postal voting on demand, but says that the "ballot pack needs to be simplified". The logistics of timing and data delivery to the printers also needed to be improved.

Reaction from the industry was mixed. One print source said: "These [ballots] should never have happened in the first place. The dates that the government gave out, they never stood by them they were weeks and weeks late."

Simon Hearn, head of the ballot department at Electoral Reform Services, said: "The report is a fair comment on the issues regarding the pilots. As we said initially, it was a tight schedule. It was achievable but it could have been better."

But he added that the recommendation was "disappointing from a business point of view".

Another source said: "The government has never taken any notice of the Electoral Commission in the last year, so why would they want to start now?"

An all-postal ballot is planned for October's referendum on a regional assembly for the North East.

Hearn said that the vote would be "a good immediate opportunity for the industry, the Royal Mail and local authorities to show again that all-postal votes are achievable."

Story by Josh Brooks