Tomorrow I’ll be a Presiding Officer in a polling station. AMA

[Tygertiger]

This may not be the most thrilling AMA in the world, but if there is anything you’ve always wondered about the voting process, go ahead!

Hope the day goes well, OP, and thanks for an interesting thread

😆

Morning all - busy busy here.

I’ve been shouted at & called discriminatory for the blu-tac holding the strings for the pencils not being central in the booth.

Such fun!

Who are you discriminating against?

People with OCD?!

left handers

Apparently so. I mean, the string is about 3 foot long but no matter.

They have been moved centrally. Democracy may continue.

...Unless there are accusations or suspicions of fraud, presumably...?!

People who want to steal bookies' pencils - by tying them up with string in the first place?!

It's much more difficult now, ever since Argos went fully electronic!

I’ve had my first voters bringing me snacks! And some lovely people who had done a postal vote already but just wanted to pop in and have a chat. I’ve also stroked four very nice dogs. Going well so far 😁

I am overrun with dogs. It’s like bloody Crufts in here!!

I thought phones weren’t allowed to be used in polling stations? Are you as staff allowed to use them? Is it strictly enforced for people voting? Not having a go, just curious….i always want to take a photo of my dog in the booth but am scared to get my phone out!

Photos aren’t allowed, but we’re all
killing time on our phones. It’s very boring.

Staff are allowed to use phones. We need them to post on here and ring our inspectors and gossip with other PO!!

I'm signing up for this next time. It sounds great. Where do they advertise?

When you all talk about being 'in' voting booths, I wonder if we have a different set up at ours. Definitely not anything you could be 'in'.

Agreed. Mine are cardboard on top of a table

We’re all celebrating being over the halfway point!

Same!!! On the home stretch now girls.

What’s everyone’s turn out like? We’re almost at 60% Inc postal.

We (dh, ds and I) were the only ones in ours when we went at 10am.

We reckon our turnout is 45% so far. Disappointing. Come on everyone, 3 hours to go! Go vote if you haven’t done it yet!

I voted at 6pm. The poll clerk / presiding officer both confirmed a good turnout (289 people of a possible 1000 had voted so far) which they described as encouraging.

I don't know what the % of postal votes are, but our local turnout is usually around 68%. I know that the hours of 6pm to 8pm can be some of the busiest though.

The weather has now turned awful, so I hope it doesn't mean that those who were undecided think "fuck it"

Thanks for the thread, OP. Hope the last few hours aren't too bad for you.

There was actually a queue at ours today!

And some very confused people at the School Fair, looking for the Polling Station.

Do they start counting some boxes before 10pm? Because if a box is full middle of the afternoon can they take that one to the counting centre and count it?