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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Jul 17, 2020 22:28:25 GMT
The difference in attittude is I think the divide between those of us who have extensive personal experience of the ins and outs of how election counts work and the "armchair psephologists" who maybe lack this expertise. As someone who has attended at least 10 counts as either a candidate or election agent (and one as a count assistant), I think in the round holding a central count that everyone can attend and at which the returning officer is present to make the hard calls is probably the best set-up. And there should be ways to achieve this while respecting social distancing and without having to amend the current rules. And if that's the best way forward and doable great. If not, then look for alternative solutions, not obstacles. That’s all I'm advocating.
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peterl
Green
Monarchic Technocratic Localist
Posts: 8,270
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Post by peterl on Jul 17, 2020 22:30:55 GMT
Well if we look at the latest list that andrewteale has kindly provided for us, we currently have 170 vacancies. Even if I exclude Scotland from consideration since there is no ban on by elections north of the border, there are nine councils now with more than one vacancy for a term lasting beyond 2021, four or which have three or more vacancies. That is today. It is still over nine months until the May 2021 elections. If it is at all possible, which I think if it is not now it will be before long, the by election process should get moving again.
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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Jul 17, 2020 22:47:59 GMT
Well if we look at the latest list that andrewteale has kindly provided for us, we currently have 170 vacancies. Even if I exclude Scotland from consideration since there is no ban on by elections north of the border, there are nine councils now with more than one vacancy for a term lasting beyond 2021, four or which have three or more vacancies. That is today. It is still over nine months until the May 2021 elections. If it is at all possible, which I think if it is not now it will be before long, the by election process should get moving again. I hope you're right, I am however slightly more cynical and therefore doubt it will happen before May next year at the earliest. Which is definitely to long to wait for the prediction competition to return.
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timmullen1
Labour
Closing account as BossMan declines to respond to messages seeking support.
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Post by timmullen1 on Jul 17, 2020 22:55:12 GMT
Use common sense. Bend the rules, its possible if all agree as an emergency interim measure. Ensure there a small number but enough people there to ensure fair play. Job done.
Secrecy of the ballot. There are some very small polling districts out there where every ballot might be for the same candidate. Secrecy of the ballot no longer applies. Use common sense. Bend the rules, its possible if all agree as an emergency interim measure. Ensure there a small number but enough people there to ensure fair play. Job done.
Secrecy of the ballot. There are some very small polling districts out there where every ballot might be for the same candidate. Secrecy of the ballot no longer applies. I’m not sure that’s true to be honest, I’ve never known a ballot box for a council election with less than 100 votes in it, but even so, and addressing gwynthegriff point the obvious solution would be to send the people who would have counted at the central location to the polling station to take over at 10pm, and follow the Australian model of doing a full recheck at that central location the following day - in fact Antony Green has been telling his Twitter followers that the fact we don’t have that recheck is because we’re lazy and our results are therefore untrustworthy (not agreeing with him, but am pointing out there are alternatives out there).
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Post by iainbhx on Jul 18, 2020 6:34:51 GMT
I can see many disadvantages to that. For one thing, presiding officers with far less experience having to make the final call on doubtful ballot papers. Candidates having to send agents to each polling station, which particularly for unitary/county elections could be quite a few, maybe as many as 6 or 7 polling stations. Only 6 or 7. The ward I live in has 10, which has been rationalised down from 14. Three of those polling stations have two boxes within them.
