THE Conservatives open primary results could be delayed by a postal strike.

Tory bosses in the Totnes constituency said results may not be known until August 4 because of the industrial action affecting postal services in London.

The 69,000 Totnes constituents have until Thursday to send in their votes.

Vote counting, which is carried out by the independent Electoral Reform Society, was due to take place on July 31 with the winner being announced a day later.

But Heather Burwin, the chairman of the Totnes Conservative Association, has now said that for all votes to be counted, voting would be allowed to go on through the weekend

She said: "Because of the postal strike, we may have to delay the process by one more day.

"We don't want people who send their votes on July 30 to see their votes discarded unfairly because of a postal strike.

"We have to move fairly quickly. This will give everyone in the constituency the opportunity to take part in the democratic process and get their votes in without any questions raised."

Any votes that arrive up until Monday, August 3 will be included and counting is now expected to start on the morning of Tuesday, August 4.

A spokesman for the Conservatives said the results would be announced on Tuesday afternoon.

The three Tory prospective parliamentary candidates in the running to hopefully take over Anthony Steen's seat at Westminster are Dr Sarah Wollaston, a 47-year-old GP from Chagford, Nick Bye, 49, Torbay's elected mayor, and Sara Randall Johnson, 57, from Whimple near Exeter, a district councillor.

All three candidates faced a 400-strong crowd at Torbay Leisure Centre at the weekend.

Each of them had 30 minutes to answer questions from both constituents and The Times' political analyst and former Tory MP Matthew Parris.

Mrs Burwin said the American-style open primary selection system with postal ballots involving the whole constituency, had gone very smoothly so far.

She added: "We didn't know how it would go but it went extremely well. The questions were good and Matthew Parris really helped keep things ticking along.

"Considering the candidates have been answering questions for the sixth time to get there, they have performed very well under pressure.

"Any one of them could do a great job for us in Parliament each in their own very different way. It is a close call."

Mrs Burwin said that although votes will be counted by an independent organisation in London, the three candidates will be at the Totnes constituency office on the day the results are announced.