Some idiot from the electoral council was whittering in the early hours how they can only have one voters list/polling station.
So sense to me you have people handling the names a-c then next doing d-f etc etc and enough booth things. Then you only need one voter list with names/surname/section and problem solved.
That's probably why l will never be a civil servant to logical. Are there any women civil servants or are they all men organising these things?
That's rubbish about only having one list of voters. I worked at a polling station yesterday and we had three registers on the go, relating to three different small areas within the district. That worked just fine, and is better than using surnames to divide the list (many households come in to vote together, but frequently don't share the same last name).
FWIW, our polling station had two clearly-marked channels for street names A-M and N-Z.
I went mid-afternoon and you could practically see the tumbleweed; the Spouse had to queue for 10 minutes at 8pm and, I hear, there was a big influx at 9.30.
I've assumed it's all due to a post-pub surge (possibly in response to some activist urging) or a massive facebook mob, but is it possible that word of this 'compensation' got out beforehand?
750 quid? It's likely to cost everyone in the country fucking thousands, though to be fair that probably would hold if Cameramong had won. Maybe 750 quid would be about the difference, though I expect everyone's taxes will have to go up by at least £800 to pay for any compensation.
well it is said you get the pollies you deserve.. doesnt say a lot about the uk does it... sheesh, lib-lab pact coming soon.. canada here i come.. who knew how many morons live here, guess we do now eh?
"What a mess isn't it Julia? Will the libdems sell out? I think so."
I think so too... :(
"Some idiot from the electoral council was whittering in the early hours how they can only have one voters list/polling station."
Yup, as Pods & MacHeath point out, that's total balls.
Ours too has always been done on a street-name basis, two teams (used to be three, when our polling station was different) of two people to each. Never ever had to queue behind more than one person, and I've voted at all times, early and late.
This is, without doubt, an unmitigated cock-up by the returning officers.
"...is it possible that word of this 'compensation' got out beforehand?"
Hmm, would have thought we'd see something like that on Twitter.
And most of the people in the scenes shown so far were genuinely angry at being denied a vote. Particularly those who said they'd waited for an hour and a half!
"well it is said you get the pollies you deserve.. doesnt say a lot about the uk does it..."
So how do I go about claiming my 750 quid? I mean, I did vote, and without the merest hint of a queue, but I figure that as they don't ask for ID, they can't be certain it was me.
And bearing in mind the quantity of alcohol consumed last night, I can't be sure it was me either.
I thought that a secret ballot meant that my vote was anonymous once I'd posted my ballot paper? I entered my local polling station (no queues, well organised) and handed in the card I'd received in the post. My name on the voters roll was ticked off and the number next to my name on the roll was read out to the person handing out the ballot papers. He wrote my voters roll number on a list next to the serial number which matched the serial number of the ballot paper he subsequently handed to me. This means that any interested party obtaining that list and the relevant ballot papers could identify MY ballot and ascerain how I'd voted. Is the collection and retention of such identifying data legal? If it is, why is it considered to be necessary? Just asking!
