Polling stations and pencil

[Symbollove]

Ok I am probably being odd, but why do polling stations have pencil to cast your vote, I don't like the idea of pencil can be rubbed off. Am not saying that will happen. But why not just have a pen? If I knew I would've taken a pen with me. Also the pencil I used was in dire need of sharpening, I went at 7.30am so not like an awful lot of people used it.
I can't remember if it's always been pencil but just occurred to me this morning when i voted

Because pens run out pencils can be sharpened. No one has the opportunity rub it out. You put your vote in a sealed box it's not opened until it goes to be counted. And someone could tell if it had been tampered with Then it is opened in front of witnesses. The counters are never alone also they have thousands to count do you think they have time to rub out crosses? The rumour of pencil votes being rubbed out was startec by UKIP in the Brexit referendum and it is nonsense. But there is nothing to stop people voting with a pen if they want to.

I used a pen today.

Because I hate writing in pencil.

I always press my pencil down really hard though so it can’t be rubbed out!
I did the same today

If someone generally wanted to rig it it would surely be easier to swap the ballot papers than to spend hours rubbing out crosses.

“The rumour of pencil votes being rubbed out was startec by UKIP in the Brexit referendum”

No, it was doing the rounds the day of the Scottish independence referendum... so definitely before that.

tabulahrasa

“The rumour of pencil votes being rubbed out....

Highly appropriate user name, in the context of the discussion!

@Puzzledandpissedoff and @DingDongSchadenfreudeOnHigh

I just got back from voting and the pencils in my polling booth actually said "Shaw's Electoral Supplies" down the side! I've never before noticed and, had I have been asked I would have said that the pencils were just normal HB pencils sellotaped to a piece of string.

I said to my partner after we'd cast our votes how much I like the voting pencils

Online voting would be much too susceptible to hacking/manipulation. Unlike with paper ballots, if someone finds a way to manipulate the vote tallies they can potentially alter the result with no trace. To scale up vote fraud with paper ballots is really hard because you have to deal with lots of pieces of paper which are never out of the officials' sight.

Ragwort, I'm now wondering if we voted at the same station... first time I have ever seen this information displayed, and i've been voting there for years! I wondered why the makeshift poster had been pasted on the booths, but know I know

Pfft, now I know...

Would probably have checked more carefully if using a magical polling pencil

Just said that their exit poll on BBC radio 5 is predicting an 80 plus seat Majority Tory goverment!!!