Bollitics: The General Election 2010 Exit Poll

[peterms]

actually, give the farce that went on at a few polling stations, I think there should be another immediate general election anyway.

People not being allowed to vote due to incompetence FTL!

Saw that briefly on Sky news this morning, what happened?

people in quite a few boroughs were prevented from voting, as the polls clsoed at 10pm and they were still queing up to vote!

They effectively just locked them out, and said they could not vote, even though they were queing up to do so.

Some of the polling stations were just understaffed or not organised well enough. AT some polling stations, there had been queues for hours.

For a modern western democracy, that is farcical. And very undemocratic.

I do not believe it was simply a case of loads of buffoons turning up en masse at polling stations at 9.58pm.

The other strange things about this are that it's not happened before, as far as I know, and yet it happened in several dispersed areas of the country. Makes me wonder if there had been some sort of discussion among whatever network of returning officers there might be, maybe about the waste of all those unused voting papers in past elections, or how to plan the most lean and efficient allocation of staff based on just-in-time techniques, to see who could run the most cost-effective show.

The chance of this happening spontaneously in a reasonably widespread fashion and for the first time without some sharing of ideas about how to slim down resource allocation must be pretty low, I would imagine.

But it's pretty incompetent. Not quite on the banana-republic scale of Florida, but pretty shameful.

[peterms]

I agree with you to a point Jon, but only to a point.

If people were queing for hours (I've not heard anything to say they were) but if they were that is I agree poor organisation, but were there really people waiting hours?

I do though think it was right to shut the polls at 10 in line with the rules and I think the polls were open plenty long enough throughout the day for everyone to turn up and vote.

I do think though that if very large numbers of people turned up in the last hour it was largelly unavoidable that some wouldn't be able to cast their vote and personally I think that is there own fault.

There were queues at various times of day in various places.

In any case, the job of returning officers is to allocate resources to do the job properly. Turnout was higher than normal, but not abnormally so and not outside the bounds of what could reasonably be expected. And voting patterns at times of day don't tend to vary a lot either, in my tedious experience of trying to get the buggers out.

It is absolutely not the fault of the voters.

[Jon]

If people were queing for hours (I've not heard anything to say they were) but if they were that is I agree poor organisation, but were there really people waiting hours?

IMHO, you should not have to queue to vote at all, not for any great length.

It puts people off voting. If i turned up ay my polling station at say 8pm and saw a very slow moving queue of 100 or so people, i'd probably sod that for a game of soldiers TBH.

I honestly don't think you'd see people queing for hours in this country. They'd either see the queue and think about coming back later (which is what many did apparantly - and still could not vote), or they'd just sod it off.

That is not right, and should not happen.

I know they had to shut the doors at 10pm. That is the law. Apparently what they could have done at 9.58 was get everyong in the queue into the polling station and hand them a polling card. They could then still cast their vote after 10pm, as long as they were in the building.

The fact that that was not done at most polling stations is a scandal IMO.

[Jon]

woke up again just now and seen the results? What the **** happened to the Lib Dems? All that energy in the debates and axctually lost seats? Seems like the right wing papers latest bullshit surge seemed to have an impact. **** the general public and **** Murdoch and **** future elections. An election where I genuinely thought there might be some headway, and it's the same shit. Can't imagine I'll bother next time. Even a shitload of tories voting in Wales - who are these giant spastics?

I largely agree with this very eloquent post, my good fellow.

[drat01]

I know they had to shut the doors at 10pm. That is the law. Apparently what they could have done at 9.58 was get everyong in the queue into the polling station and hand them a polling card. They could then still cast their vote after 10pm, as long as they were in the building.

The fact that that was not done at most polling stations is a scandal IMO.

Against the law though Jon - The whole electoral system in the UK needs to be looked at with an open mind.

What about online voting? What about the ability to use ANY polling station? PR? What about getting some sort of formal ID being required to vote?

[Condimentalist]

So the latent Lib Dem supporters pussied out again. Poor. But at least the Tories don't have a majority. Goodness knows what happens from here.

[Rodders]

apologies for use of the sp.... word, just so annoyed this morning. Right off to work. Joy.

[drat01]

apologies for use of the sp.... word, just so annoyed this morning. Right off to work. Joy.

we all use the word spurs occasionally - that Redknapp really is a horrible bloke ......

[LondonLax]

I agree with you to a point Jon, but only to a point.

If people were queing for hours (I've not heard anything to say they were) but if they were that is I agree poor organisation, but were there really people waiting hours?

I do though think it was right to shut the polls at 10 in line with the rules and I think the polls were open plenty long enough throughout the day for everyone to turn up and vote.

I do think though that if very large numbers of people turned up in the last hour it was largelly unavoidable that some wouldn't be able to cast their vote and personally I think that is there own fault.

