The radio journalist John Humphrys and television presenter Mariella Frostrup have complained that they were prevented from voting yesterday due to alleged failures with the postal voting system.

Mr Humphrys, the presenter of the Today programme on BBC Radio 4, revealed that he had gone to the polling station, only to be told that he couldn’t vote because someone had already applied for a postal vote in his name.

"I for the first time in my life was denied a vote yesterday," he said.

"I didn’t apply for a postal ballot. Possibly someone in my house ticked the box for the forms to be sent through, but I can’t find anybody who did. When I got there my name had been crossed off. They said that I’d already voted but I hadn’t.

"It’s disgraceful. There’s nothing I can do. What can I do? The votes have been counted... So my vote was stolen."

But spokeswoman for Hammersmith and Fulham council rejected Mr Humphrys’ suggestion that anything untoward had taken place, and called his accusations "baseless". She said that Mr Humphrys had registered as a postal voter, and that once registered, a voter automatically continued to be treated as a postal voter for all elections that follow.

The council said it had found his original application for a postal vote dated October 2002, signed by him, and used in the European elections, and had since then sent him nine confirmations through the post that he was a postal voter.

"We’ve looked into his allegations found that they are baseless," she said.

"Mr Humphrys had actually registered as a postal voter. He had his postal vote in his hand when he went to vote and staff pointed this out to him. He had also received nine confirmations, and had already voted this way in the European elections. There may have been a mishap, but there is certainly no question of fraud."

The debate has nevertheless raised fresh concerns that Britain's new system of postal voting has been dogged by incompetence and fraud. In Birmingham, it is feared that a third of the 60,000 postal votes issued for the 11 constituencies in the city may not have been returned - either because they were delivered late to households, or because fraudsters were nervous of filling them in for fear of being caught in police checks.

The chairman of the Electoral Commission, the body that oversees voting practice in Britain, urged the Prime Minister to make reforms: "I think what is absolutely clear is that postal voting has knocked the public’s confidence in the system," said Sam Younger. "It is urgent that the government implement a number of changes," he said.

After Mr Humphry's revelation this morning, a number of listeners, including Mariella Frostrup, called to express anger at losing their votes: "I was told that I was registered as a postal voter. There was a line through my name, so I couldn’t be allowed a ballot paper," she said. "That was that, I stood there arguing, they gave me a number to call. I was apoplectic, as you can imagine."

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