Thursday 6 May 2010

Voters Unable To Vote And Turned Away at Polling Station in UK Election.

Voters being turned away after 10pm is perhaps, and I say only --perhaps-- understandable, if not excusable. But there are now reports of polling stations running out of ballot papers, voting slips being delivered to the wrong polling stations, and even people being told they're not on lists in their designated polling stations. These types of errors, in a modern democracy such as the United Kingdom - is unacceptable.

In Nick Clegg's constituency, Sheffield Hallam, people were turned away from voting after not having their polling cards -- despite them not being necessary for voting.

In many different constituencies through the UK people have, despite queuing since long before 10pm -- been unable to vote. The BBC has just had people explaining how they were waiting for over an hour outside a polling station, with no information, until 10:02pm, when they were informed they would be unable to vote.

The whole idea of a democracy is that everyone who wants to vote, gets to vote. A rare, one-off error is one thing -- but it is becoming increasingly understood tonight that there have been multiple mistakes throughout the country. Hundreds of people -at a minimum- have been unable to vote; despite attempting to do so.

Hooray for democracy.

Care to share?

3 comments:

  1. It looks like it's going to get crazy. The police have been called to Ranmoor as the ballot box is being held hostage. According to twitter anyway...
    I can't think of a good reason why polling stations couldn't be kept open.

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  2. It's a shame. With all these cock-ups going on around the country how is anyone ever going to know that the results definitely reflect the public consensus, when all these people are being turned away who might have been able to make a difference?

    But anyway, it's still better than what we're getting in Singapore. Most people I know have never had a chance to vote in their entire lives.

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  3. the whole thing's a massive fucking joke.

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