hedgehog
Non-Aligned
Enter your message here...
Posts: 6,826
|
Post by hedgehog on Sept 13, 2019 15:08:48 GMT
What am I supposed to be looking at? Counting a small number of the ballot papers into a bundle, and then writing down the relevant number on the label? Oh yes. I can see how that could be interpreted as being something very suspicious. Conspiracy theories are a big problem amongst an element of the leave community. They need to be stamped on promptly, plus of course accusing an innocent person of committing fraud, that goes too far.
|
|
hedgehog
Non-Aligned
Enter your message here...
Posts: 6,826
|
Post by hedgehog on Sept 13, 2019 15:10:32 GMT
Personally I think she was changing ballots from Remain to Leave (equal amount of evidence for my theory to be fair) The man and woman on the desk did look like Lib Dems to me.
|
|
|
Post by timrollpickering on Sept 13, 2019 19:48:54 GMT
Another entry in the "Just what are election staff doing?" series. Anyone know who's bright idea this was:
|
|
ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 1,960
|
Post by ColinJ on Sept 14, 2019 21:15:04 GMT
I have started some research into Three Rivers DC elections, compiling the data into a format I prefer, from the 'usual' sources. There are two 'unusual' items that I am hoping to get some more information; any help from forum members would be appreciated. 1. Davıd Boothroyd has posted a list of known election petitions since local government reorganisation in 1973. In the list is a petition regarding the Chorleywood West ward election in 1991. The election of C.F. Downing (C) was declared void because 600 ballot papers were excluded from the count. Does anyone have any further further details about the petition? Also, was there a by-election or a recount? You'll probably find all the detail you need at The National Archives J 104/378: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C762443If an election is declared void, then there is a byelection. When the court changes the result without calling another election, it's called an 'undue election'. Well, an interesting couple of hours at the National Archives today showed a multitude of mishaps at the Chorleywood West ward election in 1991. The following facts surround the contest. 1. The Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire (County Boundaries) Order 1991 came into force on 1 April 1991. The Order altered, inter alia, the county boundary between Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, with the vast majority of the area concerned (351.77 hectares) and population (1,790 people) transferred to Chorleywood West ward from the Chenies parish of Chiltern District Council. 2. The number of councillors representing Chorleywood West increased from 2 to 3 as a consequence of the above Order. 3. At the May 1991 election 2 councillors were therefore to be elected. The first elected to serve a term of 4 years, the second elected to serve a term of 1 year. 4. The Returning Officer announced the result of the poll of 2 May to be: Peter J. Kemp (C) 789 - declared elected Charles F. Downing (C) 769 - declared elected William B. Cavill (L/Dem) 700 Derek Frankland (L/Dem) 698 Michael J.I. Bird (Lab) 111 Gillian Stone (Lab) 93 5. The total number of ballot papers in the Verification of Ballot Papers Account was 2,251; however, more than 600 ballot papers were inadvertently omitted during the count. 6. After a recount on 10 May 1991, ordered by His Honour Judge Goldstone at Watford County Court, the total number of votes for each candidate was determined to be as follows: William B. Cavill (L/Dem) 1,023 Peter J. Kemp (C) 1,023 Derek Frankland (L/Dem) 1,018 Charles F. Downing (C) 1,003 Michael J.I. Bird (Lab) 144 Gillian Stone (Lab) 134 A further recount was later ordered and conducted by the Prescribed Officer, Master Topley, on 2 July 1991. It confirmed the figures of the first recount. 7. During the course of the first recount, 10 ballot papers were discovered for the first time that lacked the Official Mark. The votes thereon were excluded from the recount figures, but if they had been included the voting figures would have been: William B. Cavill (L/Dem) 1,023 + 6 = 1,029 Peter J. Kemp (C) 1,023 + 3 = 1,026 Derek Frankland (L/Dem) 1,018 + 7 = 1,025 Charles F. Downing (C) 1,003 + 4 = 1,007 Michael J.I. Bird (Lab) 144 Gillian Stone (Lab) 134 8. It would appear (I need to re-read images I captured when at the National Archive to check) that the person or persons drawing up the original Order for the boundary change did not consider the (admittedly remote) possibility of an equality of votes between the two elected candidates for the enlarged Chorleywood West ward - this was a vital oversight given that one would need to serve for 4 years and the other for 1 year. The High Court was not empowered to draw lots; it also seemed dubious that the two persons concerned, if they had been declared elected, would have been in a legal position to draw lots at the first available meeting of the Council. 