So those people sitting outside the Polling station...

Each polling station has two poll clerks at a desk, who find you on the roll, check your ID and issue a ballot paper. In addition, they have a presiding officer, who supervises and deals with any issues that may crop up (e.g. I never signed up for a postal vote and I never received it either). The person warning voters about the teller was most likely a presiding officer. Managing queues and dealing with tellers is in the JD for them and issuing ballot papers requires no more than 2 people, so no one was being kept from their work by the teller 😊 - I am speaking as a poll clerk BTW, not a teller!

I actually asked if they minded giving me their polling card code number and said it’s just so we know who’s turned up or not and I did say not to worry, it’s not mandatory, it was fine if they didn’t want to! It’s a funny thing as you say, I’m not sure of the point of it, I was supporting my local candidate but we couldn’t get all the numbers anyway, so really a pointless task. I also would at want to be called upon to vote if I hadn’t at that point, it’s entirely up to the person if they vote or not. I guess is one party has a teller the others think they ought to aswell and it goes on

Nobody is suggesting that it's 'sinister'. They just don't want to be hassled by somebody asking to see their name and address and voter number, acting in a way that many people would assume they are electoral officials, as a necessary/helpful part of the voting process.

Surely you must be aware that people will say anything to get rid of an annoying person knocking on their door and canvasing at an inconvenient moment; and if they are genuinely supporters, it seems astonishing that they would not bother to turn up to actually make their support count, or get in touch if they need a lift, as you've doubtless told them when identifying them as your supporters that you will gladly arrange?

But even if we assume that everybody on your list genuinely IS a strong supporter of your party, I get that you want to know if they've turned up - but that isn't our problem, and many of us don't want to give up our personal data to you just because you can't find a better way of communicating with your supporters.

Do you say "Would you mind if I checked your polling card to see if you're on our list of supporters? It's entirely optional; I'm not an electoral official at all" - and if you don't, why ever don't you?

I was a Teller yesterday and had some really good responses and some awful ones, we were only counting numbers to know if our supporters turned up and if not give them a nudge, it’s nothing sinister as people suspect, purely to eliminate who’s turned up to vote, nothing else! I won’t be doing it again however as peiple don’t understand how innocent it it and get really aggressive about it. 😬

Don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to be pissed off at a local tory who became a successful candidate the next time round sat blocking the doorway, ostensibly telling, but also asking before you went in how you would be voting.

First time I'd ever encountered it - these days I'm in an area where nobody bothers showing up except for voters.

My Labour MP is very available to constituents. However I’m not interested in defending mps in general or the Labour Party. I delivered leaflets and had a poster up but didn’t vote this time. #GC #Torylossmorethanlabourwin

Do you not think that a very large part of the problem might be their timing?

How many MPs regularly canvas their constituents for their opinions on any kind of political matters - or even ask for their honest opinions and feedback as to how well or badly they believe they're representing them - throughout the four or five years between elections?

Whatever people's political views, I think MPs would garner an enormous amount of local respect if they did actually show genuine interest in and concern for those whom they're representing when there are no votes to be had any time soon.

I've only ever seen them on the way in. Once you post your ballot and walk out through the exit, there's never anything there except the road to home.

That's disgraceful.

To be honest, I don't even think a blank, coloured rosette is nearly enough of a clear indication that they represent a party and are not part of the team of electoral officials. They're quite old-fashioned things; plus people wear colours and 'flags' for all manner of things these days.

Thanks, fair enough - I do respect you for that.

We've just had bloody Labour people round knocking on doors - the whole street, so not targeted, asking who we've voted for "so we can gauge how well we've done"! Gone 9pm and they're ringing doorbells - those of us with young kids are delighted... 🙄

(and I mean, they could just wait an hour and the exit polls would be out which will give them a much better indication..)

Here's the EC info on tellers.

