Reports of Queues of people unable to vote?

[Briantllb 10]

When you consider people have to go to work the average time to finish is 5 - 6pm with the size of the place you have to vote in im not surprised things have gone pear shaped.

 

The idiot in charge of the election John Mothersole (also the council chief executive) stuffed up to be blunt.

 

Not enough staff at the polling stations, polling station staff unable to understand english properly and one ballot box for both elections.

 

You dont need to be a rocket scientist to work out that two elections = two ballot boxes. You would think on his salary he would be able to figure that out.

The sorting out of the Ballots took more than 6 hours the first ballot boxes came into Ponds Forge at 22:10 pm and when I left the count at 3.30 am they were still trying to sort the General election ballots from the Council election ballots.

[Tony 10]

Have you wondered what budget and criteria was given by central government to the local authorities to host the election?

 

There might be more to this than meets the eye.

[Briantllb 10]

I have no idea there may well be more than meets the eye.

 

However;

 

The returning officer is under a statutory duty to ensure that sufficent resources are made available for the election to be carried out. The ballot box fiasco was just stupid. John Mothersole was not looking happy on thursday night as the reality of his stuff up became obvious. And Blunkett, Betts et al, were looking a tad annoyed too.

[Briantllb 10]

Of Course it could also be a deliberate tactic to delay the count so that most of the observers would leave and they could ensure a labour victory by doing more to rig the votes than just fraudulent postal voting . Mind you with so many television cameras and other media people present all night that would be a bit unlikely. There is always one reporter who spills the beans and even New Labour aren't that stupid, are they?

[bazjea 10]

Of Course it could also be a deliberate tactic to delay the count so that most of the observers would leave and they could ensure a labour victory by doing more to rig the votes than just fraudulent postal voting . Mind you with so many television cameras and other media people present all night that would be a bit unlikely. There is always one reporter who spills the beans and even New Labour aren't that stupid, are they?

 

But it was the Lib/ Dem council who organised the polling stations,

the officials and the count, and then shot their own candidates

in the foot. It would appear they were the stupid ones

[maggi 10]

You dont need to be a rocket scientist to work out that two elections = two ballot boxes.

 

We discussed this on the night, as my first impression was also that it would make the count slower. The conclusion we came to though was that even with the level of invigilation in the polling station, enough mistakes would probably happen that some level of sorting would be required. It may have been easier to acknowledge that at the outset and just allow for sorting the votes.

 

Have you wondered what budget and criteria was given by central government to the local authorities to host the election?

 

It's a thought. Do they (central government) have any say in it?

 

Could the budget have been so significantly smaller that it reduced the polling capacity significantly? As well as the people who didn't get to vote after 10pm, I wonder how many just didn't bother when they saw the length of the queues. Yes, I know that's their own choice, but no-one can say it's a good thing.

Edited May 8, 2010 by maggi

[mtbiker 10]

Nobody has ever had to wait several hours at a polling station, this is unprecedented. You cannot say people were 'leaving it too late' because they didn't foresee something that has never happened before.

 

Why are people so unable to understand that point?

 

Exactly, so some would argue that the polling stations couldn't have foreseen something that has never happened before and are therefore shouldn't take all the blame. A case of an unfortunate set of circumstances. Though it appears to have been somewhat mis-managed once a potential problem presented itself.

[mtbiker 10]

The idiot in charge of the election John Mothersole (also the council chief executive) stuffed up to be blunt.

 

Not enough staff at the polling stations, polling station staff unable to understand english properly and one ballot box for both elections.

 

.

 

Did you vote BNP by any chance?

 

From my experience of voting I don't think the polling station staff needed to understand English. Handover polling card -- Check details and number -- write number on voting register --- hand ballot papers. Barely any human interaction required.

[Ouchcat 10]

I can't believe some people - 15 hours to vote. They even had the opportunity to post their vote. They leave it to the last minute.

 

It ain't Tesco - they don't open up another checkout when a queue is busy!

 

No, it's much more important that Tesco so if Tesco can manage to do it then the government damn well should do.

 

My husband gets up at five every morning and works a 12 shift getting home at around 8pm. In his normal working day he only has a two hour window to vote. We went down to vote at around 8pm, we queued for around 40 mins to vote but considered going home and coming back later as we thought it might be quieter - if we had done that then we wouldn't have been able to vote, we would have been turned away.

 

Voting is a right, not a privilege. If you turn up at the voting station within the alloted hours you should be able to vote. People who say 'you should have turned up earlier' are totally moronic. How can you judge that every single person who was turned away was just there late because they couldn't be bothered to go earlier.

 

And this has never, ever happened before so why should people have thought that they had to turn up early because otherwise they'd be turned away.

 

To be honest I'm a bit more worried that people who can make stupid statements like yours are allowed to vote rather than people who tried to vote in the last hour the stations were open.

[cgksheff 44]

Have you wondered what budget and criteria was given by central government to the local authorities to host the election?

 

There might be more to this than meets the eye.

 

There have been changes over the years with authority moving from Local Government to The Electoral Commission, but ......

 

.... the responsibility legally falls upon the local Returning Officer to ensure that he has got what he needs to do the job properly.

If Central Government is not providing enough, they should be screaming blue murder well in advance of Polling Day.

 

Not enough pencils? You couldn't make it up.

[cgksheff 44]

I may have missed it, but has anyone mentioned anything about whether or not the polling stations affected by queues, and turning away voters, were in wards where it would have made any difference to the results?

[Ouchcat 10]

Have you wondered what budget and criteria was given by central government to the local authorities to host the election?

 

There might be more to this than meets the eye.

 

Regardless, no matter what kind of funding is given it really does not cost any money to station someone at the end of the line at 10pm to turn people away because the queue is closed.

 

That's what they should have done - turned away people who arrived after 10pm, not people who were queing before 10pm.