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Anger over vote chaos

10:00am Saturday 8th May 2010 in


ANGRY voters were left queuing outside a Swindon polling station just minutes before ballot boxes closed, in scenes which one woman described as “more like the third world”.

The Tawny Owl pub in Abbey Meads was besieged by voters late on Thursday evening, anxious to cast their ballots for both the General and local council elections.

It is uncertain whether anyone in the queue was unable to vote, but according to Megan Twisk from Redhouse, when her partner Ian had cast his ballot at 9.45pm, there was a line of people stretching out of the door.

“It was getting very ugly,” said the business manager from Barcote Close, who had placed her vote an hour earlier after making a second trip to the polling station.

“The queue was still out of the car park. I cannot imagine how many people had given up on seeing the queues. People were extremely angry.”

David Wright from Oakhurst was another disgruntled voter who is planning to complain to the Electoral Commission.

He said he was appalled at what he calls the bad organisation which led to huge queues at the polling station.

“I have never missed an opportunity to vote,’’ said David, 68, who made three trips to the pub to vote. His daughter and her partner experienced similar problems.

“The queue was out into the road and we couldn’t get into the pub car park. All the roads were choc-a-bloc.

“We got ushered into the polling station which had four stations in a little room like a Granny’s front room. There was just not enough room.

“One of the tellers had no one to attend to while they were still queuing outside.’’ David explained that the biggest problem was that there were four separate polling station in one, hosting voters from Moredon, Haydon Wick and Oakhurst.

Megan agreed asking why local schools were not used as polling stations instead: “The whole thing was a disgrace. I went away at 6.30pm and came back at 9pm to find things were even worse.

“I am disgusted that many dozens of people may have been disenfranchised if they couldn’t cast their votes before the ten o’clock deadline.

“Not only is it madness to have everyone vote from the same small polling station, but it was so badly organised that no one knew the queues should have been specific for their area, making the endless queues pointless.

“This is supposed be a modern democracy.

“What I witnessed on Thursday evening was more like the third world or images from Iraq.”

Comments(29)

SAM2WIN says...
10:24am Sat 8 May 10

“I am disgusted that many dozens of people may have been disenfranchised if they couldn’t cast their votes before the ten o’clock deadline"

The polling stations were open for 15 hours and were legally required to close at 10pm.
If people can't get to the station with time to spare there is always the option of a Postal vote.

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SAM2WIN says...
10:31am Sat 8 May 10

Must praise Eldene polling station.

Voted at about 5pm and as usual the atmosphere was calm,relaxed and friendly.

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SAM2WIN says...
10:32am Sat 8 May 10

Must praise Eldene polling station.

Voted at about 5pm and as usual the atmosphere was calm,relaxed and friendly.

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Gooey says...
10:36am Sat 8 May 10

Turn up in plenty of time and stop moaning.Comparing it to iraq is offensive and way off the mark.Pathetic!

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Bobfm says...
11:10am Sat 8 May 10

I have to say that 15 hours to vote would seem to be a lot of time. Many people could have voted on their way to work. How many of those in the queue didn't have their polling card.

In all the years I have been voting I have never known this before. There cannot just be one reason, I believe there were more polling stations than ever before nationally and with a huge rise in postal votes and just a 5% overall increase in turnout there really shouldn't have been a problem

I also do not believe an LA would run out of ballot forms, this rather smacks of voter fraud, perhaps fraudsters using others postal vote, when in reality the person hadn't voted.

What worries me is someone may suggest electronic voting from home to undermine democracy even further. I am old fashioned in believing we should make the effort to go to the polls.

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Bobfm says...
11:13am Sat 8 May 10

should have been 4% rise sorry

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Amberflame says...
11:13am Sat 8 May 10

I find it all a bit silly really, the polling stations were open from 7am! People need to have more patients, instead of leaving and coming back (more than twice it seems) they should have waited the first time they turned up.

But quiet frankly holding a vote in a pub is just ridiculous Swindon is not a village!

