The Electoral Commission has published its interim report into problems at polling stations on 6 May, when queues left voters unable to cast their votes before the 10pm deadline.
At least 1,200 people were still queuing at 27 polling stations in 16 constituencies at 10pm.
There were scenes of confusion as polling station queues and ballot paper shortages led to problems and protests in several cities. These included students in Sheffield trying to stop ballot boxes being removed, lock-ins in Birmingham, lock-outs in Newcastle and a sit-in in Hackney.
Following the polling day problems Jenny Watson, Chair of the Electoral Commission announced a review, saying,
There is a real need to look at our Victorian system and modernise it fit for a 21st-century democracy.
The Electoral Commission consulted Returning Officers, and appealed to voters to report any difficulties they had experienced on polling day.
Today’s report explains the roles, responsibilities and laws connected with providing and manging polling stations, the scale and nature of problems on 6 May and makes recommendations for change:
The main factors that we have identified as having contributed to these problems were:
Evidence of poor planning assumptions in some areas. Use of unsuitable buildings and inadequate staffing arrangements at some polling stations. Contingency arrangements that were not properly triggered or were unable to cope with demand at the close of poll. Restrictive legislation which meant that those present in queues at polling stations at the close of poll were not able to be issued with a ballot paper.
The report notes that major elections are scheduled to take place in all parts of the UK in May 2011, that it remains the case that a Parliamentary general election could be called at any time, and recommends the following:
the law should be changed to allow people still queuing at polling stations at 10pm to be able to vote local authorities and Returning Officers should improve their planning, review their schemes for polling districts and polling stations and make sure they allocate the right numbers of staff and electors to each polling station the structure for delivering elections in Great Britain should be reformed so that elections are managed more consistently and professionally.
Interim Report Into Polling Station Queues
A full report on all aspects of the election’s operation is due to be published in July.
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5 Comments
The basic tenet of our universal franchise is that each person over 18 years with exceptions can vote in Elections according to electoral law that until May 6th 2010 made no provision for late queueing arrangements at Polling Stations.
Nick Clegg Deputy PM has made prominent in his excellent new politics speeches, that a full enquiry should be carried out to discover why 1200 voters were unable to vote at polling stations,in 16 different locations across the UK, including Sheffield Hallam and Hackney.
The right for universal franchise has been hard fought over the last century and it is reasonable that some voters leave it late close to 10 p.m. to turn up to vote.
It is an inalienable human right for lawfully registered residents over 18`s to be free to vote on Election Days and should never be the case,that anyone be denied the right to cast their vote, in any UK Election,in future.
Many will be reading the final report by the Electoral Commission and its recommendations with interest.
There has to be a hard limit on when polling stations close, otherwise presiding officers could exercise bias – keep them open or close them depending on what they think of those still waiting to vote. The law was they close at 10pm, and as that was the law, it had to be stuck to. In some cases I suspect it was that a lot of people turned up right at the last minute. If there is to be an allowance to vote for people queueing at 10pm, there has to be a clear definition of “queueing”.
Our current paper base system has the great virtue of giving a complete traceable paper trail for every ballot paper. At least it would do if it were not for the wreckless introduction of general postal voting. The argument that it is “Victorian” is silly – so are many things. No system which takes away that paper trail should be considered, no matter how “modern” it might seem. I remember when I argued against postal voting, computer voting and the like in my council, they accused me of being some sort of luddite. Actually, I am a computer scientist, and funnily enough I do not know anyone who works in my field who disagrees with me on the danger of introducing computers into the voting process.
Perhaps our system is victorian, but I can’t recall there ever been these sorts of problems before, even when turnout was much higher.
I totally agree with Patrick the right to vote is the cornerstone to our democracy, and we should always err on the side of the voter. Some simple system of moving the queue into the voting building and locking the door, or perhaps issueing some sort queueing card to those waiting at ten oclock, seems reasonable enough.
I think I had started off wanting to write “wretched”, but anyway.
My feeling is that the problem was caused to some extent by people deciding at the last minute they wanted to vote. It could even be down to what was on television that night.
It may even be that some inexperienced Acting Returning Officers hadn’t properly realised turnout in a general election is something like twice that in a local election, so more staff are needed on the polling stations.
The combination of local elections and general election was also a factor. When I was telling, on a polling station we’ve been working so hard for over 20 years that in a local election we can almost address by first name all those entering without seeing their poll cards (ok slight exaggeration, but a fair proportion, especially when I was their councillor for 12 years) and they know very thoroughly the routine, I saw large numbers of voters coming in and looking around who clearly did not know how it worked, and were completely thrown by being handed a local election ballot paper as well as a national one. Actually, two local election ballot papers in LB Lewisham due to the mayoral system there. Obviously, these were people who took little interest in local politics, and were only voting because it was a general election.
So many electors had to have the local voting system patiently explained to them, and then spent an age deciding how to vote staring at a ballot paper they had no idea they would be presented with. There were quite a few cases where I had almost forgotten someone had gone in by the time they emerged and I took their number.
All this too must have greatly slowed things down.
It seems that the the law is silent on “queuing” and the case law on this makes the matter ambiguous. The Electoral Commission do not make this clear. The statute states that if an application is made for a ballot paper before 10pm it must be issued, but the case law seems to suggest that this is over-ridden by the law on the time of poll 7am-10pm, after which no more ballots should be issued. This seems to be regardless of whether an application is in progress.
In my opinion queueing at a polling station should be considered as part of the process of applying for a ballot paper as it is an essential part of that process outside of the control of the applicant. Under that interpretation, I’d claim that what happened was illegal and let a court decide, rather than let the Electoral Commission claim that everything was fine. Perhaps a lawyer can help us here?
The rights of the people seem to have been over-ridden by the rights of the 24 hour media to publish exit polls. I think that the law also needs strengthening in this area too. If you allow ‘flexibility’ in allowing those who begun applying to vote by 10pm to cast their ballots, then you must also introduce a mechanism to allow exit pollsters to know when the poll is actually ended, because they can’t just assume 10pm.
Also, the Electoral Commission should strike Australia as an example out of this report. Since voting in Australia is compulsory and this is enforced by fines, not allowing people to vote would mean officials putting them in jeopardy. This is not comparable to the UK position.