This country is doomed

Don’t you have to have a level of English to get citizenship and therefore the right to vote?

It's not clear what Democracy Volunteers are alleging occurred or whether they actually alerted polling station staff to potential offences. Their report makes no mention of alerting staff.

@1dayatatime I read the excuse is language barriers hence why the men can be closer to coherce.

In what way ?

If this "family voting " is true, ie male family members telling the women how to vote doesn't anyone else think we have far deeper issues ?

I cannot fathom telling my two DC.how to vote or trying to!
One has just turned 18 and it's exciting to me that she has this right . I also wouldnt ask.her who she voted for and wouldn't care .

I saw it reported that the greens were also campaigning immediately outside polling stations on the day which is also illegal.

I thought they would win by a big margin anyway, but they should not get away with acting illegally if indeed they have

Agreed but being with someone actually in a polling booth regardless of whether you intend to influence them on their vote is an offence.

If you are near someone in a polling booth then it needs to be proven that you are trying to influence their vote.

this is what i'd refer to as a 'low information post'

If there are no repercussions then yes they are pointless. We need to stop pussyfooting around and uphold our laws as should the UN be able to uphold international law.

Thanks but the definition of the offence is

(a) being with someone at a polling booth,
or
(b) being near a booth while another person is voting,
with intent to influence how they vote or whether they vote

Democracy Volunteers may have seen someone near a booth while another person is voting but have no way of knowing whether that person was intending to influence how the other voted.

Here to help:

So firstly "family voting" is not a family turning up to a polling station to vote independently.

Instead under the Ballot Secrecy Act 2023 a new offence was inserted (so called family voting offence" into the Representation of the People Act 1983: ‘Influencing voters at polling booths’ (new section 62C). The offence is about (a) being with someone at a polling booth, or (b) being near a booth while another person is voting, with intent to influence how they vote or whether they vote. It is punishable (on summary conviction) by up to 6 months’ imprisonment and/or a fine.

So it's about being accompanied into a polling booth rather than being accompanied into a polling station.

Secondly the statement from Manchester City Council said: "It is extremely disappointing that Democracy Volunteers have waited until after polls have closed to make such claims."

In response Democracy Volunteers said “It is a normal international standard not to issue a comment until after a voting has finished, another accepted aspect of election observation is that you are encouraged to ask questions of staff.
This we did in a number of polling stations when the relevant presiding officer was available. Obviously they can be very busy so we don’t seek to interrupt their work. We posed questions about family voting in several polling stations."

Here is a further explanation on who Democracy Volunteers are and what family voting is:

https://fullfact.org/politics/democracy-volunteers-family-voting/

Any religious extreme tends to be misogynistic. Look no further than America where pregnant women are dying due to a lack of medical treatment, or being kept on life support while technically dead so that they can grow a baby.

Look at reforms admiration of the regime that allows this to happen.

Claiming misogynists are only of a certain race or religion is to ignore most of the evidence around you.

Aye me too. I'll on the vodka by 6pm if I stay on here :)

You won't respond to me on here again - and if you do. I won't be responding to you. Horrible? That's one word for it

By the way. My mum and I used to visit asylum seekers in Dungavel. People who were trying to build a life here. My mum helped people who had nothing. Sent them food parcels. Went as far as London to visit them when they got asylum. Because even though she's had a very tough life - she spends most of it trying to help other people

You don't need to make snide digs telling me how hard some people have it. I'm already aware thanks

No I will not be quiet. What happened to your mum is horrible but it’s still a false equivalence. Make it systematised in law and culture and you might have a point. Though if you think there aren’t people that want to move the UK in that direction you’d be seriously misguided. I will never vote for a party that panders to Islamic factions as I do not want to live under an Islamic regime.

You and me both @scottishgirl69. I’m abandoning this thread, fancy a cuppa?

I am completely sick of being on a thread like this where people are just trying to "gotcha" one another and make snippy snide digs at one another just because the Greens happened to win. There's no debate going on here. Just - you're right. I'm wrong

And if people care so much about the conditions some women live in - go do something about it. Go out and campaign. Do something to try and improve peoples lot.

Don't sit making snide digs at other people and use other peoples life experiences to take cheap shots at people online.

I haven’t backtracked at all. I think these allegations were made up. I don’t see the point of these powerless observers. I have no idea what their motivation is. And what’s more I don’t care. Can we now put this to bed? You must be bored out of your skull to hound me for the best part of 24 hours. I’m not engaging with you any more.

Oh please. Be quiet. If you don't think that misogyny exists across all cultures you need to give your head a wobble. I grew up in a home where my mum was regularly beaten and was almost killed by my stepfather back in the day when battering your wife was just a domestic. He took his elbow off her face one day and split her lip in two and wouldn't let her go to hospital - she got plasters instead, she still has the scars.

He mentally abused her as well and gaslit her. Stole from her - she tried to support other women after she managed to get away from him by opening an advice centre in our home town and she knows other women who weren't so lucky - they didn't make it out alive. One young girl she tried to help was persuaded by social work to go back to her violent ex and was stabbed to death -she was 20. She had a baby.

People are too busy trying to one up one another and tear other people to shreds on here just to prove a point

Your post is offensive to me - I hope you understand why.

How incredibly offensive to the likes of Afghan women, for example, to draw some sort of false equivalence

I'm not answering this. Misogyny exists across society in general.

According to their report Democracy Volunteers informed elections staff at Manchester City Council about their findings only after the polls closed. They do not claim to have reported what they saw to polling station staff.

Democracy Volunteers don't report what actually happened. They just refer to "family voting" without describing exactly what this means. Is it just a family group all rocking up at the polling station together or is it multiple persons in the polling booths & apparent coercion or collusion?

https://democracyvolunteers.org/major-concerns-over-family-voting-in-gorton-and-denton-poll/

Is that what people are wanting? Yeh we don’t need that.

Interesting… what do you suppose Mothin Ali’s views are on feminism? He seems to only allow his wife’s eyeballs to be seen in public…