Skuldugerry or Incompetence?

Oh, come on, Walsy! You must surely know in your heart that, given its superb record so far on any level, Labour couldn't even arrange this properly! P*ss-up in a brewery? It'd end up at Betty's Tea Rooms in Harrogate!
 
Agreed EC1, I think they should set another date and vote again. On the other hand, if the polling stations are open from 7am until 10pm surely there's enough time for people to get to them?
 
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imagine said:
Agreed EC1, I think they should set another date and vote again. On the other hand, if the polling stations are open from 7am until 10pm surely there's enough time for people to get to them?
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yes i agree - some of those people gave weak reasons ..ie i went at 7..queue..so went back later....but there were genuine people who went once and queued for ages and never got to vote...there is an issue here
 
krizon said:
Oh, come on, Walsy! You must surely know in your heart that, given its superb record so far on any level, Labour couldn't even arrange this properly! P*ss-up in a brewery? It'd end up at Betty's Tea Rooms in Harrogate!
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I don't think you can blame the Labour Party for this, it is always in their favour to have as high a turn out as possible.
 
Surely the most disturbing thing was that different returning officers (or whatever they are called) seemed to be disregarding the law and taking matters into their own hands with regards to interpreting it.

If it happened in a marginal, as it could easily have (and probably did) and, however improbable as it may seem now, the Tories were a seat or two off an over-all majority, it would have been like Florida 2000 all over again.
 
Liatened to a Mr Knight - some eminent lawyer specialising in election law (?!?) who was saying there maybe a case for financial compensation to those who didn't get to vote!! While I am agrieved on behalf of those who genuinely were not able to vote, what justification could there be to claim they'd lost money!!??

It showed real incompetence by the returning officers, though...

However, the piece of news that really wound me up was the council seat with two candidates getting equal votes (recount four times) being settled by them drawing cards! FFS, where's that justified in the legal system, then and if it is, it bloody well shouldn't be! Don't know it if occurred in any contituencies where people were barred from voting...
 
trackside528 said:
Surely the most disturbing thing was that different returning officers (or whatever they are called) seemed to be disregarding the law and taking matters into their own hands with regards to interpreting it.
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I understood that was exactly what didn't happen, they were all sticking to the letter of the law and locking the doors at 10pm.
I don't know who to believe any more. This Country would appear to be rotten to the core, but only to be expected of course, as children of the Thatcher era grow up.
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Thought I remembered hearing one returning officer actually stayed open after 10pm and that there was total confusion of the law regarding what exactly was supposed to happen. Might have got that wrong mind.
 
I do postal voting - and i really dont get why its not more popular - means you definately get your vote in,no worries about getting to the polling station and its so easy !!!!

( Im with Imagine too - they were open from 7am - 10pm, it cant be THAT hard to get there in those hours,surely!!!!)
 
trudij said:
I do postal voting - and i really dont get why its not more popular - means you definately get your vote in,no worries about getting to the polling station and its so easy !!!!

( Im with Imagine too - they were open from 7am - 10pm, it cant be THAT hard to get there in those hours,surely!!!!)
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My initial reaction was just that..wtf are folk doing going at that time..if it were a boot sale they would have been there at 7 in the morning :)

there is no doubt that some people are just daft..the woman that said she went at 3 separate times got no end of airplay..but no one said to her..well when you went at 7 you should have stayed in queue..not gone back home.

there were definately some genuine ones though..also one place ran out of voting slips ffs

Mandelson said last night that the main party to suffer through this would be labour..as they are traditionally late voters..as all the tories have all day to vote..he didn't say that last bit:)
 
I know we're a nation who have developed queuing into an art form but do you really believe that it's acceptable in this day and age to have to queue for hours to vote ? Really ??

I certainly don't subscribe to any conspiracy theories but I don't think it unreasonable to expect to be able to vote until later than 10pm and, if there are queues waiting to vote, that the polling booth closes later - maybe even up to midnight if necessary.

Agree postal voting is a great way of resolving the problem - it's how I voted this election too.
 
Songsheet said:
I know we're a nation who have developed queuing into an art form but do you really believe that it's acceptable in this day and age to have to queue for hours to vote ? Really ??

I certainly don't subscribe to any conspiracy theories but I don't think it unreasonable to expect to be able to vote until later than 10pm and, if there are queues waiting to vote, that the polling booth closes later - maybe even up to midnight if necessary.

