I am a poll clerk AMA

[TheRozzers]

I was a poll clerk in the general election yesterday. Feel free to ask me any questions, it was a fascinating day!

I too was a polling clerk yesterday. We had a few issues with parents trying to take pictures of their recently-turned 18 year olds making their first vote (no phones/cameras allowed to be used in the polling station) we also had a few people who got huffy about having to show their ID, but otherwise things were pretty smooth. The worst part for me was the MP representing Reform party coming in and trying to be charming towards polling staff (what a great job you are doing, etc) while talking overly loudly about how their party can make things so much better for everyone. The polling station's presiding officer stood chatting to him enthusiastically for about 20 minutes right next to the voting booths. Very unprofessional and I'm sure against the rules. I had to get up and leave after a while as he was irritating me so much.

I’m getting £225 (minus tax). The one I did in May was £200 for the day. Doesn’t seem enough though. Yesterday was relentless.

In my polling station venue there are actually two polling stations in the same room. So there are two desks that you collect the ballot from.
One of them has 7 roads of people, the other has 12. Inevitably the 12 road polling station is much busier - yesterday I had to queue for 3 or 4 minutes and there was no queue at the other desk.

I know the roads are roughly the same (density + metre length) as we're on a Victorian era grid style layout. Why would one polling station have far fewer voters allocated to it than others?

That's not the same thing?

The people had their ID so they could vote. And you find them using their street name, it just takes a bit longer. Poll card is absolutely not required.

I hope you weren't telling people they should have brought it!

It's to do with the number of registered voters as well, not a straight geographical split. It probably should have been split a bit more evenly though.

He should have been asked to leave and reported!
Very poor from the PO.

Thanks for answering @TheRozzers and @Justcallmebebes

Someone I know had to explain to their polling clerk yesterday what the voter authority certificate was!

How do you know there were no spoiled ballots?

I was a verification assistant (counter) last night and we had maybe 10 spoilt ballots in our team. Everything from profanities, to policy suggestions, to penis'

I'm desperate to know from someone that spoilt their ballot....what they thought the point was, they just quietly got put to the side. The candidates didn't see them, so the only persons time you've wasted was your own 😂and you've not got any of whatever the point you were making across.

I think she is referring to accidentally spoiled ballots, where a new paper would be requested. The last sentence says she doesn't know about spoiled ballots placed into the boxes

Did you get any misbehaved dogs?
There was a yappy little Pomeranian in my polling station yesterday which tried to savage a bigger dog. Was chaos for a couple of minutes!

What are your plans today? I was a PO yesterday and today I feel dreadful. Working from home but also took a long lunch break nap.

Did you have any quiet moments?

My PCs were paid £200 yesterday and I was paid £270 to be PO so it seemingly does vary from area to area.

Dogs aren't officially allowed in the polling stations but our presiding officer was quite relaxed and let some in yesterday.

Usually the tellers outside are happy to look after the dogs for a few minutes.

What are your plans today? I was a PO yesterday and today I feel dreadful. Working from home but also took a long lunch break nap.

I don't blame you! I'm pretty tired today but luckily not working. DC woke me up at 5.30am which didn't help.

Why do they scan the voting slip they give you ?

I queried the position of the booths yesterday.
The part where you stand and 'make your mark ' was facing the (small) hall where people were queuing. You could see where abouts on the ballot paper people were marking.

My concerns were dismissed !

The booths should have been , in my opinion , the other way round.

I might write to the Presiding Officer to raise the concern.

Assume you mean scan with their eyes? No electrical scanning happened in my poll station.

Poll clerk 1 is in charge of finding the voter on the list, locating their electoral number and reading it out to poll clerk 2.

Poll clerk 2 has to write the electoral number down on a ballot paper issue list and ensure the ballot paper they give out has a matching number to the one on the list. That's why poll
Clerk 2 will scan the ballot paper to make sure the numbers match.

It's in the hope that there is a future where you can vote 'none of the above'. You are still exercising your right to vote by not picking any of the waste of space people on the ballot.

I was a count assistant last night and at my venue the candidates were shown all the spoilt ballots so that they could agree they were indeed spoilt. Interesting that your venue did things differently!

I certainly hope mine were, that's encouraging. I did not draw a cocknballs but wrote clearly by two boxes what I thought.

Did you see anyone famous come in??

So how do the door knocker know who to approach the next time? Someone must have access to them?

In all counts the spoilt ballots are shown to the candidates.

Prior to announcement All candidates are called to a table to agree they are happy with the verification officers decision they are clearly spoilt. This is the final stage before announcing

Oh that’s odd, that definitely didn’t happen at ours, the clearly spoilt ones were set aside, the supervisors decided on the ones that were questionable, but not all the candidates were even at ours and a couple came right at the end for the announcement.

at ours absolutely no one saw/cared about the spoilt ones, they definitely didn’t make an impact or a statement of any sort and we’re so few and far between that they were forgotten instantly with the business of counting.

I think it might be a case of just not understanding on my part. As far as I experienced - the spoilt ballots didn’t count, the content didn’t get noted and you’ve only wasted your own time by travelling to the polling station. Probably easier/more effective to tweet/email the relevant person with your thoughts if you want them heard. As youre not exercising your right to vote by not voting 🤷‍♀️

i can understand in countries where voting is compulsory, but here you’d have the same
effect by staying at home

Did you see anyone famous come in??

Just an ageing pop star's aunty 😊