Election random-blogging
May. 7th, 2010 12:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenI am a little terrified that people are being turned away from polling stations. However, I'm not convinced that the returning officers had a right to extend the hours of polling. The only reference I have found so far is this:
[From The Representation of the People Act 1983, Sch 1, Part I Provisions as to Time:]
Polling. In the case of a general election, between the hours of 7 in the morning and 10 at night on the [eleventh] day after the last day for delivery of nomination papers.
That's it. No discretionary power of the returning officer to extend it. Polling is between 7am and 10pm.
That said, my research is a little wine-soaked. Can anyone cite me different chapter and verse?
I did a good thing, though. My flatmate, who hasn't ever voted before and didn't know that you don't need the polling card, said, "I haven't voted, I thought I couldn't."
It was 9.50pm.
I said I would come with her. We ran. We ran inside, we grabbed keys, grabbed bikes, grabbed lights, cycled down the Cowley Road at approximately a million miles an hour, dodged buses, taxis, pedestrians and Tesco lorries, and we flew into the polling station.
By which point it was 9.57pm. The returning officers were calm as my flatmate skidded in. Three more people drifted in while I was waiting, and they were closing up on a deserted room at ten as we left. It was eerie; the whole night is eerie, nothing but electoral shadows.
Someone on Radio 4 just said: "I was wrong, David Cameron hasn't gone to his count, he's gone to the pub."
[From The Representation of the People Act 1983, Sch 1, Part I Provisions as to Time:]
Polling. In the case of a general election, between the hours of 7 in the morning and 10 at night on the [eleventh] day after the last day for delivery of nomination papers.
That's it. No discretionary power of the returning officer to extend it. Polling is between 7am and 10pm.
That said, my research is a little wine-soaked. Can anyone cite me different chapter and verse?
I did a good thing, though. My flatmate, who hasn't ever voted before and didn't know that you don't need the polling card, said, "I haven't voted, I thought I couldn't."
It was 9.50pm.
I said I would come with her. We ran. We ran inside, we grabbed keys, grabbed bikes, grabbed lights, cycled down the Cowley Road at approximately a million miles an hour, dodged buses, taxis, pedestrians and Tesco lorries, and we flew into the polling station.
By which point it was 9.57pm. The returning officers were calm as my flatmate skidded in. Three more people drifted in while I was waiting, and they were closing up on a deserted room at ten as we left. It was eerie; the whole night is eerie, nothing but electoral shadows.
Someone on Radio 4 just said: "I was wrong, David Cameron hasn't gone to his count, he's gone to the pub."
