So those people sitting outside the Polling station...

[ciderhouserules]

What are they doing? There was one today (festooned in Yellow rosettes and ribbons) who asked me for my Polling card. I asked why and he said 'just to record that you've turned up'. I just walked away.

The fact that I've voted is recorded by the Polling clerk inside the Polling station, who crosses off my Name and Polling number on the list.

So what do the people sitting outside record from me?

They are there to tick you off their list of people who indicated that they would vote for their party. Later in the day if someone has indicated they would vote for them but haven't turned up then they'll go and offer to give that person a lift to the polling station. They are not asking who you voted for, just who you are. Obviously you are perfectly entitled not to tell them.

never forget this:

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/guidance-candidates-and-agents-uk-parliamentary-elections-great-britain/polling-day/who-can-support-you-polling-day/maintaining-secrecy-ballot

The people outside are all affiliated with parties and want to know who has voted so they maximise their turn out.

How it works is like this:

well prior to elections, party representatives go door to door to find out who supports them ('canvassing'). It's not really canvassing because they don't hope to persuade you. they want to know if you are on their team, against their team or undecided.

if you are marked as on the team either because you answer the door and tell them or because you are a party supporter/member, they want to check their team members have actually voted.

if this exercise shows little old Mrs Jones at 20 Acacia Avenue is a supporter and hasn't voted, they may very well go and knock on her door and offer to drive her to the polling station

I find the paranoia and ignorance of the voting process and what's allowed absolutely staggering. As for those flinging GDPR around... good grief. Don't they cover this stuff in secondary school?

You don't have to tell anyone anything. Tellers can ask your voter ID. It's not for nefarious purposes. It's perfectly legal and it's about rallying local votes.

It is also not campaigning. I think it's actually a good thing; the data is used for encouraging people to use their vote rather than be apathetic. A political party offering a lift to the polling station has no right to your vote, nor do you need to tell them which way you voted.

Tellers at polling stations are nothing new, I used to help my Dad out in the 70s when he was a local councillor. I wasn't allowed to do the actual asking (too young), it was my job to periodically collect sheets from polling stations and take them back to the party committee room. As I recall, it was all very amiable between the parties and hardly any voters minded. People would only be knocked up if they were known supporters for the party, but this was a useful way of checking if for example elderly Mrs Smith from No'22 wanted a lift to the polling station.

Your mum...

Just been to vote, the lady outside asked for my voting number and I politely declined only to be berated by the man in front of me in the queue for not giving it to her!

I don't find them upsetting; I just find the role itself devious.

As I said before, I wouldn't have nearly as much of an issue with them if they made it very clear who they were and whom they represented - if they approached you with "Good morning, Madam, I'm Phil and I represent Lisa Jones, the Conservative candidate. Could I ask if you would mind sharing your voter number with me, please?

That would be much more honest and transparent, but for some reason, they never seem to feel the need to do that...

Just because you desperately want people to give you something that might benefit you, that in no way entitles you to assume that you can have it.

No they bloody well don't cover 'this stuff' in school! Don't you dare suggest people are ignorant for not knowing about it, that's utterly disengenuous! I find your assumptions staggering, frankly.

This whole idea of 'tellers' is taking advantage of the reasonable assumption that a person stood outside a polling station asking to see your polling card is a neutral official.

I'm always curious though about how the data that political parties collect from this kind of activity and from canvassing etc fits in with GDPR. What is the lawful basis for them holding the information that they hold - does anyone know?

Lawful basis for the processing is consent. They won’t keep it long (or shouldn’t!).

I’ve voted many times in different cities and have never seen this! Don’t assume it’s universal

The ones outside mine didn’t even have a rosette just a smart suit. Pretty intimidating - demanded my polling card! Luckily I am savvy enough yo know that 1. You don’t need to take your polling card and 2. You don’t need to show it to anyone.
Should not be allowed.

Indeed.

I thought your comparison was a very good one: regardless of what you're there to do or have just done, both of them are unsolicited third parties who just assume that they have a right to your time and information, without ever asking if you mind.

Also, they will both deliberately mislead you in some way - whether by trying to make you think that you need to get your application form for child benefit through them, or otherwise by withholding their identity and letting you make the very reasonable assumption that they are an electoral officer.

Good for him; but how shameful that, instead of being allowed to get on with their jobs, they have to warn people about the overbearing and intrusive behaviour of the candidates and their parties.

But under GDPR, consent must be explicit. I have never given explicit consent to a canvasser for them to process or store my data, and they have never confirmed exactly how they will use this data.