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Post by andrewteale on Jul 18, 2020 8:57:17 GMT
I can see many disadvantages to that. For one thing, presiding officers with far less experience having to make the final call on doubtful ballot papers. Candidates having to send agents to each polling station, which particularly for unitary/county elections could be quite a few, maybe as many as 6 or 7 polling stations. Only 6 or 7. The ward I live in has 10, which has been rationalised down from 14. Three of those polling stations have two boxes within them. There are some rural wards with over 20 polling districts. There are some polling districts where the number of electors is in single figures, and not just in rural areas: democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/documents/s21667/Polling%20District%20and%20Polling%20Place%20Review.pdfThe Scottish local elections provide for the publication of a breakdown by ballot box if the count is done electronically, but also require that if fewer than 200 votes are cast in one box it has to be aggregated with another box; and the aggregate must be over 200 votes. That's a reasonable compromise but can't be exact;y predicted in advance.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Jul 18, 2020 9:54:05 GMT
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peterl
Green
Monarchic Technocratic Localist
Posts: 8,270
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Post by peterl on Jul 18, 2020 10:10:24 GMT
I can see many disadvantages to that. For one thing, presiding officers with far less experience having to make the final call on doubtful ballot papers. Candidates having to send agents to each polling station, which particularly for unitary/county elections could be quite a few, maybe as many as 6 or 7 polling stations. Only 6 or 7. The ward I live in has 10, which has been rationalised down from 14. Three of those polling stations have two boxes within them. I guess I'm used to fairly small wards then. Though I stood several times in a two-seat county division which only had around 6 polling stations. To be fair, if a station has two boxes you would only need one observer. But still, imagine you are the Labour candidate in Sturminster Newton with only 59 people willing to vote for you, and you have to find even half a dozen enthusiastic enough to attend a polling station late at night. (With apologies to Labour supporters and the candidate in question, I was pouring over the Dorset Council results from last year late last night and it was fresh in my mind).
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timmullen1
Labour
Closing account as BossMan declines to respond to messages seeking support.
Posts: 11,823
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Post by timmullen1 on Jul 18, 2020 10:16:28 GMT
Only 6 or 7. The ward I live in has 10, which has been rationalised down from 14. Three of those polling stations have two boxes within them. I guess I'm used to fairly small wards then. Though I stood several times in a two-seat county division which only had around 6 polling stations. To be fair, if a station has two boxes you would only need one observer. But still, imagine you are the Labour candidate in Sturminster Newton with only 59 people willing to vote for you, and you have to find even half a dozen enthusiastic enough to attend a polling station late at night. (With apologies to Labour supporters and the candidate in question, I was pouring over the Dorset Council results from last year late last night and it was fresh in my mind). I’m not sure where this idea of having observers at every polling station arises; at last year’s whole council elections we were only allowed candidate, agent plus one per Ward.
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Post by iainbhx on Jul 18, 2020 10:44:08 GMT
Only 6 or 7. The ward I live in has 10, which has been rationalised down from 14. Three of those polling stations have two boxes within them. There are some rural wards with over 20 polling districts. There are some polling districts where the number of electors is in single figures, and not just in rural areas: democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/documents/s21667/Polling%20District%20and%20Polling%20Place%20Review.pdfThe Scottish local elections provide for the publication of a breakdown by ballot box if the count is done electronically, but also require that if fewer than 200 votes are cast in one box it has to be aggregated with another box; and the aggregate must be over 200 votes. That's a reasonable compromise but can't be exact;y predicted in advance. The problem child is this Therefore as the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries will remain the same until 2020 some areas that have moved between wards have to be a separate polling district because the ward they have moved to is in a different constituency.
which is often down to a software limitation within the council. It's not insurmountable although it does cause some pain. I remember having several very small polling districts after the 2004 changes even in Birmingham's old chunky 20,000+ wards for this reason.
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Post by andrewteale on Jul 18, 2020 11:50:26 GMT
There are some rural wards with over 20 polling districts. There are some polling districts where the number of electors is in single figures, and not just in rural areas: democracy.sheffield.gov.uk/documents/s21667/Polling%20District%20and%20Polling%20Place%20Review.pdfThe Scottish local elections provide for the publication of a breakdown by ballot box if the count is done electronically, but also require that if fewer than 200 votes are cast in one box it has to be aggregated with another box; and the aggregate must be over 200 votes. That's a reasonable compromise but can't be exact;y predicted in advance. The problem child is this Therefore as the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries will remain the same until 2020 some areas that have moved between wards have to be a separate polling district because the ward they have moved to is in a different constituency.
which is often down to a software limitation within the council. It's not insurmountable although it does cause some pain. I remember having several very small polling districts after the 2004 changes even in Birmingham's old chunky 20,000+ wards for this reason. That's not a bug, it's a feature: I don't think you can legally have a polling district which crosses a constituency boundary. You certainly can't have a polling district which crosses a parish boundary.
