The rule about keeping secret how postal ballots are breaking is in regulation 84 of The Representation of the People (England and Wales) Regulations 2001 (as amended - the legislation.gov.uk version is not up to date). 
I am not an election lawyer, but if information about how postal ballots are breaking is getting out, that does seem to me to be cause for concern, not least because logically it suggests breaches of the obligation owed by returning officers.
And if @bbclaurak is telling the truth when she says that "postal votes are looking pretty grim for Labour in a lot of parts of the country" that means that breaches of the obligation owed by returning officers is pretty widespread.
@bbclaurak Who knows, right? But I think it's very doubtful that there are (in fact) widespread breaches. If returning officers were involved in widespread breaches of their obligations I think we'd probably have heard about it already from some unhappy candidate(s).
@bbclaurak My guess - and let me reiterate I am not an election lawyer - is that, for their own reasons, people are generating stories for @bbclaurak who is reporting them in a way that (I think) is not as caveated as it should be.
@bbclaurak So, with all those provisos and caveats, what do we take from this? What does it amount to? It's inevitable journalists won't always report stuff perfectly. And this feels (to me at least) a considerably less serious sin than the (non)-punching story of a couple of days ago.
@bbclaurak But - and those who suffer my twitter feed will know this is a familiar concern of mine - the level of interest in a (this time) not terribly serious journalistic infraction by @bbclaurak suggests we believe (I think, rightly) that the BBC has enormous influence over our politics
@bbclaurak Once you appreciate that it's inevitable - and it is - that journalists are going to get stuff wrong, asking for them to be better can't really provide the solution. The solution has to be for their reporting to be less influential, less dominant.
@bbclaurak This is (one reason) why I don't think the BBC should continue in its present form. (Other reasons are also available, including from me).
(For the record, I don't think a new Tory Government would abolish the BBC. I think a frit BBC is more useful to it than an abolished one).
(For the record, I don't think a new Tory Government would abolish the BBC. I think a frit BBC is more useful to it than an abolished one).