I work as a Poll Clerk whenever required and I did my bit yesterday. Now the answers in no particular order. - they can only have one voters list/polling station.- Not completely true. Each Polling Station deals with several roads from the voter's register. Whilst there can only be one copy of any page of the voters register, (otherwise the voter could go to another desk and vote again), the pages of the voters register could be have been divided into smaller portions. Each poll desk getting 3 roads instead of 6. This would depend on the availability of more poll clerks. - the Spouse had to queue for 10 minutes at 8pm and, I hear, there was a big influx at 9.30.- At my station it was steady all day but at one point the queue was out of the door. The poll is open from 07.00 am to 10 pm and there are postal votes and proxies. Go early. The voters register is arranged in poll number order. It takes a few seconds to look up the poll number on the voters register, tick it, issue a ballot and write the ballot number on the corresponding number list. The following causes queues. Not having a poll card. It takes longer to look up the street name postcode house number. Only a few more seconds, but multiply that by a few hundred. -this means that any interested party obtaining that list and the relevant ballot papers could identify MY ballot and ascerain how I'd voted. True, but the ballot papers and the corresponding number list are kept separately. Putting the two together requires a Court Order. A corrupt Official with access to both would need to find your poll number amongst the several thousand numbers on the corresponding number list to read your ballot number, then search through the several thousand paper ballot forms, to find yours. Not that easy. -Running out of ballot forms- There are 50 in a book when you get down to the last 100 order some more! -Voting after 10 pm- The poll closes at 10 pm. Like it or not, that is the law. Anyone that has been issued with a ballot paper before 10 pm can vote. Anyone that does not hold a ballot paper before 10 pm can not. Even if there was as queue. There should be an enquiry into the queues and the dubious issue of ballot papers after the poll close. If that happened. On the face of it there were not enough poll clerks to cope with the rush. Quotable quotes "Do I do a tick or a cross?" "I thought it was a local election. I voted for the wrong one. New form please" "My wife is ill in bed, can I vote for her as well?" "Can I borrow a pen?" "Do you need to see it?" "I've put my own name at the bottom and put a cross next to it" "Do I tear off the one I want?" "Do you need to know that my son is at University and he won't be coming?" "I want to complain about the rubbish near my bin"
MTG. I have read and re read Blu Knights psost and can only find information as he knows, or has experienced it.
Care to discuss what is "Arrogant" about knowing your job, and passing on that information to others, in a thread where that information is HIGHLY relevant?
"I thought that a secret ballot meant that my vote was anonymous once I'd posted my ballot paper?"
You're not alone! Lots of people believe this. There's usually a newspaper story and FAQ about it somewhere each election.
As blueknight points out, it's not strictly true, but it is subject to very very stringent legislation governing the times it might need to be put together.
Your local council will usually have an FAQ about it on their website too, like this one.
"Quotable quotes
"Do I do a tick or a cross?" "I thought it was a local election. I voted for the wrong one. New form please" "My wife is ill in bed, can I vote for her as well?" "Can I borrow a pen?" "Do you need to see it?" "I've put my own name at the bottom and put a cross next to it" "Do I tear off the one I want?" "Do you need to know that my son is at University and he won't be coming?" "I want to complain about the rubbish near my bin"..."
Oh, fantastic...
I particularly like the last one! :)
"Next election? If there's a deal, it'll be in five years time."
And if no deal? We may be doing this all over again before the year's out! Argh!
"..I have read and re read Blu Knights psost and can only find information as he knows, or has experienced it."
I'm with Jiks & FT on this. Registering a big 'Huh..?!?' at that comment, MTG. Care to expand?
"Do you need to know that my son is at University and he won't be coming?"
IMHO, BK's comment was a useful contribution - info from the horse's mouth is always worth having.
But I can understand the reason for the above quote - I also have a son away at university; his full name was clearly visible on the official list and I can see nothing to prevent an imposter giving it as his own and receiving a ballot paper (it is almost certainly possible to find out students' home addresses).
I appreciate that this form of fraud would be a drop in the ocean - it's just the principle of the thing.
XX In a poor combination of crude and grammatically incorrect German and misspelled English, you were always highly insulting to British subjects when you called yourself 'Von Spreuth'.
Being known as the Furor better suits a feeble minded Scot who pretends to be German and dresses up as a Viking at weekends. XX
The politicians of the 1980s looked forward to the 5 minutes of fame by proxy, afforded to them when they were parodied on the 'Spitting Image' TV programme. The blogging equivalent of such fame occurs as a result of being splashed with the vitriolic ink that issues endlessly from MTG's venomous quill.
"But I can understand the reason for the above quote - I also have a son away at university; his full name was clearly visible on the official list and I can see nothing to prevent an imposter giving it as his own and receiving a ballot paper..."
Indeed. When my mother's ballot papers arrived, so did my father's, in the same post. He died in October.
