legal polling fail ?

[Mabs]

anyone else see this ?


#
2240: Police have been called to polling stations in Sheffield to move people on who've queued for hours to vote and not been able to. Former Hillsborough MP Helen Jackson says the situation is disgraceful and potentially leaves it open to legal challenge if results are close.



mega ooops much, legal right etc

 

[Ch3tan]

Yes I am very disappointed that in this day and age there are no contingency plans in place for a late voting turn out. Our local polling station was grossly understaffed, I was lucky to go early, and there were 4 people in front of me, I had to wait 5 minutes. Driving past at 9.30pm, there was a queue going down the street.

Would it really have been that difficult for some forward planning to allow polling stations an extra hour?

 

[rynnor]

Loads of places seem to have ended up turning queue's of people away at ten - surely they should stay open while people are queue'd up - not good for democracy to turn away voters.

 

[taB]

Have always been in rural-ish constituancies and able to wander in whenever I want. This is fucked up though. Everyone who wants to vote should be able to.

As an aside, my Mum sent her registration for a postal vote to the address on the back of the form. On the deadline day they rang her to say it had gone to the wrong address. So no time to fix it. Luckily it was not to late to setup a proxy vote so my Dad voted for her.

 

[Mabs]

depends how u word it

the environs of the polling station can count as "in" it etc, so its very grey area on legality

so if it goes right to the wire, i forsee a move to redo the election due to epic organisation fail

 

[Raven]

Especially when your typical Labour voter has all day to vote without the inconvenience of work.

Spoiler

May contain humour

 

[Mabs]

Police officers at a polling station in Brockley in Lewisham, south-east London, tell a BBC camera crew that voters are still being allowed to vote at 10.30pm. But the returning officer for Sheffield is apologising after people were unable to cast their votes there because of huge queues at polling stations. John Mothersole admits they were caught out.

 

[TdC]

rofl you've got to be kidding!

 

[Raven]

In all seriousness its getting silly. Running out of cards, incorrect lists. Seriously? It has been obvious for a few weeks now that we would get a good turn out yet they didn't seem to notice? Surprised there hasn't been rioting.

 

[Moriath]

why they all waited till 9 to vote or whatever .. silly

 

[rynnor]

In all seriousness its getting silly. Running out of cards, incorrect lists. Seriously? It has been obvious for a few weeks now that we would get a good turn out yet they didn't seem to notice? Surprised there hasn't been rioting.

Well there were reports of a Sit-in at Hackney where people couldnt vote.

Chester is a key marginal with tiny majority - they reckon 600 people were denied the chance to vote because the poll lists hadnt been updated - criminal

Did we become a banana republic already?

 

[Talyn]

Just heard that in Sheffield, folks are not allowing the voting box to leave, because they didn't get to vote.

Why don't we just do like the US and make up some numbers, broadcast them as real and be done with.

 

[rynnor]

why they all waited till 9 to vote or whatever .. silly

I was the 2nd at my local polling station and I saw the first bloke but in my defense I left on holiday a couple of hours later

 

[Scouse]

why they all waited till 9 to vote or whatever .. silly

Bird got home from work at 7:15. We ate tea and then went straight to the hospital because one of our friends was admitted today and we had to go see her.

We drove straight from the hospital to where the polling station was last time, and where it was on the map on the polling card but it wasn't there. We asked some locals and they said it had been moved.

Voted at 9:37pm. The earliest we could realistically do it. Uber-safe Labour seat tho so no queues (they prolly did it just after Trisha or something).

People lead different lives from you Moriath. It doesn't make 'em "silly"...

 

[Athan]

Indeed some voters didn't help things. In Sheffield a load of students turned up without their polling cards, which slows things down.

Also (note I've only heard this for one polling station, but assume it applies to all) apparently there's only one copy of the electoral roll per polling station, on paper, so it serves as an awful bottleneck in getting people processed. Whilst electronic voting is a non-starter it strikes me that this part of the process is ripe for modernisation.

 

[chipper]

there was only 1 electoral role in my polling station with 2 of em pouring over it thankfully it was dead so voted straight away but took about 5 mins to get my ballot papers.

dunno why the hell its been done on paper arent we in the digital age? surely we could be sent a barcode attached to our letters that auto logs us in.

 

[`mongoose]

at my local station there were two lists and 4 people - massively understaffed considering the turn out. Lucky my side of the room was empty and we walked straight in and voted then left. The other side had a queue out of the building and around to the entrance to the grounds of the school where it was held.

not great

M

(this was in a "safe labour" area too. Our council is a labour stronghold unfortunately, it means we get the same smug complacent twits year on year)

 

[Moriath]

Bird got home from work at 7:15. We ate tea and then went straight to the hospital because one of our friends was admitted today and we had to go see her.