Agree postal voting is a great way of resolving the problem - it's how I voted this election too.
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I'll be honest - I have never ever queued to vote..yesterday.. I went in about 7.30am..no one in at all. Other years I have gone BEFORE i went to work...I can't see why folk want to go out in piss pouring rain at 9.30 at night tbh.

IF the answer is..I hadn't got time..then as you say.postal is the way.

I think a lot of people are just not very organised and leave things to the last minute...unless its a boot sale or tickets to see Robbie :)..then they will be first in queue
 
I don't know why it's all crammed into just one day - what the hell's the problem with running it over two or even three? We've had a huge increase in the voting population since the ballot box was created, and we still think we can cram millions more into the space of a few hours?

I see my ward, Brighton Pavilion, made a bit of history for the Greens, giving them their first seat. The only candidate who actually plastered the area with posters as well as flyers - so much for the ecology!
 
Must admit it made me smile to myself seeing the footage on the queues. While I had a postal vote, my son hadn't applied for his in time but was able to get me a proxy vote for him, so I ended up at out polling station anyway. It's in the village hall in the next village, which is a really only a hamlet - just a church, about fifteen houses and a very pretty village hall. Oh, and a phone box! Anyway, as usual, two well wrapped up ladied behind the table, two booths, the radio on and not a soul in sight apart from us!!
 
krizon said:
I don't know why it's all crammed into just one day - what the hell's the problem with running it over two or even three? We've had a huge increase in the voting population since the ballot box was created, and we still think we can cram millions more into the space of a few hours?
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Whilst I see your point that the population of the country is now much bigger isn't there still a large proportion of the eligible population that don't vote? Maybe they (as in the organisers) think there isn't a need to extend the hours for this reason.

Whilst I feel genuinely sorry for people who had a reasonable excuse, particularly not enough ballot papers which is inexcusable imo (they have a list of everyone assigned to each polling station so surely as a minimum they should have enough papers to cover everyone on the list), the polling stations are open for 15 hours - I worked an 11 hour shift on Thursday within the hours the polling station was open, then walked the 20 minutes from work to the PS and still had plenty of time to place my vote before the place closed. Admittedly there wasn't a queue but it was fairly busy, the staff giving out the forms were quick and efficient and I was in an out in two minutes. Obviously this hasn't been the case in some places but I still find it hard to believe that people don't have enough time.
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Well, around 63% of what is a larger population turned out this time, and I don't think the percentage was that high for the last couple of elections. Bearing in mind the interest in voting for or against that this election was likely to generate, how many people work shifts, unsocial hours, etc., I'd have thought chucking in a second day, or even a half day, would've have been unreal. Not having enough ballot papers is, as you say, Imagine, inexcusable.
 
Given that I can carry out the most complex financial transactions entirely securely on my laptop - probably even my mobile phone - why on earth can I not log on to vote?

Each constituency should have a website, with a profile of each candidate. Each candidate could maintain their page, add links to information that they want me to read, detail their policies etc. Come polling day, I enter my username and password (and before anyone gets all government IT project on me, I submit a tax return securely through the government gateway without the hint of a problem every year.), Select the candidate I want to represent me and click vote.

If nothing else, think of all the paper and carbon saved through not spamming my letterbox with flyers.

I shop on the internet, I communicate on the internet, I bank and trade shares on the internet, I work on the internet, I access knowledge on the internet, yet I can't vote on the internet!! If I'm not sat on the internet for 10 hours a day, I have full internet access in my pocket for the rest of my waking hours. What makes it worse is that voting is something that lends itself perfectly to the medium.

I postal vote, which seems archaic. The thought of queuing at a polling station is positively barmy.
 
Couldn't agree more, Bets. I was amazed when I realised you couldn't vote via computer as an option. Or Blackberry, or whatever it is nowadays. The method you suggest seems as foolproof as any, probably more than the current system of hand-counting and the incompetency of not enough ballot papers. But hey, think of all those church and school halls which won't earn a few quid getting clogged up with rain-sodden, work-weary, time-hassled voters!

But, given the incompetency at getting the NHS's computer system up and running, would you honestly trust anything set up via government bodies of any type?
 
I work for a major computer services provider, admittedly not in IT or IS or whatever you like to call it, but believe me computers are nowhere near as secure as they would have you believe.
 
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