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pl
Non-Aligned
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Post by pl on Jul 18, 2020 11:59:31 GMT
The problem child is this Therefore as the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries will remain the same until 2020 some areas that have moved between wards have to be a separate polling district because the ward they have moved to is in a different constituency.
which is often down to a software limitation within the council. It's not insurmountable although it does cause some pain. I remember having several very small polling districts after the 2004 changes even in Birmingham's old chunky 20,000+ wards for this reason. That's not a bug, it's a feature: I don't think you can legally have a polling district which crosses a constituency boundary. You certainly can't have a polling district which crosses a parish boundary. Indeed, for those running election campaigns, being able to segment electors in split wards is essential. Even when running a local election you are going to want to easily be able to run different leaflets for wards represented by different MPs. Or even if you have district ward containing more than one parish you want the polling districts split nicely. That may result in some very small PDs but that is SO much easier. Having these people in separate PDs is much better than having to segment a polling district electorate by hand.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Jul 18, 2020 12:07:03 GMT
I guess I'm used to fairly small wards then. Though I stood several times in a two-seat county division which only had around 6 polling stations. To be fair, if a station has two boxes you would only need one observer. But still, imagine you are the Labour candidate in Sturminster Newton with only 59 people willing to vote for you, and you have to find even half a dozen enthusiastic enough to attend a polling station late at night. (With apologies to Labour supporters and the candidate in question, I was pouring over the Dorset Council results from last year late last night and it was fresh in my mind). I’m not sure where this idea of having observers at every polling station arises; at last year’s whole council elections we were only allowed candidate, agent plus one per Ward. I think this discussion has gone a bit off-track to be honest. Let's try to reboot. Can local authority by-elections be restarted safely? What are the issues? (Frankly, I think the count is not the main problem) Let's try to list the issues: 1. The initial legal stuff - posting notices, getting nomination papers etc completed. 2. Campaigning - canvassing & leafleting. 3. Polling Day - what will polling stations look like with 2-3 staff dealing with dozens/ hundreds of random people coming in? Don't even think of "knocking up". 4. The Count. On the issue of the Count I wonder if people are confusing local by-election counts with whole council counts/ parliamentary counts? My experience of a typical by-election count is around 8 staff and 2-3 people per candidate, so perhaps 16 or so in total (eight on one side of the tables, eight on the other. I think sorting that out is probably easier than items 1 to 3 . . .
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,722
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Post by J.G.Harston on Jul 18, 2020 12:24:20 GMT
The problem child is this Therefore as the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries will remain the same until 2020 some areas that have moved between wards have to be a separate polling district because the ward they have moved to is in a different constituency.
which is often down to a software limitation within the council. It's not insurmountable although it does cause some pain. It's not a software limitation, it's a real life limitiation. Those two flats on Northfield Road have to vote in Hallam for a Parliamantary election, but have to vote in Walkley in a council election. They can't be in the same polling district as Heavygate Road because they don't vote in Central Constituency. They can't be in the same polling district as Northfield Avenue because they don't vote in Walkley Ward.
