postal votes
 

hi, just got my postal vote through, do we HAVE to vote like this, how much is the council saving, or spending?

Re: postal votes
 

In answer to your question Mez, yes.

As far as i'm aware the age old method of going to the polling station and registering your vote on a slip of paper and placing it in the ballot box is dead and buried in Hyndburn.

Re: postal votes
 

oooo eck i dont want too///

Re: postal votes
 

You and me too. I don't think that many people will want to.

Each ballot paper has its own unique bar-code, to prevent electoral fraud, it is claimed, the more likely reason is to be able to find out who we vote for. The town hall reckons not, but would you trust that bunch of schemers and conivers, irrespective of what flavour they are? :(

Re: postal votes
 

I havent got one- am I supposed to get one?

Re: postal votes
 

no mark luckily you are too young //

Re: postal votes
 

RE: The bar codes and reference numbers on Ballot papers.

I noticed that too. It was much the same when we had the old polling station system. Then, a number corresponding to your name on the electoral register was manually stamped on the ballot paper before it was given to you. Knowing that, excuses about prevention of electoral fraud sound thinner and more threadbare than ever.

The thing that really naffs me off is that, according to the instructions, I have to present somebody with some means of identifying myself and then get them to sign the ballot paper as a witness to my vote. Oooooh, Super secret ballot that.

As to cost, you can bet it is costing, at least, ten times as much to do it this way. This is yet another reason why your council tax bills are so high. But, of course, nobody will protest at the sensless waste of public money and the system will grind inexorably on and on and on, becoming ever more meaningless with each passing year.

Re: postal votes
 

I got mine yesterday too, like sparky says i think the council will know who you are voting for, also i dont like the idea of having to have a witness sign your form either, why do they have to put there address on your form. Do what i did mez rip it up and chuck it in the bin.It does not matter WHO you vote for, the elected wont listen to you anyway.

Re: postal votes
 

Before you chuck the thing in the bin Janet, consider this. We are advised on TV to send junk mail back to the people who send it. Why not rip up your ballot paper and send it back to the Returning Officer in the envelope provided. Then at least they may get some inkling that all is not well in this particular corner of the municiple paradise that they imagine Hyndburn to be.

I think I may have to start a campaign.

Rip em up and send em back!:mad:

Re: postal votes
 

Supurb idea Acrylic Bob. Consider it done.

Re: postal votes
 

I wish that i had thought about sending it back to the council, only it's too late now as my rubbish will now be on the tip somewhere.

Re: postal votes
 

I was a good boy and filled mine in but Anne put hers through the shredder so nobody els could use it
its now in little bits

Re: postal votes
 

Civil Disobedience, don't you just love it!

:mad: Rip em up and send em back:mad:

Re: postal votes
 

Send it back for the attention of the Returning Officer with the following note attached:

"I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top."

Re: postal votes
 

Whats the point of it all? The nearest post box to me is further than where the polling station used to be....the postal system has in any case collapsed, and just watching the telly now, one political party has had it's broadcast censored....some democracy. No wonder we're all p*s*ed off with these *******.

Re: postal votes
 

"Rip em up and send em back"

I always send mine back, but not to the person who sent it though. If you get 2 lots of junk mail put all the stuff in the others freepay envelope and see how they like junk mail, my bins never got junk mail in it

Re: postal votes
 

Sorry Did Not Think To Rip It Up And Send It Back Just Put It In The Bin.

Re: postal votes
 

A better person to return your unwanted ballot papers to would be Chris Lesley MP. who is the Minister for Constitutional Affairs. it is he who is ultimately responsible for this shambles. He can be found at:
The House of Commons,
Westminster,
London, SW1A 0AA

I wouldn't bother putting a stamp on the envelope either, he's responsible for all this, he can pay the postage.

Re: postal votes
 

oooo i like you bob, very determined // thats wot we need to lead us //

Re: postal votes
 

Sorry Thrown Mine Away As Well.

Re: postal votes
 

all well and good if you dont want to vote but please dont complain about the state of things if you aint used your vote

Re: postal votes
 

Sorry mate, but the whole point of the discussion is that it does not really matter one way or another. The majority will do what the majority want to do, whatever anyone else thinks or feels or indeed how they choose to use or misuse their vote.

The position of Abstention is a long and honoured tradition and one I now prefer to adopt because I know from years of experience that the situation is hopeless and the only thing a sane, concerned person can do, is cause a little trouble or offer a metaphorical slap in the face now and then.

