A letter notifying applicants about their vote in the EU referendum has come under fire.

Thanet District Council sent out the notice of allowance of a postal vote application with a logo in the top right corner that reads: "Your vote matters make sure you're in".

The wording was part of Electoral Commission branding but the organisation advised councils to change it in November 2015, providing newly-branded materials.

But former councillor Ian Driver says the version which was sent out could be seen as an effort by the council to encourage people to vote remain in the upcoming referendum.

An email sent by Mr Driver to TDC monitoring officer Tim Howes read: "This logo clearly suggests that Thanet Council supports an In Vote in forthcoming referendum.

"It could be also be construed as an effort by the council to encourage those thousands of people voting by post, all of whom would have received this letter with the logo, to vote in favour of remaining in the EU.

"At worst this is clearly an illegal abuse of power by Thanet Council.

"At best this is yet another example of appalling mismanagement and incompetence by senior council officers".

Electoral commission spokesman Umar Hanif said: "The Commission discontinued use of materials bearing the Your Vote Matters Make Sure You're In branding as we did not think this was appropriate language to use ahead of the EU referendum.

"We advised electoral registration officers (EROs) of the change in our branding in October 2015 and provided newly branded materials to them over the course of November and December 2015.

"While we recognised that it may not be straightforward for EROs to immediately dispose of or update materials with the old branding, we advised that they should start using the new materials as quickly as possible.

"EROs have and should be using updated branding".

TDC spokesman Mark Gower said: "An out of date Electoral Commission logo which was used to encourage voter registration was included in error on a notice of allowance of a postal vote application letter.

"This letter does not form part of the formal postal voting pack which was sent out at a later date.

"Measures were put in place to correct the template for this letter as soon as this was identified.

"Of 14,851 postal voters, 360 were sent the letter which contained the former Electoral Commission logo."