Guilt Free Railing 20

[WouldBeGood]

The curtain call.

May this thread be empty 😃

All good news welcome too, to go along with railing, guilt free

Why are some areas not having council elections?

Well, I've voted. I won't lie, it felt dirty that Tory was even a choice

voted

when do we know results?

I don't like candidates and supporters standing outside with posters etc. Regardless of their party I think its intimidating.. I don't think the candidates at my polling station were the right distance away in terms of the rules on that kind of thing.

Some wards were uncontested so there wouldn't have been elections there.

Really?
I had about 8 on my sheet. But I'm east central belt

JenniferAlisonPhilipaSue - I agree. There was one standing outside my polling station. I'm sure he was perfectly pleasant, but his was the only party i didn't vote for (we only had four candidates), and it felt uneccesary

Did anyone else's polling place have the (fucking ridiculous) signs up saying about how we should be wearing masks to "stay safe"?

Acted as a nice wee reminder not to vote SNP, mind you.

We had a weird one way system, but it was impenetrable so I <gasp> went out the way i went in

We needed 3 councillors and there were only 3 candidates so no need for an election. Only one of them was SNP so at least that stops more than one of them getting in,

We did too officially, but since the polling staff were actually telling people just to ignore it and leave the way they came in I'm not sure it was taken that seriously! No reminders about masks thankfully, no-one wearing masks at all actually, but the stupid Perspex screens were up in front of the staff and used pencils were being collected in a box at the door for reasons I don't quite understand. Maybe they're going to be fumigated and reused or something.

Advice to wear masks at the door, advice to use sanitiser, Perspex screens, both officials sanitised their hands as I approached the desk, single use pencil which I had to drop into a bag afterwards.
I thought I had entered some sort of time-warp.
Heaven knows what the pencil thing was for. The virus is airborne. Maybe it was just in case we coughed on them?

I was told to keep my pencil 😊

A free pencil…if only I’d known to keep it! I was the only (and I think possibly first person) at my polling station at 7.20….the people there looked a bit startled when I appeared and proceeded to awkwardly figure out what to do. I was offered a pencil and then didn’t know what to do with it so handed it back to the ladies at the desk…who looked at it with confusion as they didn’t know what to do with it either. I could hear them debating whether it should go back in the box 😂

But from my statistically insignificant sample of one, I’d guess the turnout is going to be low…I live in a densely populated area, and to be the first in the whole area to turn up 20 mins after polling opened it not indicative to me of a big turn out.

I got to keep the pencil too!

There were signs up asking people to ‘keep a safe distance’ at mine and Perspex screens in front of the staff, which came up to about eye level of the person standing. That’s definitely going to help stop covid, great use of money there

Free as a bird at our polling station. No one with masks (including officials), no extra mitigations except some unused bottles of hand sanitiser at the door.

We are not a SNP stronghold here though. Yay!!! 😊

That's interesting @Aurea as I think you are Aberdeenshire ? I am also in the Shire and we did have masks, screens and non shared/free pencils so wonder if it was up to each polling place ?

Also Aberdeenshire masks were available but no signs to wear them did have the screens but pencils were reused shock horror. None of the polling staff were in masks no 1 way system

Yes. Aberdeenshire. 😊

I’m in Moray. I had to sanitise my hands and was told to keep my pencil, or bin it. All polling staff were wearing masks and hidden behind screens. No one way system though.

No perspex screens and masks on staff in East Dunbartonshire, but a large (unused) 5 litre thing of sanitiser as you walked in, and the yellow signs about staying safe and wearing a mask. Pencils appeared to be reusable ones too!!

Perspex screens and one way system here, only one person in a mask.
I feel I've missed out on a free pencil though, I used my own
shock horror pen

Its the little things which spark joy ! Actually I added my pencil to the little bundle of other abandoned pencils on a wee shelf next some leaflets as I left so I assume they will be gathered up and reused.

Railing at the election of Greens - presumably because people think they are all about saving the planet and the climate and aren't paying attention to their stance on women !

Just to prove that we've well and truly gone through the looking glass I find myself agreeing completely with and rooting for Joanna Cherry! "You cannot defend women’s rights if you cannot define what a woman is. Likewise, you cannot legislate for trans rights if you are not prepared to define what a trans person is." Sounds completely obvious to me that if you're going to put such things in law, as Scotland is hell bent on doing regardless, you at the very least need to be able to robustly define the groups you're legislating for, but apparently even asking the question is transphobic. I really hope they do agree to a public debate so that all this bullshit is well and truly out in the open - they all know (I suspect) that Cherry's views are entirely mainstream and are terrified of shining a light on it.

I’m railing about the electoral system which appears to elect SNP councillors even when both Labour and the tories got many more first votes