UKC

It's a beautiful day for a stroll to the polling station.

I've been. My polling station, a prefab scout hut, still has a decent sized wang graffitied on the side that I first noticed going to vote in the local elections a few weeks ago. The wang still appears to be swinging to the left though - perhaps a positive sign?

Doesn't matter what way you swing, it's still a Wang.

My polling station's a prefab scout hut too, but no wangs as far as I could see.

Went on the way to work, was part of a school. Very quiet in there (me and the 2 people manning it)

We went in and voted just before 08:00 (also in a scout hut).

A couple of others came in and voted while we were there.

There were four bill boards outside for the parties:

SNP,

Labour,

Green, and

"Only by Voting Ruth Davidson's Team Can You Stop The SNP winning a Majority of Seats"

No, really:

https://imgur.com/a/e3d3sDk

Ruth Davidson is a one-trick pony; it was a pretty good trick in the general election but it isn't even relevant in this one. And it's a lie anyway - it's effectively impossible to get a majority of the 6 seats thanks to the D'Hondt system that's used (three would be pretty amazing), and the Tories don't even look that likely to come in second place.

I always understood that parties weren't allowed to do any lobbying/advertising/influencing once the polls had opened. Surely those boards shouldn't be outside the polling station or anywhere else in public view?

Each party is allowed a billboard at each polling station (actually, I think they're allowed two).

That's all they're allowed there, though - and I suspect the Tory one above may be edging into different territory, rather than just being a billboard for the party.

Not true.

Never heard of party activists going door knocking on election day to get people out to vote or candidates standing outside polling stations with nig rosettes pinned to their lapels?

Nig rosettes? Err, is that indicative of their position on the political spectrum?

Learned something new, thanks.

In reply to Eric9Points:

No, haven't experienced either. Thanks for replying,  though. 

No voting for me or the wife. Because I can be anywhere at any time due to my work I always postal vote, unfortunately it hasn't arrived. Apparently if I can get to Leeds townhall I can pick up a pack and post it off but there is no chance of that. Looking on a local social media group it seems a lot of people in south Leeds have not had their postal votes either. 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/23/eu-citizens-denied-vote-eu...

Not just postal votes 

EU Nationals being denied a vote that concerns them, what a surprise....

Are you suggesting a conspiracy, rather than cock-ups?

Also in Somerset (maybe elsewhere) many people received their polling cards after the closing date for postal vote applications.

I got my postal vote fine from Sandwell council to Chamonix. They are surprisingly receptive to email as well. 

Anyway, voted Green for all the good it'll do. 

Well given that questions have been raised following the EU ref by the Electoral commission, as well as at least 3 MPs raising this in the house back in April, it looks pretty deliberate to have not tackled the problem

At least in my area the list of parties/names on the voting slip was 4 sheets long, they told me that quite a few people had come in, looked at it, and walked out in disgust.

So they didn't vote because they couldn't be bothered to look through four sheets of paper?

I'm not sure - my wife was just told (10 minutes ago) she couldn't vote in the local village hall but stood up and corrected the officials.

Whatever the reason it amounts to something very serious

please don't try to excuse people for this

I do not believe any conspiracy is afoot. But I can certainly believe that the system is cocked-up to hell, partly because this is an election which we weren't even expected to be conducting.

I'm not.

This from the Guardian:

Usual request for an election day: if you are posting a comment below the line (BTL), please do not tell us how you voted. Under the Representation of the People Act 1983, it is an offence to publish, while the polls are still open, any information about how people have voted based on “information given by voters after they have voted”. This law is designed to stop on-day polling influencing the results, but the lawyers say it covers comments from individuals too, and so please desist.

(But if you were to tell us that you expect party X to do very well, that would not be a problem.)

That’s not true. There shouldn’t be anything like that at the polling station. 

I said billboard, but I meant sandwich board, sorry!

Party name sandwich boards certainly are allowed at polling places.

Well, didn't know that. Can't seem to edit my post though?

I used to quite like that band. I wasn't aware that they'd diversified into selling polling huts. 

On my voting form there were at least 10 independent candidates. As the deposit for any candidate is £5,000 and securing 2.5% of the valid votes cast is  needed to prevent the loss of the deposit there must be people with money to burn.

Dave 

Agree, it does seem odd which is why I posted. They must have spent at least a few minutes getting there. I suppose it could be partly to do with some people saying they'll never vote again after the ref result was not acted on. I also don't think it was actually explained that parties were put first and one needn't wade through the many unaligned names that followed.

Not a conspiracy, this is just mainstream, deliberate, policy.

In the EU ref the government deliberately, and openly, denied EU nationals the right to vote.

And this time; despite repeated warning by MPs, charities, and the press, well beforehand, the government did absolutely zero to make sure people who have the right to vote could vote. And this was a deliberate choice by the government and the electoral commission.

I think it's certainly a bit of both. The lateness of our confirmation of these elections has caught councils off guard.

However, the flaws in the system were well known 5 years ago and nothing has been done to fix it. There was recently an urgent question about it  in parliament in which it was suggested that the extra forms for EU nationals to confirm their vote here could simply be handed out at the polling station. The government declined to act. There's definitely a sense that making an effort to enfranchise EU nationals correctly is a very low priority.

My housemate from Bulgaria received a letter from Bristol City Council saying that he'd been registered to vote. Turned up to the polling station to discover that he wasn't registered. It's an utter disgrace, and I think the numbers affected are likely to be huge.

The Scottish list had two independent candidates. That similarly surprised me: I had heard no publicity, or news, about these candidates, and since, as you say, the threshold in terms of percentage votes is quite high, I was left wondering what the point of these candidatures was.

Agree with you, I hope there will be some kind of estimation of the number of EU residents who were denied a vote. It might make no difference to the result but this kind of disenfranchisement is scandalous. It’s the sort of thing that so called mature democracies criticise developing nations for.

Quite scandalous - thenk god my wife had the presence of mind to argue with the local officials in our village.  They were people she knows through church - goodness knows what would have happened in an urban setting.

This is really showing what rubbish we have and call it democracy in this country. 

I hope this is investigated and anyone salaried and  negligently responsible is called to account, as well as our richer and powerful betters who have allowed this state of affairs.   Vorloren hope!

Our polling Station was the local primary school. The only wang in evidence was standing next to his SNP placard.

I pretty sure they’re not. Not that in the grand scheme of things it matters much. 

Well, I've been helping set them out and tidy them up for a few years (though not this election). And I often have a wee chat with people setting them out for the other parties, while I'm there - so if it's wrong then everyone's wrong.

And I saw the official guidance limiting us to two per polling station for the EU referendum, so it definitely wasn't wrong then.

It's possible that the rules might be different in England.