Oh please...

[hobbituk]

I've just been looking at the BBC coverage of the election, and they are decrying the fact that some people were too late to vote as they were still queuing at10pm when the polls closed. Shameful, said the commentator. Huh? The polls have been open since 7am this morning. These people had 15 hours to go there to place their vote - how much time

Comments

[kassto]

Oh, not even time to pee? They need people looking after them with scones and cups of tea!

[mohawk_chick]

I agree, my polling station was one of the ones that had problems, but I waited 5mins at 6.30pm. There was the start of a queue forming when I left but again I agree, why wait until 9-9.30 to vote. Fair enough some people work funny hours but if that were me, I'd have registered for a postal vote, just to make sure there was no missing it.

[lalaith1]

The problem wasn't so much people turning up at 9.55pm but really incompetent/dodgy practices in some places. And there should be more than three or four people at polling stations, it's appalling to treat workers like that.
It was an unusual situation and I don't know why it happened given that turnout wasn't as high as all that. Tim and I turned up at 8.30pm at ours, and had to queue for 20 minutes. Earlier that evening our neighbours queued for an hour. We've been voting there for 20 years and always just walked straight in and out. I expect people turning up late just expected that situation.
The Sheffield scandal was the worst. A colleague yesterday was on the phone to a friend who was there trying to vote, and was furious...the students all had their polling cards with them but were put into a seperate queue and made to wait for up to three hours, and then after all that most of them were turned away. How are we going to engage young people in the political process if you treat them like this?