We drove straight from the hospital to where the polling station was last time, and where it was on the map on the polling card but it wasn't there. We asked some locals and they said it had been moved.

Voted at 9:37pm. The earliest we could realistically do it. Uber-safe Labour seat tho so no queues (they prolly did it just after Trisha or something).

People lead different lives from you Moriath. It doesn't make 'em "silly"...

If you cant get to the polling station before 9pm cause of some things like that its fair enough .. if its just like all the students in sheffield turning up late when most had all day and screwed it up for all then its there fault.

 

[dysfunction]

Bird got home from work at 7:15. We ate tea and then went straight to the hospital because one of our friends was admitted today and we had to go see her.

We drove straight from the hospital to where the polling station was last time, and where it was on the map on the polling card but it wasn't there. We asked some locals and they said it had been moved.

Voted at 9:37pm. The earliest we could realistically do it. Uber-safe Labour seat tho so no queues (they prolly did it just after Trisha or something).

People lead different lives from you Moriath. It doesn't make 'em "silly"...

What about in the morning? They open at 7am...
Or postal vote if you have trouble making time in your day.

 

[DaGaffer]

What about in the morning? They open at 7am...
Or postal vote if you have trouble making time in your day.

Exactly. I always vote on the way to work (well except this time, which was postal). I can understand people being pissed off about not voting, but the polling booth has to close sometime.

 

[Embattle]

I agree with Dys and personally I always do my voting via postal since it is much easier for me.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

My boss allowed everyone voting the time off in the morning so that they could comfortably manage it.

If only all managers were as politically conscientious.

 

[GReaper]

The voting system needs to be modernised to deal with this. Voters should not be blamed even if they did leave it a bit too late - they should expect to be able to place their vote within a reasonable amount of time.

I wouldn't be particularly bothered if they actually kept the ancient system as it was, but allowed votes to be placed at a particular polling station after 10PM until the queue reaches a size of 0, along with delaying the opening of any ballot boxes until all polling stations have processed their queues.

 

[Talyn]

The voting system needs to be modernised to deal with this. Voters should not be blamed even if they did leave it a bit too late - they should expect to be able to place their vote within a reasonable amount of time.

They do, 15 hours. 7am till 10pm.

If i'm sat behind that desk for 15 hours, come 10pm, I want to get home and see what happens, not stay there for another 5 or 10 hours.

 

[Ch3tan]

You can't defend the polling stations here, those that are are missing the point; each polling station should be prepared for a 100% voter turnout. Using the excuse that it was a higher than expected turnout that slowed them down is trash.

 

[Mabs]

You can't defend the polling stations here, those that are are missing the point; each polling station should be prepared for a 100% voter turnout. Using the excuse that it was a higher than expected turnout that slowed them down is trash.

true dat

and higher than expected -> not enough time to process is one thing

but running out of ballot paper when you have a numbered list of poeple you are expecting, plus , say, 15% extra for spoiled ones etc is really not that hard

 

[Tom]

Higher than expected is fine, but when voters turn up in their hundreds really late in the day's proceedings, well what on earth can you do about that? Especially when some of them don't have their polling card, or know their address?

Everyone knows that the doors shut at 10pm—it says so, very clearly, on the polling card.

 

[Mabs]

Higher than expected is fine, but when voters turn up in their hundreds really late in the day's proceedings, well what on earth can you do about that? Especially when some of them don't have their polling card, or know their address?

Everyone knows that the doors shut at 10pm—it says so, very clearly, on the polling card.

of course there will always be people who appear at 9;55 expecting to get in, but equally there were people who queued for three to four hours, which is totally unacceptable to then be told to go home

 

[Tom]

If the volunteers made mistakes then that's fair enough, however if the general public were making mistakes (and they always do) then what else is going to happen? You can't send them to the back of the queue.

 

[Ch3tan]

If the volunteers made mistakes then that's fair enough, however if the general public were making mistakes (and they always do) then what else is going to happen? You can't send them to the back of the queue.

What mistakes? The polling stations are blaming people not bringing their polling cards as a reason for the slow down; however it is not a requirement to bring it or present it.

True story; my cousin went to vote while I sat in the car, it took him 15 minutes. The polling station serviced 15 roads, he said his road name and the polling officer told him he was at the wrong place, his English is excellent, hers was shit. She then called the officer in charge who tried to also tell him he was in the wrong place. It took 10 minutes of arguing before they checked the list. Fucking pathetic.