I used to be young and full of idealistic zeal. I used to think that the solution to the country's ills lay, in part, through the ballot box, but then I lived through Wilson, Douglas-Hulme, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher and now Blair. I listened as they all made the same sort of promises and the same sorts of lies to cover their incompetence, arrogance, and in some cases sheer greed and lust for power and influence. And I watched as the country got steadily worse and worse until it is hardly recognisable now as the country I grew up in. My Country, a place I was proud to call Home, has been stolen, not just from me, which is bad enough, but from all of us, which is worse, and from generations of Englishmen yet unborn, which is unforgivable. And the truly terrible thing is that we are all complicit in this theft. We have turned our back, and averted our gaze while the smirking simpletons who inhabit municipal offices throughout the country have been hard at work amking certain that the things that made this land worth fighting and dying for have been legislated against, erased, bulldozed into the ground and sold abroad. A land that is famed abroad for it's love of tradition but where tradition is either sneered at or is at best ignored. A land that in cultural terms is now well on it's way to becoming the 51st state of the American Union and in terms of politics is well on it's way to sucumbing to what Naploeon, Kaiser Willhelm and Hitler intended for Europe. It is perhaps salutory to speculate whether the Accrington Pals would be so eager to sacrifice their lives for the defence of England if they could see the state of the country now.

I appear to have 'gone off on one'. Sorry. It has been a long and difficult day. I need some of the solace that can only be found at the bottom of a Gin Bottle.

Re: postal votes
 

Ooops! In my list of Prime Ministers I appear to have ommitted Harold Macmillan, which is a bit naughty, and also John Major, which is entirely understandable. Like I said it has been a long and difficult day!

Re: postal votes
 

As you could only vote from 1974 you did not miss to meany hehe

Re: postal votes
 

I did vote as it happens but the wifes went through the shredder so nobody can abuse here vote
its now in little bits hehe

Re: postal votes
 

the trouble is these ******* spend our money most of them haven't got a clue what the people of hyndburn want. and crawl from under there stone once a year at election time, it all stinks. i can shed some light on who pays for it all thou its central goverment better know as the idiots from westminster

Re: postal votes
 

Acrylic-Bob, I understand why you are so disheartened with the political process but I totally agree with andydawson1982 - if you don't vote then your voice isn't being heard. I haven't filled in my postal vote yet - but especially being a woman (people died for the right for us to vote) I will certainly make sure I send it off.

I do actually like the postal system - but still think that people should have the right to choose which way to vote - by post or a polling station. I think we have turned into a nation of cynics (although I understand why) any new suggestions that Hyndburn Council or the Government comes up with are quickly rejected.

Re: postal votes
 

Oooooo You sound like Mick shortstuff.
Tell you what I told him.
A. I didnt ask her to do it.
B. She died for women to have a right to vote.
Still leaving leaving us the choice to vote or not to vote.
I choose not to.

Re: postal votes
 

if the councilers weren't idiots it mite be worth voting because for ever good one there are ten bad ones

Re: postal votes
 

only me lol...i did get one it was sent to mi pa's- and no im not 2 young thankyou please :p :)

Re: postal votes
 

Well said Acrylic Bob, you did go off on one but it was great reading, I was intending to vote but I think I've left it too late and I cant be bothered to check.

Re: postal votes
 

Not too late if you can manage to get it to the relevant office in time. I didn't post mine, it was hand delivered to the council offices at the bottom of Ormerod Street.

On the point of the requirement for a witnesses signature meaning this isn't a secret ballot ------ the paper is perforated and meant to be detached. All the witness is witnessing is your signature on that particular piece, not your vote on the other part. They have to be separated to put in the different envelopes anyway. (ballot paper into inner envelope, witness paper into outer envelope along with inner envelope)

I prefer "live" voting too - at least that way I actually remembered to go and do it. I kept forgetting to fill this flipping form in.

:s_bubble:

Re: postal votes
 

As a Deputy Returning Officer in the Midlands (but not in Shropshire), I've only just picked up this thread as I'm completely worn out after too many late nights sorting out ballot boxes and counting votes.

There are some interesting points here. Not returning your ballot paper won't have much impact as it won't be recorded; if you really want to register a protest send it back to the Returning Officer, either blank or with a suitable comment written across it. That way it will be officially recorded as a 'spoilt vote'. I saw hundreds of these in the European election. These figures appear on the official declaration and if ever spoilt votes exceed valid ones it will surely hit the national press. As WillowTheWhisp comments, you'll still have to get someone to witness your signature but this is only a verification of your identity - the witness doesn't see your vote.

I haven't experienced bar codes as we still have polling stations down here but, believe me, the old system of recording the ballot paper number on a copy of the electoral roll was purely to prevent fraud. Nobody looks at them after the election unless one of the candidates complains and, after a statutory period, they are simply destroyed. In the unlikely event of a complaint, the police may simply use the copy list to ask an elector whether or not they voted; even then no-one would see how they voted.

Electoral Registration Officers are responsible for looking after ballot papers after an election; they are responsible professionals and would never ever let a politician have access to them.

Re: postal votes
 

I will probably do that at the next elections instead of putting it through the shredder.

Re: postal votes
 

Many thanks for the reassurance MikeA, but how does one get ones vote registered as an abstention and not a spoiled vote?

Re: postal votes
 

Well i have enquired at the Münich Embassy about voting.After being informed that i would have to pay my council tax for the last 22 years, the time i have been in Germany, then i would be entitled to vote.
So as Tealeaf would say i opted out