To be clear, this is idle curiosity rather than concern. I f I didn't want them to use my data, I wouldn't give it to them, but I don't think they can just make that assumption under GDPR.

You may well be right - I’m not sure if it’s ever been tested. Could be public task exception maybe? I’m an in house lawyer and deal with GDPR a bit in my job but I’m not an expert (clearly!)

OUrs was NOT obviously a member of a party. I am so annoyed I didn't realise this. I would have refused to give him my card.

I wondered about public task too. But the data is primarily being used for the interests of a particular political party, rather than any real public interest.

I will have to wait for the next general election and ask them when they come round! What's the betting that they won't have a clue?!

Ha ha yes I had the exactly the same thought - I could ask one but I bet they won’t know.

But it's not informed consent, is it?

Suppose you were at parents' evening and a man in a suit with a clipboard at the door asked you whose mum you were - then maybe sought further info about your child - you would naturally assume that he was a teacher or admin staff and would answer.

However, if it later turned out that he was a nosey dad of another pupil, maybe trying to drum up business for his privately-run after-school activity; or worse, somebody with nefarious intent who had just gone and stood there to glean whatever 'useful' info he could... would you genuinely consider that he had had the actual informed consent of everybody who had given him the personal details that he asked them for?

They re-enacted a scam on The Real Hustle once, where a man in a hi-viz jacket, wearing a mocked-up badge in a lanyard and holding a clipboard, went over to people in a private car park as soon as they parked up. He told them that, unfortunately, the machines were out of action, so they needed to pay him directly and then he would (pretend to) mark their registration as 'paid' and give them a (worthless, fake) receipt. Of course, nobody questioned him and they just gave him money - with no inkling that he was nothing to do with the car park owner whatsoever, and that they would later receive a penalty charge notice for failing to pay.

Maybe people will say that people need to be more on their guard in scenarios like this; but wouldn't we hope that the representatives of a (supposedly) reputable political party would be above using confidence trickery to make people assume that they are an official and not who they actually are?

My adhd brain went down a rabbit hole and I found a lot of guidance for political campaigns on the ICO website. Looks like it is a mixture of public task, legitimate interest and consent, but with fairly specific limitations around how the public task and legitimate interest bases can be used. I suspect an awful lot of campaigns are almost certainly in breach of GDPR tbh! But I have satisfied my curiosity for the time being!

Honestly - they CANNOT tell how you’re voting. So much anger on here.

If you want to get in a stew, then postal voting is what needs regulating. The LibDems here were stomping round all the local nursing/care homes and ever so kindly helping residents to fill in their postal votes and send them off for them. Dd’s friend’s dm manages one - and she chucked ‘em out when she twigged.

He's within his rights to ask, and you are within your rights to either answer or decline to answer. How you vote is treated as confidential my those administering the vote - but you are allowed to tell people. Many people advertise their voting behaviour - my neighbour has a poster in their window so I am pretty sure how they are voting. Political parties obviously ask people how theya re voting, in order to identify their supporters.

There is no need to get wound up about it - your posts are coming across as if this has troubled you but there is nothing to worry about.

If you are a supporter of a party and want to help them out, it is useful to tell them you voted as they can cross you off their list. This then means that by about 3pm they start to get an idea of which areas they are winning easily, which are tight and which are no hope.

Then they use this info to target their activists in the afternoon/evening to help them win as many seats as possible.

I am absolutely not insulting anyone, but I am genuinely surprised by two things - firstly that some people didn't know about tellers and that you don't have to speak to them and secondly that some people have never seen them.
I've voted in every general election for the past 38 years in various different places and there have always been tellers at every polling station I've been to. I used to accompany my parents to the polling station as a child and used to cringe as my Dad lectured the tellers at his polling station about his right not to speak to them and then proceeded to stand there for a good half an hour telling everyone who came out that they shouldn't speak to them either.

This sounds like bollocks. This is a very serious allegation, your 'DD's friend's DM' has a legal responsibility to report any potential illegality around postal voting if they witnessed it - but I suspect what they actually saw was not what you describe.

It did annoy me this morning.. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the political system but it was only thanks to the posts on here yesterday that I realised why the person was there.

The woman at my polling station this morning was sitting just outside the door, no rosette, and simply asked for my polling card - she very much gave the impression that she was just part of the official team and was checking my polling card for some legal reason e.g. see that I had come to the right place.

I gave her the card, I am not a confrontational person and didn't want to be seen to be arguing with an octogenarian, but I didn't like the duplicity of it.