Someone could easily have voted 'for' him, had my mother not been honest and handed the card in to the polling station on the day with a covering note...
"....after ridicule on a superior blog for confusing the words 'police' and 'policing'."
Ahhh, now it's clear. As mud.
I have a rather different recollection of that event.
"The blogging equivalent of such fame occurs as a result of being splashed with the vitriolic ink that issues endlessly from MTG's venomous quill."
Ah, but 'Spitting Image' were lethal, precise assassins. MTG seems to prefer a 'spray & pray' technique...
Next election, all Labour's drones will turn up at the polling station at 9:59 pm, claim they weren't allowed to vote and claim their £750. By then, that'll almost be enough for a beer.
What an utter shambles!
34 comments:
What a mess isn't it Julia? Will the libdems sell out? I think so.
Some idiot from the electoral council was whittering in the early hours how they can only have one voters list/polling station.
So sense to me you have people handling the names a-c then next doing d-f etc etc and enough booth things. Then you only need one voter list with names/surname/section and problem solved.
That's probably why l will never be a civil servant to logical. Are there any women civil servants or are they all men organising these things?
As usual with a freshly created Labour quango the question is conspiracy or cock up?
I wonder if there was any pattern to it all ...
Civil Service (and all public-sector organisations) are politically-correct and therefore white heterosexual men are clearly to blame...
That's rubbish about only having one list of voters. I worked at a polling station yesterday and we had three registers on the go, relating to three different small areas within the district. That worked just fine, and is better than using surnames to divide the list (many households come in to vote together, but frequently don't share the same last name).
FWIW, our polling station had two clearly-marked channels for street names A-M and N-Z.
I went mid-afternoon and you could practically see the tumbleweed; the Spouse had to queue for 10 minutes at 8pm and, I hear, there was a big influx at 9.30.
I've assumed it's all due to a post-pub surge (possibly in response to some activist urging) or a massive facebook mob, but is it possible that word of this 'compensation' got out beforehand?
750 quid? It's likely to cost everyone in the country fucking thousands, though to be fair that probably would hold if Cameramong had won. Maybe 750 quid would be about the difference, though I expect everyone's taxes will have to go up by at least £800 to pay for any compensation.
Still, could be some court challenges to come.
well it is said you get the pollies you deserve.. doesnt say a lot about the uk does it... sheesh, lib-lab pact coming soon.. canada here i come.. who knew how many morons live here, guess we do now eh?
"What a mess isn't it Julia? Will the libdems sell out? I think so."
I think so too... :(
"Some idiot from the electoral council was whittering in the early hours how they can only have one voters list/polling station."
Yup, as Pods & MacHeath point out, that's total balls.
Ours too has always been done on a street-name basis, two teams (used to be three, when our polling station was different) of two people to each. Never ever had to queue behind more than one person, and I've voted at all times, early and late.
This is, without doubt, an unmitigated cock-up by the returning officers.
"...is it possible that word of this 'compensation' got out beforehand?"
Hmm, would have thought we'd see something like that on Twitter.
And most of the people in the scenes shown so far were genuinely angry at being denied a vote. Particularly those who said they'd waited for an hour and a half!
"well it is said you get the pollies you deserve.. doesnt say a lot about the uk does it..."
No... :(
WHAT exactly are British troops doing in Afghanistan, whe Britains OWN elections are not "free and fair"?
Any bets on when the NEXT election will be?
I put my money on "sometime this year".
And these people want us to trust them to introduce electoral reform!
I wouldn't trust them to change a nappy let alone our constitution.
Democracy is surprising.
We collectively wanted no-one to win, and somehow engineered it so it happened.
"WHAT exactly are British troops doing in Afghanistan, whe Britains OWN elections are not "free and fair"?"
We'll need UN monitors for the next election..
"And these people want us to trust them to introduce electoral reform!"
A referendum on this does seem to be the carrot they are both handing out to that donkey Clegg.
"Democracy is surprising.