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/guidance-candidates-and-agents-uk-parliamentary-elections-great-britain/polling-day/who-can-support-you-polling-day/tellers

Tellers must
• always remain outside the polling station
• only enter the polling station to cast their own vote, to vote as a proxy or to
accompany a disabled voter
• always comply with the instructions of the Returning Officer and Presiding
Officer

Tellers must not
• be able to see or hear what is happening inside the polling station
• impede, obstruct or intimidate voters on their way in or out of the polling station
• demand any information relating to a voter’s elector number, name or address
• ask to see or check a voter’s photographic ID
• ask voters to re-enter the polling station to ascertain their elector number
• have discussions with voters that may give rise to allegations of undue
influence (e.g. voting intentions, party affiliations or party campaigns)
• display any campaign material in support of or against any particular political
party or candidate other than a rosette or badge

Tellers may
• approach voters for information in accordance with instructions from the
Returning Office and Presiding Officer
• display a coloured rosette or badge displaying the name of the candidate, party
and/or emblem or description; the rosette/badge should not bear a slogan and
must not be oversized
• remind electors as they approach the polling station that they need to provide
photographic ID

I had a nice chat with a labour teller outside our polling station but only because his sister used to babysit our DD 15 years ago.

DS2 (it’s come up as I asked MIL if she’d ever seen tellers here) said they should wear tabards, like the press have to do in the F1 pit lane, so it’s obvious who they are and what they do.

i wouldn’t object to that.

They are now allowed to ask people if they have their ID with them.

I think that’s blurred a line with them as they weren’t supposed to approach on the way in.

It's probably been pointed out before, but the political parties all get access to the marked register, which shows which people voted in a polling station. So the information the tellers gather would be available to them in a few months anyway. The reason they want it today is to avoid knocking on the doors of people who've already voted.

I get significantly more annoyed about all the opinion polls that we get in the run up to the election. I also got annoyed with the BBC - when Farage decided to stand, you would have thought that he was the only candidate in the election, by the amount of publicity he got.

We had a teller and a bloke pulled over in his car and started shouting at us aggressively saying they weren’t allowed to do it.

He irritated me so I told them my address and number. It doesn’t bother me tbh

They do!
I’ve done it. It’s a thankless task and you get loads of complaints about too much and not enough canvassing and leaflets.

I agree; they often pass themselves off as part of the process when they are no such thing. Much as there is a blanket ban on the media reporting on campaign issues, opinion polls, political statements and candidates after voting starts at 7 a.m until the polls close, I think there should also be a ban campaigning activity at the same time, including tellers crowding polling station doors.

At my small polling station this evening there were 4 of them, pretty close to the door and asking to see my voting card. As I was just dropping off my postal vote I had nothing of use to them, but stopped to tell them that to waste their time. There were people behind me queuing though, as they thought they had to show the card to get past them!! And that’s in a well educated middle class southern market town/city where people should know better and the tellers should be better behaved. They should be banned.

The tellers are not supposed to approach voters on their way in to the polling station, only on their way out.

I've just been tricked by a Lib Dem "teller". No rosette on, lanyard round his neck and looking for all intents and purposes like an official.

In which case, go in, complain and the teller will get a bollocking. It's not been unknown for the Returning Officer to come round to tell people off for overstepping the mark.

There was a Tory teller at my polling station today. Also Lib Dem and labour. But it's not clear who's going to win here. Probably LD or labour but the predictions all say something different as there has been a boundary change and of course the tories are expected to lose a lot of seats. Very novel after living in a Tory safe seat for many years!

I've just been tricked by a Lib Dem "teller". No rosette on, lanyard round his neck and looking for all intents and purposes like an official.

Apparently I'm not the only one who was tricked into giving my details. The officials went back out and asked him to put his rosette back on but I do wonder how many others were tricked.

I'm pretty cross about it.

There were three tellers from three different parties outside my polling station today. All working together which I thought was nice! I was happy to give them my number. They only want to know who has voted, they don't ask who you are voting for.