Polling Day - School Closure

[user1495955132]

Just trying to canvas opinion as they're very mixed amongst my circle of friends & family. DD's (year 3/primary) school is being used as a polling station and for the first time since we've been attending the school it's being kept open for the day. They will only be using the dinner hall and the two sets of internal doors which lead into the school will be kept locked. All children bring or are supplied with a packed lunch, and all classrooms lead straight into the playground, so no reason for them to be in the corridors or anywhere near the dinner hall. All necessary safeguarding measures in place. However, it just doesn't sit right with me. Not sure whether it's in light of recent events and all the political unrest at the moment, but if anything was going to happen at the school, surely polling day, and giving the general public (and random nutters) access to the school, would create the perfect opportunity. I'm a SAHM so it doesn't make any difference to me, and I appreciate that for working parents taking days off for school closures is a pita, but dates like polling day are worked out well in advance so I don't see why the school can't work these around inset days. It's a smallish village school (approx 360 children) but we are close to an international airport and recently had an incident with a gunman on the loose 2 roads away from the school - cue police helicopters, school lockdown etc. Turned out to be the local nutter with an air rifle who was off his face on drugs, but still ..... We have all been informed that keeping children home for the day would not be looked upon favourably, and as one helpful teacher pointed out, if somebody got it into their heads, it would be easy to stand behind the fence and spray the playground with bullets on any day of the week, so why should polling day pose any more of a risk than any other . So, my AIBU is, should I stick with my gut instinct that it's just not worth the risk? There's at least another 3 mums that I know of in DDs class that feel the same, one of the school governors is not happy about it and a friends mum who works for Ofsted also thinks it's an unnecessary risk, so I'm kind of thinking it's not just me being an overprotective parent, iyswim.

OP - I would ask about the toilets in that case then.

The polling staff should have toilets they can access without leaving the polling station (leaving the locked area would count, or certainly would have when I worked there, as leaving the polling station). Is there definately not a staff toilet in the kitchen area?

There shouldn't be people coming back and forth through the locked door between the polling station and another building/area.

Even better would be online voting - if we can pay our tax and bank online I fail to see how a secure voting system

Sorry, but there is no security which can guarantee that there is not somebody standing behind the voter and controlling who got the vote.

Postal votes are also unreliable and should as in earlier times only be available to those with a work-related need for them. There is no secret ballot comparable with the polling booth.

the reason polling is always on a Thursday is because historically people were always paid on a Friday and so by Thursday would be pretty short of cash and unable to go to the pub therefore leaving them fit and sober for voting

Myth. The fixed date for voting goes back only to 1918 - before then general elections were spread over weeks. Thursday was chosen in 1918 and has stuck since so that if there were three big parties each could have meeting in the Town Hall on one of the three evenings before the poll, who got which being determined by local agreement or failing that drawing lots.

I agree, Andrew. I don't think you can put a price on being able to turn up in person and put your cross on your ballot paper.

"Postal votes are also unreliable and should as in earlier times only be available to those with a work-related need for them"

Uhhhh... or medical. What if someone is scheduled for surgery on polling day?? They shouldn't have to miss out on voting.

TeaStory Restricting postal votes would disenfranchise some people but the effect would be random and limited and would affect all the parties more or less equally. What happens now allows the leaders of a "community" - always men - to cast all that community's votes as they think fit, and the effect is not random.

Andrewoffgg I don't want postal votes restricted, I was just responding to the idea that it should only be available to people for work reasons because it's unfair on people who have surgery etc.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence.

Andrewofgg sorry

My school is always used for polling and never shuts as the library room is used and the door connecting it to the corridor is locked. I think you are overthinking the risk. The public will have no more access to the children in their classes than any other day.

My kids school has always been open but one we used to vote in never was as there was no way to section any part of it off.

ours is open however all but the early years are out on trips as the design of the school means that they would not be able to use the main playground or hall. pick up is a nightmare as they let one year group out at a time through the main entrance which takes forever if you have children in several year groups we have a huge group of parents that are late then insist on engaging a conversation with the teacher manning the door while we are still waiting for the older on very small door.Childrens centre in sight of school they run one two hour session on a Thursday .

Restricting postal votes only to people with a work related need for them would have a serious negative impact on the disabled community.

True: add people with a disability and my apologies for missing that. But not people who just find it more convenient.

Andrewofgg You can't really start that. I'm not disabled personally. However I am the main carer for two children with unpredictable health conditions so where do you draw the line?

Why not let people vote in the most convenient way? Making it more inconvenient for people isn't going to do anything for voter turn-out - which is something this country has a huge issue with already.

Ffs everyone should be allowed to vote without visiting a polling station. I have to leave very early to get a train for work and often get back late.

Everyone should have a postal vote if they want to. People should be able to vote online too.

Ffs everyone should be allowed to vote without visiting a polling station. I have to leave very early to get a train for work and often get back late.

Everyone should have a postal vote if they want to. People should be able to vote online too.

Everyone should have a postal vote if they want to.

Then they need to tighten it up otherwise Tower Hamlets will happen again.

If the polling station staff can't access toilets, for example, within the locked area then the rest of the building can't be open.

Really? There are no toilets in the area of our school that is locked off and the rest of the school is always open.

I don't believe there is any need to use schools as polling stations. There are plenty of other public buildings to use. I've always thought it was odd that we disrupt children's education so uneccesarily.

I don't believe there is any need to use schools as polling stations. There are plenty of other public buildings to use. I've always thought it was odd that we disrupt children's education so uneccesarily.

No there isn't really. It has to be easily accessible and within each ward.

"I don't believe there is any need to use schools as polling stations. There are plenty of other public buildings to use"

Do I have to repeat myself ad nauseum?

No there aren't

Please read some of the sensible reason on this thread why some public buildings aren't suitable, and please consider that not all voters live in towns and cities where there are plenty of public buildings.

Our school, which is used, is the only public building on the estate. There isn't even a pub. There is one church which is also used but that is over on the other side of the estate.
There are no other public buildings. This is on the edge of a large town.

I'm more concerned that you think training days can just be whenever you want them. They usually involve a visiting trainer who has been booked weeks ago...which is why from time to time you get random inset days, as the trainer/s may be booked up on scheduled inset days, especially for new ways of doing things, or child protection etc.

Or did you think we all just have a jolly on those days?

I can remember my school being used as a polling station. The classroom nearest the entrance doors was used. Screens were put up across the corridor, and that class decamped to the hall for the day!
There wasn't the security that would be expected today! And these were the days when we all had to be vigilant due to the IRA. I don't suppose it even crossed my mother's mind to keep me at home because "something might happen".

Voting hours 07.00 to 22.00 and a polling station in every ward is not making it inconvenient.

I would prefer to have voting over two days and those days the weekend - but the only real protection for secrecy from intrusive family, neighbours, people at work, etc., is the polling booth.