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pl
Non-Aligned
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Post by pl on Jul 18, 2020 12:26:59 GMT
I’m not sure where this idea of having observers at every polling station arises; at last year’s whole council elections we were only allowed candidate, agent plus one per Ward. I think this discussion has gone a bit off-track to be honest. Let's try to reboot. Can local authority by-elections be restarted safely? What are the issues? (Frankly, I think the count is not the main problem) Let's try to list the issues: 1. The initial legal stuff - posting notices, getting nomination papers etc completed. 2. Campaigning - canvassing & leafleting. 3. Polling Day - what will polling stations look like with 2-3 staff dealing with dozens/ hundreds of random people coming in? Don't even think of "knocking up". 4. The Count. On the issue of the Count I wonder if people are confusing local by-election counts with whole council counts/ parliamentary counts? My experience of a typical by-election count is around 8 staff and 2-3 people per candidate, so perhaps 16 or so in total (eight on one side of the tables, eight on the other. I think sorting that out is probably easier than items 1 to 3 . . . The by-election count itself shouldn't be a major issue - because it is easily controlled and has a limited number of people there for the whole time, so should know roughly what they are doing. However, I'm still not sure in urban areas where you have 3-4 serious candidates how you can have all the observers around a table without them being almost shoulder to shoulder. Districts should be less of an issue. I'd say the following aspects of an election are right out at he moment: - Canvassing - Telling - Knocking Up If I had to run an election at present it would probably consist of the legal necessities, leaflets, a social media campaign and the count itself. If I had a small(ish) ward and the money I would probably do direct mail shot before election expenses kicked in. You might notice telephone canvassing is not on the list - I think it is getting hard and harder. Just getting non-TPS numbers is a trial.
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pl
Non-Aligned
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Post by pl on Jul 18, 2020 12:44:44 GMT
The problem child is this Therefore as the Parliamentary Constituency boundaries will remain the same until 2020 some areas that have moved between wards have to be a separate polling district because the ward they have moved to is in a different constituency.
which is often down to a software limitation within the council. It's not insurmountable although it does cause some pain. It's not a software limitation, it's a real life limitiation. Those two flats on Northfield Road have to vote in Hallam for a Parliamantary election, but have to vote in Walkley in a council election. They can't be in the same polling district as Heavygate Road because they don't vote in Central Constituency. They can't be in the same polling district as Northfield Avenue because they don't vote in Walkley Ward. They can be in the same polling district for the council elections, if we were to have completely different polling districts for each type of election. This would, of course, be frankly bonkers, and increase the overall workload massively.
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Post by greenchristian on Jul 21, 2020 12:06:30 GMT
It's not a software limitation, it's a real life limitiation. Those two flats on Northfield Road have to vote in Hallam for a Parliamantary election, but have to vote in Walkley in a council election. They can't be in the same polling district as Heavygate Road because they don't vote in Central Constituency. They can't be in the same polling district as Northfield Avenue because they don't vote in Walkley Ward. They can be in the same polling district for the council elections, if we were to have completely different polling districts for each type of election. This would, of course, be frankly bonkers, and increase the overall workload massively. So put them in a notional polling district which has its own set of elector numbers but shares a ballot box when there's a standalone election.These cases only get complicated when you have elections of different types on the same day.
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pl
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Post by pl on Jul 21, 2020 12:17:16 GMT
They can be in the same polling district for the council elections, if we were to have completely different polling districts for each type of election. This would, of course, be frankly bonkers, and increase the overall workload massively. So put them in a notional polling district which has its own set of elector numbers but shares a ballot box when there's a standalone election.These cases only get complicated when you have elections of different types on the same day. Indeed, and I think that is the solution employed in most of the country. However, my understanding is that you get very small polling stations in some rural areas because of this where it is not considered appropriate to merge the polling places. When I was watching the 1979 election day coverage, there was one polling place that had just two electors!
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Post by owainsutton on Jul 21, 2020 12:20:59 GMT
I guess I'm used to fairly small wards then. Though I stood several times in a two-seat county division which only had around 6 polling stations. To be fair, if a station has two boxes you would only need one observer. But still, imagine you are the Labour candidate in Sturminster Newton with only 59 people willing to vote for you, and you have to find even half a dozen enthusiastic enough to attend a polling station late at night. (With apologies to Labour supporters and the candidate in question, I was pouring over the Dorset Council results from last year late last night and it was fresh in my mind). I’m not sure where this idea of having observers at every polling station arises; at last year’s whole council elections we were only allowed candidate, agent plus one per Ward. Challenge this in future. Returning officers have powers to limit the number of counting agents, but not polling agents. www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1983/2/schedule/1/part/III/chapter/n2/crossheading/appointment-of-polling-and-counting-agents
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Post by redtony on Jul 21, 2020 21:43:29 GMT
What happens if there are still not any elections allowed by May 2021?
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