Under 40 per cent of postal votes have been received by Highland Council for the area's two constituencies with less than a week to go before the General Election.
As of Thursday morning the percentage return was 37.93% based on 41,594 ballot papers issued for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross and the new consitutency of Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire.
It comes amid concern over delays with postal votes with many only arriving in households today, at the start of the Scottish school holidays.
A council spokeswoman said it was still waiting for some postal packs to be dispatched but had been given assurances from Royal Mail that they will be delivered today or tomorrow.
She added: "To help voters we have made arrangements at 2 locations (Inverness and Dingwall) for voters to hand in their completed packs today and over this weekend between 9am – 5pm .
"We will also have these venues, and possible more, open next week."
Postal voters are also reminded that they can hand in their completed vote on Thursday at any polling station.
The Electoral Management Board for Scotland (EMB) said there have been "many difficulties experienced with the delivery of postal votes" across the country.
It led to First Minister John Swinney warning that Scots could become ‘disenfranchised’ with the General Election because of the delays.
He said: “In an election where there will be a number of marginal contests in Scotland, because there is a really intense contest going on here in Scotland, I am worried people will be disenfranchised.”
Edinburgh City Council has set up an emergency facility for voters who haven't received their postal vote yet to ask for another pack to be reissued.
A polling booth will also be open at the City Chambers for people who wish to cast their vote there and then.
Postal voting is much more common than proxy voting, with around 17% voting by post and 0.6% voting by proxy at the 2019 General Election.
Turnout tends to be higher for postal voters than those who vote at polling stations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here