People being turned away

[Tintinnabulate]

BBC just said people in Manchester were turned away cos it was 10pm "/ They should just let them all vote. And great it was my area too where the election is very close between Lib dems and Labour.

[-:Undertaker:-]

The polls have been open from 7am to 10pm - had more than enough time.

[Jordy]

The polls have been open from 7am to 10pm - had more than enough time.Yeah and there's postal votes too. These people have no excuse in my opinion, if you begin keeping it open for people in Manchester you have to keep it open for everyone elsewhere to, if you didn't that actually would be unfair. Considering there's 42,000 polling stations it would be difficult to do.

10PM Cut off, simple enough, end of.

[Tintinnabulate]

The polls have been open from 7am to 10pm - had more than enough time.

Why do they closed at 10pm and not midnight? "/ and well it has been busy so...

[-:Undertaker:-]

Why do they closed at 10pm and not midnight? "/ and well it has been busy so...

They have to get the votes to the voting centres asap and remember people are counting all through the early hours and do want to get home. :P

[Tintinnabulate]

BBC just said "Manchester Withington 200 people where turned away".

They could have easily left it open for another 1 hour.

[Nixt]

Don't think they should leave them open for any longer, but I think it was just described as "third world voting". Should have been planned and executed more effectively.

[Jordy]

Don't think they should leave them open for any longer, but I think it was just described as "third world voting". Should have been planned and executed more effectively.I don't see what's wrong with the system. If it was moved to 11pm across the nation they'd still be people leaving it a bit late and being turned away. It will always happen.

Perhaps this just shows a higher turnout than usual which is good news I'm sure.

[Hecktix]

They announced that one polling station remained open for a further half hour. This is where it starts getting unfair

[Tintinnabulate]

They announced that one polling station remained open for a further half hour. This is where it starts getting unfair

Indeed. People will moan for sure.

[AlexOC]

The one just up the road let a few people in after 10.

[Jordy]

This election is making a mockery of our political system. As Lord Mandelson pointed out the First Past The Post (FPTP) system is on it's last legs, if there's a Lab/Lib coalition it'll no doubt be got rid of and rightly so.

And it seems for returning officers there's no clarity or consistency, with some doing different things. I'd personally prosecute the returning officers who kept polling stations open after 10pm.

[MattFr]

If people get turned away, tough, they only had 15 hours to vote, I don't see what the problem is at all.

[Bun]

postal vote and 15 hours, no excuse. law is law.

[Black_Apalachi]

They announced that one polling station remained open for a further half hour. This is where it starts getting unfair

Yep I heard a couple of stations stayed open until the whole queue got in, one of them was in Liverpool as well as far as I know. All votes from stations which overran the time should be marked null and void.

I also heard somewhere apparently ran out of voting cards because 'they had a bigger turnout than was expected' - how is that possible though when everyone is registered to their own polling station and nobody can vote at the wrong one? :S

[Smits]

It's stupid if people are queing for over an hour and still cannot get in.

You have to understand that people are busy working, picking kids up from school and so on, it's hard to find a couple of hours where they can vote. You dont expect to turn up at nine and be waiting over an hour to vote...

[Adamm]

I went at about 4pm and there was no one there apart from the officials.

15 hours is MORE than enough time for anyone. The normal working day is 8/9 hours so you have 6/7 hours in which to vote. No excuse, their own fault. The system needs changing but they knew the rules like everyone else.

[Black_Apalachi]

It's stupid if people are queing for over an hour and still cannot get in.

You have to understand that people are busy working, picking kids up from school and so on, it's hard to find a couple of hours where they can vote. You dont expect to turn up at nine and be waiting over an hour to vote...

We are talking about queues of over 200 hundred people at the places concerned - and the later hours are bound to be the busiest because it's the one time of day when the majority of people have finished work and seen to their other commitments. It all depends on how big the polling station is anyway - mine was a primary school but I saw one that was just a little trailer in a supermarket car-park.

[hah]

stupid women thinking they can vote

[kuzkasate]

Out of 7 teachers I asked, only 4 of them voted because the other 3, finished work late, had to pick their kids up, get them home, get them something to eat, then bath & bed. They simply didnt have enough time and a lot of people are angered by this because if they are busy all day, then why should they be kicked out and said that they cant vote?

RE-VOTE IS ONLY FAIR.

[dirrty]

Out of 7 teachers I asked, only 4 of them voted because the other 3, finished work late, had to pick their kids up, get them home, get them something to eat, then bath & bed. They simply didnt have enough time and a lot of people are angered by this because if they are busy all day, then why should they be kicked out and said that they cant vote?

RE-VOTE IS ONLY FAIR.
surely if people know that they're going to be busy all day, then they should opt for a postal vote :S

[Mathew]

They simply didnt have enough time and a lot of people are angered by this because if they are busy all day, then why should they be kicked out and said that they cant vote?

RE-VOTE IS ONLY FAIR.
Then they should have opted to vote by post?.. :S
They can't have different closing times for different places in something as important as a General Election. Quite surprised they let the remainder in after 10pm actually.

[Black_Apalachi]

Exactly, there are other methods for a reason. I don't know why people are acting as if this was the first general election our country has ever had.