9. During the recount supervised by Master Topley, all rejected ballot papers were re-examined. The agents and counsel for the Conservative candidates drew attention to ballot paper no. 1552 that had been rejected by the Returning Officer. Topley agreed with the Returning Officer's ruling. However, at the final hearing in the Queen's Bench Division, held on 26 July 1991, the two judges ruled that the intention of the voter on ballot paper no. 1552 was clear, and their two votes (ticks*) for Kemp (C) and Stone (Lab) should have been included in the count, which would give us: Peter J. Kemp (C) 1,024 William B. Cavill (L/Dem) 1,023 Derek Frankland (L/Dem) 1,018 Charles F. Downing (C) 1,003 Michael J.I. Bird (Lab) 144 Gillian Stone (Lab) 135 [* crosses (X's) had been placed against the other four candidates - hence the contention of the Liberal Democrats that the paper should have remained void for uncertainty. This has given rise to what Shaw and Sons Ltd call - in their Dealing with Doubtful Ballot Papers booklet of April 2001 - the Three Rivers case. Ballot paper examples 32 to 34 in the booklet deal with this very issue.] 10. On 26 July 1991 the two judges of Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice voided the whole election. So not only was the election of Downing (C) voided (as in David's list), but that of Kemp (C) as well. The acts and omissions of the Returning Officer's staff - issuing to voters 10 ballot papers without the official mark - had affected the result of the election, especially insofar as who was to be elected for four years and who was to be elected for one year. The more than 600 ballot papers that were initially overlooked were almost incidental to the final outcome of this case: if the recounts had given a clear differentiation between the first and second elected I suspect that we would have had an undue election with the recounted figures having the final say on the matter. 11. My next task is to find out the result of the by-election (Watford Observer? Three Rivers District Council?). Another source may be the Lib Dem agent at the time, Martin Trevett, who still sits on TRDC as a Chorleywood councillor.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 14, 2019 22:01:08 GMT
What is strange is that the Councillor elected in 1990 (Martin Trevett as it happens) would have effectively represented the area added from Chenies from 1991 until 1994 without ever having to have faced an election there. If anything all three seats should have come up for election in 1991. Are there any other examples of this kind of thing? It's more common to have all out elections when there have been ward boundary changes even if many or most wards are unaffected.
|
|
|
Post by johnloony on Sept 14, 2019 23:37:51 GMT
You'll probably find all the detail you need at The National Archives J 104/378: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C762443If an election is declared void, then there is a byelection. When the court changes the result without calling another election, it's called an 'undue election'. Well, an interesting couple of hours at the National Archives today showed a multitude of mishaps at the Chorleywood West ward election in 1991. The following facts surround the contest. 1. The Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire (County Boundaries) Order 1991 came into force on 1 April 1991. The Order altered, inter alia, the county boundary between Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire, with the vast majority of the area concerned (351.77 hectares) and population (1,790 people) transferred to Chorleywood West ward from the Chenies parish of Chiltern District Council. 2. The number of councillors representing Chorleywood West increased from 2 to 3 as a consequence of the above Order. 3. At the May 1991 election 2 councillors were therefore to be elected. The first elected to serve a term of 4 years, the second elected to serve a term of 1 year. 4. The Returning Officer announced the result of the poll of 2 May to be: Peter J. Kemp (C) 789 - declared elected Charles F. Downing (C) 769 - declared elected William B. Cavill (L/Dem) 700 Derek Frankland (L/Dem) 698 Michael J.I. Bird (Lab) 111 Gillian Stone (Lab) 93 5. The total number of ballot papers in the Verification of Ballot Papers Account was 2,251; however, more than 600 ballot papers were inadvertently omitted during the count. Does it give any details of how/why the 600 were not included in the first place? Was it, for example, the box from the new part of the ward which had been added?
|
|
|
Post by andrewteale on Sept 14, 2019 23:58:42 GMT
What is strange is that the Councillor elected in 1990 (Martin Trevett as it happens) would have effectively represented the area added from Chenies from 1991 until 1994 without ever having to have faced an election there. If anything all three seats should have come up for election in 1991. Are there any other examples of this kind of thing? It's more common to have all out elections when there have been ward boundary changes even if many or most wards are unaffected. There may have been an example of this in Huntingdonshire within the last decade, associated with parish boundary changes. Would have to look up the details though and I'm away from home at the moment
|
|
ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 1,960
|
Post by ColinJ on Sept 15, 2019 7:17:50 GMT
Does it give any details of how/why the 600 were not included in the first place? Was it, for example, the box from the new part of the ward which had been added? There are no clues as to what happened, unfortunately. The paperwork made clear that all ballot papers were initially tallied, so the suspicion that one polling district (the new one?) was later omitted when the counting took place is strong. It'll be a question for me to pose Martin Trevett - I'm hopeful he'll have a chat with me (I have an entree with my wife being on the council with him for four years!).
