MEMBERS OF THE UK’s Conservative Party have started receiving their postal ballots but concerns have emerged that some people have been sent more than one voting paper.

About 160,000 members of the party will select their next leader, either Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his predecessor in that job, Boris Johnson.

BBC News reported that more than 1,000 people had received multiple voting forms.

Most were registered with more than one local Conservative association or had changed their names.

The party said in a statement that “the ballot holds clear instructions that members voting more than once will be expelled.”

The winner and Theresa May’s successor is due to be announced 23 July and Queen Elizabeth II will then invite the winner to form a government. 

The new leader’s first appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions could be the following day on 24 July. 

May announced her resignation last month after her divorce deal with the European Union was rejected three times by parliament.

The Conservative Party members choosing her successor are, by and large, middle-aged, middle-class, white, male — and strongly pro-Brexit.

As the voting begins, bookies and opinion polls both point to Johnson winning out after maintaining a lead he has held since the beginning of the contest. 

- With reporting by Associated Press