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The Real Librarian says...
11:17am Sat 8 May 10

I understand people's frustrations if they did not vote, but I have to say I am quite upset by the negative publicity around this issue.
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Elections happen because thousands of people accross the country work very hard to make them happen.
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Presiding Officers, Poll Clerks, support staff and the Election Office staff work long hours to provide the best service they can. Anyone who has seen the cheques will tell you that they don't do it for the money. If you knew the budgets involved, you would be amazed that the whole thing is done on the cheap.

Obviously mistakes have been made here, but the huge criticism, together with people shouting and screaming at Poll Staff, is just unacceptable.
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The media, expecially the BBC are being highly irresponsible, talking this up into a crisis.
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After what has happened this time, I can well imagine a lot of people declining to do it next time and then the election offices would struggle to even run an election.

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Bobfm says...
11:19am Sat 8 May 10

I don't quite understand what room they used. The Parliament room is quite large and has outside doors. I would have thought there would have been ample space for separate queues.

I have delivered seminars in this room with 50+ people present.

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Bobfm says...
11:23am Sat 8 May 10

The Real Librarian, is it any wonder the Brown Broadcasting Company is hyping it, Mandelso said immediately that it would be Labour supporters who were disenfranchised, quite how he knew that unless in certain areas there was some form of concerted campaign to be late, I don't know.

Of course Labour would love to see the result being challenged. We have seen how all the main parties are desperate for power, even though they have no idea how to get UK PLC out of the sh*t.

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The Real Librarian says...
11:26am Sat 8 May 10

Bobfm wrote:
I have to say that 15 hours to vote would seem to be a lot of time. Many people could have voted on their way to work. How many of those in the queue didn't have their polling card. In all the years I have been voting I have never known this before. There cannot just be one reason, I believe there were more polling stations than ever before nationally and with a huge rise in postal votes and just a 5% overall increase in turnout there really shouldn't have been a problem I also do not believe an LA would run out of ballot forms, this rather smacks of voter fraud, perhaps fraudsters using others postal vote, when in reality the person hadn't voted. What worries me is someone may suggest electronic voting from home to undermine democracy even further. I am old fashioned in believing we should make the effort to go to the polls.
Bob, some of what you say is very wise.
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I worry that this will be used to push electronic voting, perhaps by the internet.
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Given the many accusations of fraud that have followed the expansion of Postal voting, I think this would be very irresponsible.
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The system we have now has worked for many years.
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Part of the problem may well be that people tend to all want to vote at the same time. The period 1.30 - 4.30 tends to be very quiet, but 5.30 - 730 is hugely busy. Similarly 8.30 - 9.30 too.

Basically people should vote as early as possible if they want to attend the polling station.

If they don't they can get a postal vote or arrange a proxy vote, where someone votes for them.

If they turn up and there is a queue, they should stay in it, and not leave and return. The queues go through quite fast.

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The Real Librarian says...
11:34am Sat 8 May 10

Bobfm wrote:
The Real Librarian, is it any wonder the Brown Broadcasting Company is hyping it, Mandelso said immediately that it would be Labour supporters who were disenfranchised, quite how he knew that unless in certain areas there was some form of concerted campaign to be late, I don't know. Of course Labour would love to see the result being challenged. We have seen how all the main parties are desperate for power, even though they have no idea how to get UK PLC out of the sh*t.
Well that is another risk too.
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As you say, UK PLC is in the deep brown, and needs strong, concerted action and good decision making. If that does't happen, the pound will plunge in value and the UK's triple A credit rating will vanish. That will make borrowing more expensive and that will cost every single person in the country.
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Obviously strong decision making will be very difficult in a hung parliament situation, but with legal challenges happening, it will be all but impossible.

Mandleson and Harman etc are stirring the pot for political advantage, but in doing so are damaging the interests of their country. People should take note of Labour's priorities.

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Bobfm says...
11:54am Sat 8 May 10

Ti be honest it doesn't appear to just be Labour priorities in play here. As I have said given the parties are poles apart on the vital areas of policy any form of agreement will be about selfish political advantage not what is good for Britain.

What I think should happen, although I don't relish a Tory government, is that they should operate a minority government, then we will really see who puts Britain first. Of course this would lead to another GE very quickly, Browns (the other one) lasted about 4 months.