|
|
ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 1,960
|
Post by ColinJ on Sept 15, 2019 7:38:45 GMT
What is strange is that the Councillor elected in 1990 (Martin Trevett as it happens) would have effectively represented the area added from Chenies from 1991 until 1994 without ever having to have faced an election there. If anything all three seats should have come up for election in 1991. Are there any other examples of this kind of thing? It's more common to have all out elections when there have been ward boundary changes even if many or most wards are unaffected. I think the practice is rare but not unknown. I have a cutting from The Guardian from a date in late 1979 (sorry can't be more precise) as follows: BOUNDARIES CONCERN
Manchester City Council could take action in the courts if there was "any suspicion of gerrymandering" to favour the Tory Party in the local government Boundary Commission proposals for the city.
Councillor Norman Morris, the leader of the Labour-controlled council, made this comment yesterday after the Home Secretary, Mr Whitelaw, had said in the Commons that the Minister of State, Mr Leon Brittan, had for the second time had talks with the city's Tory Party over the proposals.
Mr Morris said: "To my mind, it is quite improper that the Minister should enter into discussions with one party rather than another."
The commission has ruled that Manchester should keep 33 wards and 99 councillors, with some alteration to boundaries. Earlier this month, the Labour group successfully proposed that in the election in May 1982, there should be an all-out election in only one of the new wards.
In the other 32 two-thirds of the present councillors would be assigned - keep their seats - and elections held for the other third. The Home Office still has to approve the assigning, but the Tory group wants more widespread elections.From this we learn that representing an area for which a councillor is not precisely elected is known as assigning. I'm sure there must be other examples out there.... I do know that when Harrow Urban District went from 12 wards to 15 wards in 1949 that there were only all-out elections in the three 'new' wards. For the other 12, councillors were assigned, despite the knock-on effects to the boundaries of their wards. In most cases the 12 wards were smaller and so the councillors assigned were representing fewer electors, not more (as in the Chorleywood West/Martin Trevett example), but in other cases some councillors were now representing 'new' constituents.......
|
|
|
Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 15, 2019 9:04:56 GMT
It was on page 3 of The Guardian of 17 December 1980.
|
|
J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,591
|
Post by J.G.Harston on Sept 15, 2019 11:44:47 GMT
Is there a way to browse though your own old posts on the Forum?
I was trying to find what I'd been saying about the referendum back in 2016, but couldn't find a way to find out. The "This user's recent posts" link only goes back 50 pages, which for me only goes back to Feb 2019.
|
|
|
Post by bjornhattan on Sept 15, 2019 12:31:19 GMT
Is there a way to browse though your own old posts on the Forum? I was trying to find what I'd been saying about the referendum back in 2016, but couldn't find a way to find out. The "This user's recent posts" link only goes back 50 pages, which for me only goes back to Feb 2019. I'd do an advanced search using the Search tab at the top - don't specify any keywords, just the dates you want to search between and your user name. It seemed to work well when I tried doing it.
|
|
|
Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Sept 15, 2019 12:40:02 GMT
|
|
john07
Labour & Co-operative
Posts: 14,525
|
Post by john07 on Sept 15, 2019 13:16:47 GMT
The above example from Manchester reminded me of the Coventry elections in 1980. New boundaries had come in without changing the number of councillors. I think that all bar one of the Ward names remained.
One ward: Godiva, disappeared while another Ward: Wainbody was created. Godiva covered the City Centre and was merged into St Michaels, effectively losing a safe Ward for Labour. The two largest (both safe Conservative) Wards: Earlsdon and Cheylesmore had Wainbody created out of it.
It would have been very difficult to ‘assign’ councillors to the new Wards. The most logical approach would see the councillors assigned to the Ward of the same name. This would lead to two City Centre Labour councillors being assigned to a suburban Ward that would be the safest Conservative Division in the City. Alternatively the Godiva councillors could be assigned to Cheylesmore and the Cheylesmore councillors to Wainbody.
In the end the logical outcome was a full Council election. As it happened, two of the Cheylesmore councillors did migrate to Wainbody. The Third, Ralph Clews, stayed in Cheylesmore.
That ended up helping the Tories as his voter recognition prevented Labour taking all three Cheylesmore seats. It could have had long term repercussions as I would have topped the poll and secured a four year term rather than three.
