AIBU to ask you to please ONLY fold your voting paper in half!

[BurnTheBlackSuit]

I am counting tonight, and whilst I get paid more the long the count goes on, it is so annoying when people have folded their votes into 4 or 8 or made a swan out of it before posting it in the ballot box.

Please please, just a simple fold in half - one crease- there is absolutely no need to do any more folds than this!!!

I folded mine once today 😇 Next time I'm attempting the swan 😈

They were preflight ours today

Was that a paper plane fold?

Err, no idea about tearing bits off postal votes or not! Sorry. They are all opened when we get them and I've never seen tear off bits on them?

No idea about pencils, but we definately don't have time or any opportunity to rub out crosses!

We get £100 for first 6 hours and £15 per hour or part hour thereafter.

Ballot boxes in my area have nice big slots :)

One fold only from me and no prefolding. I shall consider any fancy origami ballots as mumsnetter votes tonight

Oh I'm v sorry, 8 voted hours ago - long before i saw your plea - and I folded an extra time.

I'm interested in counting though, so glad I read this thread. I'll contact election office next week.

They told me to fold twice - the slot on the box wouldn't have allowed a folded once to have fitted I don't think.

I folded once, in honour of this thread. It didn't fit, so I had to fold again.
Sorry OP. I tried.

In my small village polling station we had a different box this time. Not the black metal tin with a tiny slot but a large grey box with a big clear plastic slot. Posh eh? I didn't have to fold my ballot paper at all!

I was told to fold it so that the bar code was visible. This meant I folded it into thirds....

The lady at the ballot box tonight told us to fold it twice.

I'm not poll clerking this year but I got paid £135 previously. Not ex council either.

Folded it once today and it fitted ok in box but last time I had to file it twice to make it fit.

Folded it once, thinking of you OP. Gawd bless all you vote counters.

They folded mine once before they gave it to me, maybe to encourage me not to fold it again.

Which I wouldn't have, being a lazy person.

They pre-folded mine once (the long way so it was a rectangle rather than the short way so it was a square) so I re-folded it on the same line. Did have to get the lady to jiggle the box because I couldn't fit mine in...it almost spat itself back out of the box. Apparently, it's been far busier than May today (although we only had a 20% turnout as it was PCC only in our area).

folded mine along the dotted line, went to put it in the box, wouldn't fit.

Had to fold it a second time.

Phew! - finished just after 4:30am - high turnout - very few spoilt papers.- home by 5am - slept till midday - all ready for the next count!

I read this thread yesterday afternoon and remembered it when I went to vote in the evening. I folded the ballot paper in half and for the first time ever, it went into the ballot box without requiring further folding. The boxes in the past have had a much smaller opening.

Similar here Dan home by 5, a bit of sleep before up to get son off to school. Then another few hours before lunch.

High turnout and very few spoilt ballots. And no origami.

just curious - what sort of thing is typically written on a spoilt ballot?

1. nothing
2. two crosses

Very few spoilt ballot papers for me either- I saw one blank and one with 2 crosses.

And lots of no fold or one fold papers- yay! And no origami either.

We finished about 2.30am

But we were short on counters, so if you fancy doing it next time, please sign up!!

Wow your voters are boring. I spoilt my ballot paper when the election was for Police Commissioners. I took a few felt pens and did a pretty picture, I hope it made someone smile.

I think all mntters should attempt an origami of some form for the general election later this year! 😈

There were a lot of spoiled/voids ballots for PCC.