We collectively wanted no-one to win, and somehow engineered it so it happened."
Indeed. No matter who wins, we lose...
So how do I go about claiming my 750 quid? I mean, I did vote, and without the merest hint of a queue, but I figure that as they don't ask for ID, they can't be certain it was me.
And bearing in mind the quantity of alcohol consumed last night, I can't be sure it was me either.
Where's an ambulance-chaser when you need one..?
"Where's an ambulance-chaser when you need one..?"
Pouring over books about constitutional reform..? ;)
I thought that a secret ballot meant that my vote was anonymous once I'd posted my ballot paper?
I entered my local polling station (no queues, well organised) and handed in the card I'd received in the post. My name on the voters roll was ticked off and the number next to my name on the roll was read out to the person handing out the ballot papers. He wrote my voters roll number on a list next to the serial number which matched the serial number of the ballot paper he subsequently handed to me.
This means that any interested party obtaining that list and the relevant ballot papers could identify MY ballot and ascerain how I'd voted.
Is the collection and retention of such identifying data legal? If it is, why is it considered to be necessary?
Just asking!
Unable to deny any call for a vote to see if we should vote again, I am with the Furor.
I work as a Poll Clerk whenever required and I did my bit yesterday.
Now the answers in no particular order.
- they can only have one voters list/polling station.-
Not completely true. Each Polling Station deals with several roads from the voter's register. Whilst there can only be one copy of any page of the voters register, (otherwise the voter could go to another desk and vote again), the pages of the voters register could be have been divided into smaller portions. Each poll desk getting 3 roads instead of 6. This would depend on the availability of more poll clerks.
- the Spouse had to queue for 10 minutes at 8pm and, I hear, there was a big influx at 9.30.-
At my station it was steady all day but at one point the queue was out of the door.
The poll is open from 07.00 am to 10 pm and there are postal votes and proxies. Go early.
The voters register is arranged in poll number order. It takes a few seconds to look up the poll number on the voters register, tick it, issue a ballot and write the ballot number on the corresponding number list.
The following causes queues. Not having a poll card. It takes longer to look up the street name postcode house number. Only a few more seconds, but multiply that by a few hundred.
-this means that any interested party obtaining that list and the relevant ballot papers could identify MY ballot and ascerain how I'd voted.
True, but the ballot papers and the corresponding number list are kept separately. Putting the two together requires a Court Order. A corrupt Official with access to both would need to find your poll number amongst the several thousand numbers on the corresponding number list to read your ballot number, then search through the several thousand paper ballot forms, to find yours. Not that easy.
-Running out of ballot forms-
There are 50 in a book when you get down to the last 100 order some more!
-Voting after 10 pm-
The poll closes at 10 pm. Like it or not, that is the law. Anyone that has been issued with a ballot paper before 10 pm can vote. Anyone that does not hold a ballot paper before 10 pm can not. Even if there was as queue.
There should be an enquiry into the queues and the dubious issue of ballot papers after the poll close. If that happened. On the face of it there were not enough poll clerks to cope with the rush.
Quotable quotes
"Do I do a tick or a cross?"
"I thought it was a local election. I voted for the wrong one. New form please"
"My wife is ill in bed, can I vote for her as well?"
"Can I borrow a pen?"
"Do you need to see it?"
"I've put my own name at the bottom and put a cross next to it"
"Do I tear off the one I want?"
"Do you need to know that my son is at University and he won't be coming?"
"I want to complain about the rubbish near my bin"
@ 21:47
There is not one molecule of chivalry within you.
Such arrogance perpetually oozes from the standard issue blotchy police pen, blueknight.
Dammit, 750 quid would have been handy. Pity we went mid afternoon.
Our polling station was separated into areas by street, it was busy too, but they were very good and as quick as they could be.
Next election? If there's a deal, it'll be in five years time.
(All my predictions have been wrong so far, let's hope this one is too)
MTG. I have read and re read Blu Knights psost and can only find information as he knows, or has experienced it.