Hopefully voting change will have been brought in and we will get a proper Government of the people.

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A Tax Payer says...
1:24pm Sat 8 May 10

Firstly it's a bit patronising to keep bleating on about the polling station opening times. You'd have to be a bit dense or come from another planet to not know that and if either of these two criteria apply to you then you should not be eligible to vote!

Moving on, I was away on business on Tuesday and Wednesday and my meetings had been scheduled to finish circa 3.30 meaning i'd be back in town 6.30-7.00 all being well, luckily my meetings in Peterborough finished early and I arrived at Peatmoor school at about 4.30 ish. I have to say that the three ladies who were there did not seem as fluent in their admin as they normally are and to be fair they may have been different one's from the last time that the school was used for council only elections.


Therein also lies another issue. Don't forget that at some stations there were two votes to be cast by each voter thus adding just a little extra time to each individuals time spent at the station. Multiply this by all those who were on the register and that's possibly why there appear to have been log jams?


Now had I gotten there and there had been a queue, i would like many others have made a decision to come back later. Lets face it there is likely to be hardly a rush at 9.30 is there. Well it would seem to be that at some stations there were queues which would have gradually built up over the day and unless your window overlooked the polling station you'd not know that and also be tempted to go home and come back later. So there must have been systematic issues building up at some stations all through the day and upon turning up you'd only have a snap shop of the situation at that particular time and make an informed decision there and then.


I like many of you out there do not have the answer as to why at some stations voters missed out as the turnouts though higher than usual were not exceptionally higher. Though I agree it is shambolic and smacks of third world voting systems.


Anyway don't worry folks and deals done by the big three will all end in tears and we'll be having another crack at it in the autumn. Just make sure you get to the church on time then.

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TinkeyWinkey says...
1:51pm Sat 8 May 10

7am - 10pm - surely that's enough time for anybody. Bit to late to moan about it now

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idonotbelieveit says...
2:41pm Sat 8 May 10

I was in the queue at The Tawny Owl at 7.30, took 20minutes to reach the front. Justin Tomlinson was there and I asked him what would happen if the queue was the same length at 9.45. He just shrugged his shoulders and looked bemused. The people turning before 10pm should have been allowed to vote. Supermarkets have closing times when people are prevented from entering but then they have a winding down time. This was such a massive turn out, it caught everybody on the hop and people would have expected to turn up and just walk in,vote and walk out again.

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boastie says...
3:25pm Sat 8 May 10

Mr and Mrs Twisk are being over dramatic about what happened at the Tawny Owl. I got my vote in dead on 10pm, there were no ugly scenes, and not one person was turned away. The parking situation wasn't great, but after 5pm when everybody has finished work, you will get a surge of voters the same as you get rush hour traffic. Common sense tells you to go and vote at the least busy times....

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real -life says...
5:27pm Sat 8 May 10

Be interesting to know how many of those who didnt get to vote actually read the manifestos and knew what they were voting for? The whole system is a farce, probably 90% of voters never even read the manifestos and had absolutely no idea what the polices were they are voting for. And those elected dont have to have any qualification or experience to run the country. Imagine the outcry if that was the same for the police or doctors or surgeons or teachers. It really is a very strange country we live in!

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who dat? says...
8:29pm Sat 8 May 10

"Be interesting to know how many of those who didnt get to vote actually read the manifestos and knew what they were voting for?"

Who needs to read a manifesto to know that it's time to get rid of the pensions robber and his cronies !
The buffoon doesn't even have the decency to resign!

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Peter DAY says...
12:13pm Sun 9 May 10

Those individuals who if it can be believed did not vote had plenty of time in the time the polling stations were open to get there acts together to make a vote.
Stupidy comes to mind in not planning.

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WiltshireLeppard says...
2:07pm Sun 9 May 10

Hate to upset Bob, but I think that voting online should happen.

After all, people use the internet for banking, Ebay, Amazon etc. and those sites are secured when you are making a transaction by card. The same technology could easily be applied when casting a vote, thus:

On Page 1, you enter your name and give your Voter ID.

