Forum Topic

Referendum on 5th May.

Does anyone know what the significance of the following phrase on my polling card is:"You cannot be issued with a ballot paper after 10pm, even if you are at the polling station before then."This seems very strange, can anyone explain it?CFH.

Camilla Horsfall ● 5487d5 Comments

While nothing would surprise me about Ealing Council (multi-million pound car parks &c.) this sounds a little far-fetched to me. What is this Democracy Department? Surely it should be concerned with encouraging people to vote rather than having strange vaguely threatening disclaimers on the polling card? Why not just staff-up the polling stations to anticipate a worst case demand scenario? Isn't this illegal to stop people who have got to a polling station before 10pm from voting?

Camilla Horsfall ● 5485d

Perhaps the council is cutting back on its staffing of polling stations and wants to cover its backside, after allneither of the main parties Labour or Conservative are overly keen on ATV so perhaps Ealing Council are making it less easy to vote late?

Roger Tronker ● 5485d

Methinks that this weird wording is all to do with the scandal at the last general election when polling stations in Ealing ran out of ballot papers and seperately closed the doors at 10.00pm on a long queue of electors at the poling station at little ealing school in south ealing. The people inside the polling station were not able to vote after ten nor where the people outside. Police were called, big national scandal, etc. Turned out it was up to the council democracy department and the local returning officer at each polling station as to whether they allowed people inside the polling station after ten to vote and so on. Also it turned out that the democracy department had prepared for a low turnout and had not printed enough ballot papers and so had to carry them from polling station to station.Rather nasty.

Moira Bourne ● 5485d

Presumably resulting from the fracas at some polling stations at the general election last year when some people left it too late to get to the head of the queue so were disenfranchised.

Susan Kelly ● 5487d

It simply means that if you're in a queue when the clock strikes 10pm you can't vote, even if you're actually inside the polling station. In other words, if you want to be sure of getting your vote don't leave it to the last minute.

Ian Pentrill ● 5487d