Care to discuss what is "Arrogant" about knowing your job, and passing on that information to others, in a thread where that information is HIGHLY relevant?
MTB, I also couldn't see any arrogance, only useful info, in Blueknight's post.
BK - thanks, good to get a report straight from the front lines as it were.
"I thought that a secret ballot meant that my vote was anonymous once I'd posted my ballot paper?"
You're not alone! Lots of people believe this. There's usually a newspaper story and FAQ about it somewhere each election.
As blueknight points out, it's not strictly true, but it is subject to very very stringent legislation governing the times it might need to be put together.
Your local council will usually have an FAQ about it on their website too, like this one.
"Quotable quotes
"Do I do a tick or a cross?"
"I thought it was a local election. I voted for the wrong one. New form please"
"My wife is ill in bed, can I vote for her as well?"
"Can I borrow a pen?"
"Do you need to see it?"
"I've put my own name at the bottom and put a cross next to it"
"Do I tear off the one I want?"
"Do you need to know that my son is at University and he won't be coming?"
"I want to complain about the rubbish near my bin"..."
Oh, fantastic...
I particularly like the last one! :)
"Next election? If there's a deal, it'll be in five years time."
And if no deal? We may be doing this all over again before the year's out! Argh!
"..I have read and re read Blu Knights psost and can only find information as he knows, or has experienced it."
I'm with Jiks & FT on this. Registering a big 'Huh..?!?' at that comment, MTG. Care to expand?
"Do you need to know that my son is at University and he won't be coming?"
IMHO, BK's comment was a useful contribution - info from the horse's mouth is always worth having.
But I can understand the reason for the above quote - I also have a son away at university; his full name was clearly visible on the official list and I can see nothing to prevent an imposter giving it as his own and receiving a ballot paper (it is almost certainly possible to find out students' home addresses).
I appreciate that this form of fraud would be a drop in the ocean - it's just the principle of the thing.
JuliaM -
Your 'Huh' is really a 'Huff' which has been evident after ridicule on a superior blog for confusing the words 'police' and 'policing'.
MTG. You always where, and obviously remain to be, a total wanker.
Just fuck off and talk to the "natives" or something.
XX In a poor combination of crude and grammatically incorrect German and misspelled English, you were always highly insulting to British subjects when you called yourself 'Von Spreuth'.
Being known as the Furor better suits a feeble minded Scot who pretends to be German and dresses up as a Viking at weekends. XX
You obviously have no clue as to what you are talking about.
And when did they let you out of your secure accomodation any way?
I hope you are remembering to take your medication.
Oh, any bye the way. I am ENTITLED to carry the name von Spreuth. So up yours.
The politicians of the 1980s looked forward to the 5 minutes of fame by proxy, afforded to them when they were parodied on the 'Spitting Image' TV programme.
The blogging equivalent of such fame occurs as a result of being splashed with the vitriolic ink that issues endlessly from MTG's venomous quill.
"But I can understand the reason for the above quote - I also have a son away at university; his full name was clearly visible on the official list and I can see nothing to prevent an imposter giving it as his own and receiving a ballot paper..."
Indeed. When my mother's ballot papers arrived, so did my father's, in the same post. He died in October.
Someone could easily have voted 'for' him, had my mother not been honest and handed the card in to the polling station on the day with a covering note...
"....after ridicule on a superior blog for confusing the words 'police' and 'policing'."
Ahhh, now it's clear. As mud.
I have a rather different recollection of that event.
"The blogging equivalent of such fame occurs as a result of being splashed with the vitriolic ink that issues endlessly from MTG's venomous quill."
Ah, but 'Spitting Image' were lethal, precise assassins. MTG seems to prefer a 'spray & pray' technique...
Next election, all Labour's drones will turn up at the polling station at 9:59 pm, claim they weren't allowed to vote and claim their £750. By then, that'll almost be enough for a beer.
They'll have to settle for the beer. They certainly won't have enough for a packet of fags!
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