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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think that people turned away from voting should have got down there earlier?

245 replies

aloevera · 06/05/2010 23:19

They've had all day. Or could have done a postal vote? Or am I too harsh?

OP posts:
LittleMrsHappy · 07/05/2010 09:10

so now we have a mnetter, trying to dictate peoples lives! what next.......

JaneS · 07/05/2010 09:11

'Don't understand why the "students with no cards" weren't just told to feck off though...'

It does actually say on my polling card that you don't need to take it with you! Obviously most people wouldn't be so stupid, but I can imagine someone voting for the first time thinking 'oh, look, I don't need this' and losing it.

SilkyBreeks · 07/05/2010 09:17

"It does actually say on my polling card that you don't need to take it with you!"

I didn't know that - it's been a while since I cast my vote at a polling station, I always had a terror of losing my card, I thought you weren't allowed to vote without it (I am one of those people who is really scared of police officers/nuns/anyone in a uniform though). I'll take back all my "ffs" thoughts about those who didn't bring them then even more of a rubbish excuse for the chaos!

McDreamy · 07/05/2010 09:18

YABU another (non practising at the moment) nurse here if I had been working on my former hours I too would have turned up at around 9.45pm. In my constituency I don't think that would have been a problem but I sympathise with those unable to vote yet turning up before the deadline.

And just to add to the point about Polling Cards - not all of us got them so couldn't take them with us!

I wonder if the method of voting will change soon with internet votes becoming an option. I wonder how many people couldn't vote because of last minute unavoidable circumstances. DH couldn't vote for this reason. He is always home before 10pm but at the last minute was away overnight last night

Firawla · 07/05/2010 09:18

YABU
noone expected to have to queue like that, so how could they have known?
My DH went at about 9.30, because he works late. Luckily it was okay and he was able to vote cos ours didn't have a queue, but if we were a bit more south then it seems he probably wouldn't have been able to vote doing that (islington south) which noone would have expected, I really think its not right. Like someone said who ever has queued before 10pm take them in the room and lock the door and let them wait? It makes the process seem unfair to deny people like that.

southeastastra · 07/05/2010 09:20

i didn't even get a card

agree with expat

ABatInBunkFive · 07/05/2010 09:23

FFS some polling stations didn't have enough ballot papers how is that someone who turns up a bit laters fault?

Why say open till ten when actually you want everyone there and queuing at 7.01.

MillyR · 07/05/2010 09:25

A lot of halls of residences keep the students' polling cards for safekeeping, so they wouldn't have them to take with them. Student jobs are often in the evenings, as they are in lectures during the day, and many students will be sitting exams during the day.

I think people are thinking student life is still like the eighties when people had full grants and didn't need to support themselves.

People have a right to vote. It is fundamental to a democracy. Obviously.

Rockbird · 07/05/2010 09:26

YAtotallyBU. The hours are 07.00-22.00. Therefore if you waltz in at 21.59 you should still be able to vote. I can't believe there is now smuggery about what time you vote . Does getting there early make you a better person?

MillyR · 07/05/2010 09:31

This is from channel 4 news, and concerns Sheffield. I think their result should be declared void. I can't believe this was done in the UK.

'The presiding officer, Mr Andy Globe, hours before had started to split and "discriminate" between those queuing at the polling station.

While at first this was based upon register number, as the evening progressed, this separation changed to discriminating between students and ?residents?; the residents having access to a fast track queue to vote whilst students were held back.

When a student, Ben Pearce, challenged Mr Globe, he at first said that he was prioritising adults with small children, and disabled or the elderly.

However, the students said there was no evidence of such discrimination, of which would have been accepted and supported by many students.

Later he appeared to change his argument claiming that "students don?t bring their polling cards" - although the students told Channel 4 News that a vast majority did have their documents. It was also discriminative, the student said, since there is no legal requirement to bring the polling card in order to vote. The discrimination was unjust the students added.

As both students, and also residents who had refused to separate into a different queue on principle in support of students, continued to question Mr Globe he made statements to the nature of "students only vote because their union registered them" and claimed that "students haven?t turned up in the past" which they said they fond offensive and irrelevant to the right and equal opportunity to vote.

