I sat for an hour at a polling station in Camborne as part of my very long day on July 4th. I was struck by the change in voters’ habits. Whereas in the past they would bring their polling cards with them, one unexpected side effect of the new rules on voter ID has brought about is that they no longer do.
Now they bring ID with them.
I found it very difficult to get polling numbers at all. It was only possible – and then only in about 30% of cases – to get numbers by being quite pushy in asking voters to get their number from the poll clerk and give it to me on the way out. Those who know me well will have little doubt about my ability to be downright pushy, but I very much doubt that this is the right way to endear us to voters.
Now you can argue that telling isn’t really about the numbers but about being there, but we certainly have relied on telling to reduce our necessity to knock up. Indeed, that’s often how I used to sell telling to would be tellers. Asking people to go and stand in the polling station to be seen is, in my view, a much harder sell.
I well remember a local by-election where our tellers entered numbers directly into their phones and this was pretty instantly relayed to knockers up. It made our get the vote out so much more effective. [We won by a landslide dear reader]
I have no real idea if Labour will abolish voter ID or make it easier to use by widening the range of ID allowed. However, as long as it exists the party will have to devise a different way of finding out who has voted, which will almost certainly involve getting far more people to knock up as we will have to call on all our voters, not just those who haven’t voted.
* Dr Michael Taylor has been a party member since 1964. He is currently living in Greece.
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15 Comments
It doesn’t help that the Polling Card now say that it is not necessary to take it to the polling station. Even if it isn’t, there’s no need to advertise the fact!
Mick – that’s interesting. I spent several hours telling on 4th July and got a rather different reaction. Most people seemed to have their polling cards with them, so I got a healthy list of numbers.
I suspect that quite a lot of tellers will make the same mistake I initially made, of noting down the wrong one of the two numbers on the poll card! Apparently one of my colleagues handed in three pages of wrong numbers at the end of a long stint of telling!
But one function of the teller outside the polling station is surely to act as an advert for the last minute waverer. When I first did it in 1970, there were three of us. This year, I was on my own. No sign of the defending Tories. (Though the ex-MP, who was not Ms Truss, did rock up briefly, to thank the polling station staff). It didn’t come as a huge surprise that the seat was one of the LD gains.
Neil H. Is on to something there! Why are the numbers made to be obscure and printed in such a small font? Is Polling Card design standardised at national level, or do local Election Officers have any flexibility? If the latter, then maybe Lib Dem councils could ensure that the numbers are obvious and legible.
Wasn’t my experience! ‘Told’ at three different polling stations outside my area on the 7th – most people had polling cards (actually A4 sheets of paper) and were happy to let me see them; polling numbers in about an 18 font and easy to read. My own poll card was an A5 card, but again the number was easily legible. Obviously depends on the local authority.
At two of the staions I was on my own; at the third there was a friendly Tory who fell about laughing when I asked one man (jeans, open-necked shirt, all by himself) for his number. Turned out that he was the Tory candidate doing the rounds of polling stations (+/-incognito and in serious mufti).
We won by a country mile.
Are some local parties failing to inform tellers to collect the post code and house number for voters that don’t have their number? It’s not as ideal for households with several occupants but it’s good enough.
No need to harass people to get their number from the Clark.
I personally found that voters were allot more inclined to share their info than before because they were going in expecting to have to prove who they were and so were very inclined to be compliant and do as they were asked. This was helpful from a tellers perspective but I found it a rather disturbing from a liberal point of view.
At every election I’ve been involved with, when tellers have been unable to get a number, we’ve asked them to encourage the voter to give their house number and street, and the teller would note down their apparent gender and rough age (e.g. 123 ABC Road, M, older) on the teller’s card, and to WhatsApp someone at our committee room an image of the completed sheet. We also send someone round the manned polling stations every now and again to collect filled sheets and check on our tellers. In the vast majority of cases this is enough information for a committee room data entry person to identify someone on a quick lookup – it’s much slower than popping the polling number into the telling page, but it has always enabled us to include people without polling cards in our telling operation.
Yes, I did have instructions to seek postcode and name if the number wasn’t to hand; but people didn’t seem terribly comfortable with it.
Interestingly, the one person who very firmly refused to give number, postcode, or anything else then beamed at me and said “I’ve voted for your chap, of course…”
Are there rules on hugs at polling stations?
On “my” polling station in East Hants hugged a nun who taught me 40 years ago, a friend whose daughter’s graduation news had just come through, a lady who was tearful about her benefits and (oh shame) the Tory teller.
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Is there much tradition of “tallying” in UK constituencies – generally, when an Irish GE or local election occurs, the boxes in the constituency (each one accounting for a parish or urban district) are opened sequentially, and the political parties will even combine their volunteer manpower to keep a faithful estimate of the FPVs for each area, eventually producing a final tally (hence the name) that amalgates each area total into an expected constituency result? In former times, humble pen and paper was utilised, but nowadays spreadsheets are usually employed to speed up the process.
@Paul Yes. Most organised areas do tallying.
Isn’t this something that technology could replace. It would be easy for the staff to upload every hour the polling numbers of each voter and all candidates parties could download that. We really do need to catch up. but I do like telling not least because its cross party friendly and people who are voting for you often tell you at the polling station.
@Julian Andrew Ingram. When we had the all postal vote elections experiment in 2004, we were able to access a daily update of people who had voted and we really did know whom still had to contact. I am certain it would be technologically possible to achieve your suggestion and it would certainly make polling day easier for political parties.
We really do need to decide why we have people at polling stations. If it is just to smile nicely at voters and let them know we are there, then maybe we could more usefully use our workers to knock up.
Funnily enough I was knocking up in Camborne on July 4th just a single session. So Michael‘s efforts were making the doorknockers jobs that little bit easier but there weren‘t all that many people as far as I could see.
Telling always seemed as much about showing how serious you were as data gathering and I always enjoyed the sit down of an early telling shift after good mornings.
In Girton found far fewer had polling cards than before and I think because there was no other party teller some were more reluctant. Someone complained to polling clerk that I had said they had to get their number from clerk so I was told I had to say clearly that it was voluntary to ask. Have been telling for years and never had that happen.