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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To complain DD has been denied a vote in Cambridge?

146 replies

Novote · 11/12/2019 13:13

NC'd to avoid outing.
DD is at uni in Cambridge- she is on the electoral roll in Cambridge (not here at home) and applied for a postal vote before the deadline as she is now back home for the holidays.
No postal ballot arrived. She phone Cambridge council who said it was not actioned and they can't find the e-mail.
She has shown me the e-mail (with scanned form attachment) - it was indeed sent before the deadline and must have arrived as it was in the 'sent' folder and she did not receive a 'delivery failure' e-mail.

Cambridge City Council has been having intermittent e-mail problems (according to their website). The guy in the elections team basically did an apologetic shrug on the phone.

Is there anything DD can do to still vote? We are over 200 miles from Cambridge.
This would be her first general election and she (and I) feel angry that she did everything properly and is being denied her vote.

OP posts:

Sannapaws · 12/12/2019 13:23

Exactly! If there's no sign of your postal vote you don't wait til the day before the actual election to wonder where it is...

Wtfdoipick · 12/12/2019 13:26

If as some of us have picked up on and she applied for the wrong address then the local internet issue is irrelevant even without it she wouldn't have got a postal vote and still wouldn't have qualified for an emergency proxy.

partyhatsoff · 12/12/2019 13:34

She hasn't been 'denied 'a vote - she didn't apply correctly from your further posts.
I have friends that flew back to their home country to vote in an important referendum ( no postal option allowed) - some transatlantic. How badly does she want to use that vote??

LochJessMonster · 12/12/2019 14:03

Cambridge is strong Labour area anyway.

bridgetreilly · 12/12/2019 15:08

No, it isn't! It had a LibDem MP from 2010 to 2015.

bridgetreilly · 12/12/2019 15:12

And wikipedia tells me he only lost by 599 votes in 2015! It was a much more significant loss in 2017, but the seat is by no means safe for anyone.

LakieLady · 12/12/2019 15:26

There is a huge problem with electoral fraud in student populations which Momentum capitalised on in the last election and intend to this time too.

Got a link for this. @tiggertogger? I googled Momentum + electoral fraud and all that came up was the overspending and donations issue from last time.

LakieLady · 12/12/2019 15:30

What about people who haven't got the right ID? There are plenty of them around, mostly lower income or older.

It's a big issue for poor people. So many things require photo ID these days and nearly every form of photo ID costs money, unless you get it from your employer.

We help clients apply for provisional driving licences, as it's the cheapest photo ID that's widely accepted.

Oliversmumsarmy · 12/12/2019 15:37

Students can only vote once but they do get two ballot cards

That is appalling and this loop hole should have been closed

Wtfdoipick · 12/12/2019 15:41

Oliversmumsarmy Why?

It can be confirmed reasonably easily if they voted in both but the issue is that they live in both constituencies so need to be able to vote in a way that is convenient for them. It isn't a loop hole it is a deliberate decision to allow it to enable people to engage with democracy.

manicmij · 12/12/2019 19:54

Leaving it to the last minute to query where her voting paper had gone was a bit silly. How did she think it would get back in time if it just arrived yesterday? Will know the system next time.

Janus · 12/12/2019 20:12

Oliversmumsarmy it’s not a disgrace or a loophole! If an election was called in the summer (as majority are) most students would not be in their uni location. This exists so that students will always get a vote. I don’t think many would risk a criminal record just to get an extra vote.

SauvignonBlanche · 12/12/2019 20:15

That is appalling and this loop hole should have been closed

I disagree, as does the electoral commission. DD just came home to vote as she was on a day off but if she’d been working she had the option to vote in her student city.

manicinsomniac · 12/12/2019 20:38

If her postal vote registration didn't go through and it was therefore possible for her to vote in person, I would have been tempted to ask a friend who had a different polling station to her to vote pretending to be her. There's no ID check at all, you just to give name and address. Don't even need the polling card. I'm sure it's technically fraud but it's only getting her rightful proxy vote. Wouldn't do that if it could get the friend in trouble though. I don't know if it would or not. Couldn't be done if the postal vote was processed though and there's prob no way of knowing whether it was or not.

FourCandlesForkHandles · 12/12/2019 20:50

Cambridge council is shockingly badly run! If it was anywhere else, I'd say pursue it, but in Can ridge they won't even respond to your complaint for 3 months, and then they will just say 'nothing we can do' If you are v v lucky they may say 'sorry there is nothing we can do'. A really terrible council and they have been having computer problems (in many domains including school applications which a complete shambles of a process) for years.

Its a mess.

I'm sorry for your DD

Chocolatelover45 · 12/12/2019 21:01

Requiring photo id wouldn't stop students voting twice in two separate places. They aren't pretending to be someone else.

Oliversmumsarmy · 13/12/2019 14:20

So what is to stop students voting twice if people don’t think it is a loophole.

Andysbestadventure · 13/12/2019 14:31

Nothing @Oliversmumsarmy. We barely have the heads to count the votes, as if we have enough to check electoral fraud.

I'm registered at two addresses under two names. So I have three votes! I have repeatedly request the council remov emy old address, just as I had requested my maiden name to be removed too. Nope. 6yrs on... 🤷‍♀️

Obviously I have never used all three votes. Only ever vote once. But come on. Some people must take the piss with it.

Walkaround · 13/12/2019 16:00

Well, given that several people were wildly claiming earlier that students were practically all Momentum supporters and planning on fraudulently voting twice to boost Labour votes, then all I can say is there must have been a shit tonne of fraudulent conservative voters out there neutralising the effect.... or they might like to question their earlier assertions and admit that if voter fraud is happening on a significant scale, it's certainly not limited to student Labour supporters!!

mencken · 15/12/2019 17:21

given 30% didn't get off their arses and vote last week, it doesn't look like electoral fraud is having much effect, does it?

Original poster

Novote · 16/12/2019 06:36

Perhaps it means the Tories would have had an even bigger majority without it?!

In the event DD’s vote would not have made a difference, which is some consolation, and she has definitely learned her lesson for the next election, though at 23 she will doubtless be a fully independent working adult by then.

OP posts:

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