Some students were waiting outside in the rain for over two hours, watching whilst older local residents were ushered in and out within 20 minutes'

Southwestwhippet · 07/05/2010 09:32

YABVU - I have to admit this thought crossed my mind but heard on the radio, people were arriving to vote at 8:30 and queuing for an hour and a half before being turned away. I think this is outrageous - if the polling station closes at 10:00, 8.30 is a perfectly reasonable time to show up - I would be hopping.

At Alton Towers, the queue closes at 6:00... but if you are in the queue by then you get to ride. Sometimes this means that you don't get on the ride til gone 7:00 but you get your turn... if a bloody theme park can manage it, I don't see why the electoral system can't.

(has recently gone to Alton Towers and only just made the queue for Thirtenn )

McDreamy · 07/05/2010 09:33

That's disgusting!

McDreamy · 07/05/2010 09:34

That was in response to MillyR and the students btw and not Alton Towers

renderedspeechless · 07/05/2010 09:35

dont get the late students comments. not having polling card is not analogous with forgetting to bring their student id yet expecting admission onto campus.

few comments from my experience working at polling station yesterday:

some polling stations had as few as 160 voters ALL DAY, while others had more than this PER HOUR!

electoral turnout poorly managed - why werent sports hall, classrooms or additional voting spaces created to speed up voting process? esp in locations where WHOLE SCHOOL was closed and used as polling station?

our presiding officers were given graphs showing last years voting attendance patterns per hour. this informed that 6-9pm busiest times. YET when queues had already formed at 4pm, no additional measures in place to cope with the predicted busier times.

many polling staff were council workers. ordinarily many council workers work until 9pm on overtime. yesterday was no exception. why were none of these staff deployed to help manage the queues, give information as a response to managing the situation?

unfair to blame voters for not voting earlier, not requesting postal vote etc. in many cases the main problem was that no contingencies in place and poor management of queuing crises. surely not democratic that peoplers cannot vote because of admin and management failings.

and btw

'if you can get yourself to vote within the 15 hours, then you dont deserve a vote'.

that comment and such an attitude really saddens me.

Ineed2shoeswhotovotefor · 07/05/2010 09:35

MillyR that is terrible
students have as much right to vote as anyone else.

foureleven · 07/05/2010 09:36

By the time I had finished work and picked my daughter up, and got to the polling station it was 7pm, so if there had been a 3 hour wait like there was in some places I would have been turned away..

YABU.

mrsbean78 · 07/05/2010 09:38

Students who show up without polling cards are being idiotic. There's no excuse. They are educated young people and they should know that they need a polling card. It is written on the back, you know!

MillyR · 07/05/2010 09:39

Mrs Bean, You don't need to take your polling card. That is written on the card.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 07/05/2010 09:39

you don't need a polling card. we had a thread going all day yesterday about this.

expatinscotland · 07/05/2010 09:40

It is wrong to disenfranchise people for showing up at the polls before 10PM.

And the guy David Monks on BBC put it best, 'You have a very Victorian system here.'

Yeah, like just about everything else here.

ABatInBunkFive · 07/05/2010 09:41

mrsbean - you DONT need a polling card, that's written on the back.

bellissima · 07/05/2010 09:42

Simples - had they known they should have all got together in groups of about 15, added in a few fictitious names for good measure, and said that each group lived in one tiny flat and applied for postal votes shortly before the election. That way there's no real time to check and although there will be an 'enquiry' afterwards nobody will ever actually go to jail.

Whereas if you bother to turn up legitimately in person at the polling station...

McDreamy · 07/05/2010 09:42

No it's not written on the back - you don't need it and some people didn't have one in the first place!

I am sure there were many more non students countrywide that turned up without polling cards than students.

foureleven · 07/05/2010 09:42

I felt the whole thing was pretty victorian. Look at how technology has come on since the last election and you still had a people flicking through sheets of paper with names on then carefully crossing through names with a ruler and a pen...

mrsbean78 · 07/05/2010 09:43

So you don't need ID with a polling card and you don't need a polling card if you've got ID? What's all that?

Sorry.. must have mistakenly assumed it was similar to elections at home in Ireland where you would be turned away without ID.
Why did they say on the news that it caused problems that the students didn't have polling cards, then?