On Page 2, you select which constituency you are voting in (in my case Swindon North)

On Page 3, you are given the list of candidates standing in that constituency and are asked to click next to the candidate you wish to vote for.

On Page 4, you confirm your vote

On Page 5, you confirm your email.

Then press submit. You are instantly emailed a code to enter on Page 6.

Once you enter this code (cut/paste) and press submit, your vote is recorded and accepted.

This would only take you five minutes or less to do - and the site hosting it (let's call it www.myvoteonline.com
) would have sufficient bandwith to cope with demand - ensuring that it does not crash and is run using Linux.

It so easy, I'm surprised that we're not already doing it!

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Bobfm says...
7:56pm Sun 9 May 10

WiltshireLeppard, how secure has our online data been with banks, building societies etc. Has there been a bank that hasn't at some point been compromised. Let alone the HMG computer systems leaking like sieves.

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amlorusso says...
1:38am Mon 10 May 10

The main issue against voting done outside a polling booth (postal, telephone, internet, etc) is that it subjects to a person's vote to possible coercion by outside forces because it gives such people the confidence to witness for themselves that their attempt to coerce a person's vote has succeeded, they have no such verification if votes are done in a polling booth. There is also the issue of identify fraud and the current registration system which has been highlighted by election observers.

Postal voting should be kept strictly limited to those for whom getting to a polling booth, mainly those working for the government abroad (armed forces, diplomatic staff).

(and wurz, it's peer to peer network)

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Bobfm says...
7:01am Mon 10 May 10

amlorusso, you make some excellent points as to why the other methods should not be rolled out as solutions to what was of course a bizarre situation.

As for Peer to Peer, I used the wrong spelling of the word so the children on the forum continually bring it up, as children tend to.

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The Real Librarian says...
7:19am Mon 10 May 10

Bobfm wrote:
amlorusso, you make some excellent points as to why the other methods should not be rolled out as solutions to what was of course a bizarre situation. As for Peer to Peer, I used the wrong spelling of the word so the children on the forum continually bring it up, as children tend to.
Of course they do, they think it means something.
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What they seem to be ignoring are the repeated incidences of loss of data that have occurred in the UK over the last few years. We have seen laptops left on trains so often that you would think there was some sort of incentive scheme. Our own Nationwide lost one and were fined nearly £1,000,000.
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Various government organisations have been spraying our data around the landscape too, although mysteriously they don't get fined.
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Government IT contracts tend to be riddled with disaster and are usually as secure as a bike lock from a pound shop.
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Postal voting has been riddled with fraud from the start, and if I were to suggest that Labour intended that it should be, for electoral advantage, I could be sued, so I am definately not saying that.
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If anyone thinks electronic voting would be secure, then I need to warn them not to worry about Doctor WHo, those vampires and angels and so on, aren't real.

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Bobfm says...
9:28am Mon 10 May 10

TRL very good post. There was a London borough who had thousands of late voter registrations, some houses had apparently 12 adults living in them. Odd how the real residents didn't know them, coincidentally of course it was a marginal Labour seat.

We shouldn't be suspicious of course just because there is a Home Office document supporting an immediate open borders policy which has flooded the UK with almost 2 million migrants (Labours on estimate), staing they would likely be Labour voters.

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EmmBee says...
10:30am Mon 10 May 10

My sister was a polling officer last week in the Oxford area. She said that the busy times were predictable - just after dropping the kids off at school, lunchtime, and just after work. She also said that it goes very quiet during East Enders and Coronation Street. So I wonder, what was on TV last Thursday evening that kept everyone huddled in at home until it was too late? Pop Idol X Factor? Strictly Come Ice Dancing on Ice?

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Bobfm says...
12:19pm Mon 10 May 10

EmmBee, got to get our priorities right, the future of the country or oft repeated TV programmes, difficult choice.

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Nowtas says...
5:26pm Thu 13 May 10

Never having been there, can anyone tell me if it was genuinely like a third world country or Iraq there on election night, or if a little perspective is in order and people merely had a long queue to face in order to vote democratically?

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