Had I had another year to go on the council, I would certainly not have moved to Leicester in 1983. There was zero chance of Labour winning Cheylesmore in 1983 but 1984 was a very different proposition. Peter Lister did win a seat in Cheylesmore for Labour in 1984.
|
|
|
Post by timrollpickering on Sept 15, 2019 13:45:41 GMT
What is strange is that the Councillor elected in 1990 (Martin Trevett as it happens) would have effectively represented the area added from Chenies from 1991 until 1994 without ever having to have faced an election there. If anything all three seats should have come up for election in 1991. Are there any other examples of this kind of thing? It's more common to have all out elections when there have been ward boundary changes even if many or most wards are unaffected. I think the practice is rare but not unknown. [snip] I'm sure there must be other examples out there.... I do know that when Harrow Urban District went from 12 wards to 15 wards in 1949 that there were only all-out elections in the three 'new' wards. For the other 12, councillors were assigned, despite the knock-on effects to the boundaries of their wards. In most cases the 12 wards were smaller and so the councillors assigned were representing fewer electors, not more (as in the Chorleywood West/Martin Trevett example), but in other cases some councillors were now representing 'new' constituents....... The practice certainly exists abroad with variously rotational bodies. The one that springs readily to mind is the Tasmanian Legislative Council which has boundary reviews but no all-out reset. Councillors are elected for six year terms with 2 or 3 elected each year (by-elections are for the balance of terms, not a reset switch). Boundary reviews will allocate sitting members to revised seats that they continue to sit for until the next election, creating this effect (and occasionally giving a constituency two members for the short term or even a notionally vacant seat).
|
|
ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 1,960
|
Post by ColinJ on Sept 23, 2019 18:40:01 GMT
Does it give any details of how/why the 600 were not included in the first place? Was it, for example, the box from the new part of the ward which had been added? Further investigations into the Chorleywood West case have taken place today. The Watford Observer, in its issue of 10 May 1991, and under the headline Council's Crisis Over Lost Votes, ran a long article. From it I quote: Challenging the Chorleywood West declaration largely fell on ... ward agent Cllr Martin Trevett, who confessed that it was not until the morning after the count that he realised something was wrong with the election figures. ..... Councillor Trevett believed the rogue votes were cast at Bullsland Hall, and that one box of ballot papers were not emptied after the votes were verified, but Mr Robertson [the Returning Officer] denied this, saying votes were mixed together at the final counting stage.The Bullsland Hall box was not from the area transferred from Buckinghamshire. I spoke to Martin on the phone this evening and he is still certain it was the Bullsland box ballots that were forgotten. He believes that any 'mixing' conducted by the counting staff was only done with the contents of the ward's other two ballot boxes.
|
|
ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 1,960
|
Post by ColinJ on Sept 23, 2019 19:00:42 GMT
For the benefit of those who have shown an interest in the Chorleywood West story I am now in a position to finish the tale, so I must page johnloony , Davıd Boothroyd , Pete Whitehead and andrewteale in particular. It will be remembered that on 26 July 1991 the High Court judges sitting in the Queen's Bench Division, Mr Justice Wright and Mr Justice Alliott, declared the original 1991 election void, i.e. for both seats. Three Rivers ran the by-election - or some might argue it should be called a re-election - on 5 September 1991. There was a huge turnout of 62.5%, an amazing figure for a local authority election. The result was: Derek Frankland (L/Dem) 1,143 William B. Cavill (L/Dem) 1,142 Peter J. Kemp (C) 1,098 Charles F. Downing (C) 1,093 Gillian Stone (Lab) 103 Michael J.I. Bird (Lab) 102 There is a certain irony here. The two successful candidates had only 1 vote to separate them, but of course the Lib Dem agent would have been content. So Derek Frankland, who had not been "in the frame" at any stage over the previous counts, recounts, scrutinies etc. now topped the poll, and secured the 4-year term on the council. The petitioner, Bill Cavill, secured the 1-year term, but in practice this was now reduced to 8 months. Poor Bill Cavill was forced to fight for his seat again in May 1992, hugely hampered by the Tories' afterglow following their surprise General Election win one month before. Sadly for Bill he lost his seat ....... to Charles Downing: Charles F. Downing (C) 1,319 William B. Cavill (L/Dem) 927 Harold Entwistle (Lab) 118 The turnout in this political hotbed of a ward continued to be phenomenal, 61.7%.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 23, 2019 19:08:20 GMT
|
|
ColinJ
Labour
Living in the Past
Posts: 1,960
|
Post by ColinJ on Sept 23, 2019 19:16:40 GMT
Of course, thanks for tagging him.
|
|
|
Post by Pete Whitehead on Sept 23, 2019 19:26:15 GMT
Looking back at some of the old results on the Elections Centre site, I'd forgotten that Patricia Birchley was active around that time. She stood in Chorleywood West in the following election in 1994 but was thrashed by Martin Trevett but then was elected in Chorleywood the following year. I was very friendly with one of her sons at school and visited their house often but lost touch not long after I left. She subsequently turned up on Buckinghamshire County Council where she evidently still sits
|
|