The delivery of ballot papers to Tory members to vote for the next prime minister has been delayed due to security concerns.
Postal ballots were to be sent from Monday to around 160,000 Conservative members to choose between Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak.
However, members have been told that the ballots will arrive later than expected and could take as long as August 11. An email Tuesday evening read: “Your ballot is on its way, but it will be a little later than we originally said.
“Please don’t worry. This is because we took some time to add some extra security to our voting process, which has delayed us slightly.”
The announcement of the leadership contest is due on September 5, which is expected to remain the same despite the delay.
The decision to delay sending the ballots follows advice from the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), part of the UK’s GCHQ listening post.
An NCSC spokesman said: “Defending the UK’s democratic and electoral processes is a priority for the NCSC and we work closely with all parliamentary political parties, local authorities and parliamentarians to provide guidance and support on cyber security
“As you would expect from the UK’s national cyber security authority, we provided advice to the Conservative party on security considerations for the online leadership vote.”
The government’s communications headquarters, known as GCHQ, apparently warned of a security risk in which hackers could change Tory members’ ballots, according to the Daily Telegraph, which first reported the story.
The email to Tory party members says they will have the option of voting by post or online, with codes to be deactivated once the vote for the latter option has been received to reduce the “risk of fraud”.
He adds: “To vote online, simply enter the unique one-time use codes printed on your ballot and complete the security questions. Once used, your codes are invalid and you will not be able to re-enter the site.
“If you choose to vote by mail … once received by the voting company, we will disable your codes online.”
Sunak trails Truss in Tory member polls and while some recent polls have shown the gap is narrowing, a YouGov poll for The Times on Tuesday put the foreign secretary at 60% support with the former chancellor at 26%.