The ITV coverage last night covered it a lot and most people they interviewed said they had come a few times to try and vote but the queues were too long and they were just told they couldn't vote.

In Hackeny they closed the booths at 9.20 because they had run out of papers :shock:

[Ads]

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative Party candidate, has won in Richmond Park gaining the seat from the Lib Dems.

Hmmm one more of the "elite"

I’m sure Harriet Harman will make him feel welcome in the palace.

Honestly, give up the hypocritical class war bollocks.

[Ads]

I think AWOL is right actually.

I think the tories will try to form a minority govt for a few months, and then go back to the electorate, and get a decisive majority, albeit not a massive one.

The mountain was ultimately just too high to climb, as even though they’ve taken a mountain of seats, the Conservatives of 01 and 05 left them with far too much to do.

[thetrees]

That's it, I'm off to work to make loads of money on the back of the faltering pound

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

woke up again just now and seen the results? What the **** happened to the Lib Dems? All that energy in the debates and axctually lost seats? Seems like the right wing papers latest bullshit surge seemed to have an impact. **** the general public and **** Murdoch and **** future elections. An election where I genuinely thought there might be some headway, and it's the same shit. Can't imagine I'll bother next time. Even a shitload of tories voting in Wales - who are these giant spastics?

I laughed out loud at this, post of the day so far

I think you are been over nice to the Tory voters in Wales though :winkold:

[Jon]

I know they had to shut the doors at 10pm. That is the law. Apparently what they could have done at 9.58 was get everyong in the queue into the polling station and hand them a polling card. They could then still cast their vote after 10pm, as long as they were in the building.

The fact that that was not done at most polling stations is a scandal IMO.

Against the law though Jon -

perfectly legal Ian.

That is what they did at one (or more) of the polling stations.

2 legal conditions to vote after 10pm.

a. The doors to the polling station must be shut

b. You must have a polling card in your hand

Thus those in the hall that had been given their cards could then vote.

Have you not been listening to Five Live? :winkold:

I agree though - our voting system is totally archaic and outdated.

[drat01]

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative Party candidate, has won in Richmond Park gaining the seat from the Lib Dems.

Hmmm one more of the "elite"

I’m sure Harriet Harman will make him feel welcome in the palace.

Honestly, give up the hypocritical class war bollocks.

Please do not tell what I can and cannot do.

Goldsmith is part of the "elite" and you may not like it being mentioned but the facts are quite simple and there for all to see

[Ads]

If the Conservatives get over that 309 projection by 5 seats, then they should be able to form an effective government with a unionist alliance given the Sinn Fein absenteeism.

Either way, given Labours massive loss and Clegg’s Lib Dems really failing to move anywhere but a few steps backwards, I fail to see how a Lib-Lab pact could possibly work with Brown as the PM. I expect him to be gone by Monday, especially given the jockeying for position seen in the Labour party via Balls and Johnson.

[Ads]

Zac Goldsmith, Conservative Party candidate, has won in Richmond Park gaining the seat from the Lib Dems.

Hmmm one more of the "elite"

I’m sure Harriet Harman will make him feel welcome in the palace.

Honestly, give up the hypocritical class war bollocks.

Please do not tell what I can and cannot do.

Goldsmith is part of the "elite" and you may not like it being mentioned but the facts are quite simple and there for all to see

I find it incredibly trite and hypocritical when there’s people like Balls and Harmen in the Labour party to bleat on about people being privileged in other parties. I don't care that you mention it, I just find it sad that you think its an issue.

[drat01]

Jon no got BBC1 on the net - getting ready for a work thing - the issue was, or at least how they are reporting it up here, the fact that people have to be checked off the list to be handed a voting form. The problem was not getting them the paper and the queue for the little box, it was just a case of too many people for too few people checking them off the list. Just getting them into the building could have and would have caused even more problems

Our quaint" system is being showed up on so many fronts today and needs to be sorted out asap. The public are not going to be happy with what is happening and political parties who offer a commitment to change this will be seen a lot more favourably.

[drat01]

I find it incredibly trite and hypocritical when there’s people like Balls and Harmen in the Labour party to bleat on about people being privileged in other parties. I don't care that you mention it, I just find it sad that you think its an issue.

If you honestly think that Goldsmith is not one of the "elite" and then try to justify it by trying to compare he and his background to Balls and Harmen, then you are wrong. But as normal I don't expect you to see it that way especially comments about a Tory, so we will have to agree to disagree

[AVFCLaura]

How on earth are we in a limbo where no one even knows what's going to happen, it's so weird.

Someone should be moving into number 10 today and we should all know where we stand, bloody politics, bloody UK voters.