Education Voting in the Referendum experience

Not being a regular voter the experience of voting in the referendum this morning was a quite new experience for me and I was immediately struck by how antiquated the whole procedure was.
I handed over my poll card to one of two older ladies where one took a ruler and then proceeded to find my name in a long list on doing so she called an an attached number to another lady who entered it on a voting slip. The rest was down to me. Why on earth is the system not computerised as I can imagine that when things get busy this whole precess can be time consuming even more so if a person is in the wrong line.

I also had a slight disagreement with, lets call him a bouncer, though dressed in pink shorts and lilac T shirt and a little to much weight was not most peoples idea of security. Anyway he took umbrage to my cat who I walk each morning about 7am and I thought as the polling station was very close to my route then I would vote at the same time as exercising Millie. Anyway I was told that Millie could not come in the polling station when I asked why he pointed out it was not allowed, I then pointed out that although there was a sign forbidding dogs, this sign made no mention of cats and fair play with a wry smile he said I had a point, so much to the bemusement of the polling station staff I voted with cat in attendance, unfortunately I was not allowed to photograph this as this was definitely not allowed.

I think this is about as exciting as my day will get.

 

How did Mille vote?

 

i was with my Huskey when i voted, he sat outside howling the place down (he don't like to be left when he can still see me lol)... as well as my own vote i had a vote by proxy for a family member thats not able to get to the voting station and omg it was hard work to get them to sort that out. i would of thought a Proxy vote wasn't a new thing but they had to get someone from the back of the room to find out what they needed to do..

 

Yep, we seemed to need to be brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century in so many aspects of life in Britain.

 

All this rubbish is why I postal vote. They send you a voting slip and two envelopes. One of the envelopes is the free post return envelope, the other is for the voting slip.

1. Vote on the voting slip, and seal it in the voting slip envelope.
2. Sign and put your birth date on the voting slip envelope, where it tells you to.
3. Put the voting slip envelope into the postal envelope.
4. Post it anywhere for free.

 

Proxied for four people this morning.

My polling station gave me my slip to complete, then had my wife's slip ready for me to take and complete.
My parents polling station hadn't had to do proxy votes before and did it the same way.

Fast, painless and easy.
Not sure why you can't just have them all together mind.....

 

My polling station is literally in the same building as I live in, so...

 

I like the deal at my polling station. Good old fashioned paper, pencils, people (and pub 2 mins up the road).

 

...

 

I am not talking about computerised voting, I am talking about checking people off in the polling station rather than using a pen, ruler and reams of paper lists.

 

Many (most?) polling stations don't have computers and are often manned by non-computer literate volunteers.

 

Mines in a pub, with hindsight I should have gone and voted after work

 

You missed a trick there!

 

Not sure how is it in UK, but here in Slovakia they do it in the same way, except you also have to put your signature in that list to confirm that you got the ballot papers.

 

I signed up for postal voting a number of years ago, but what you describe is how I remember it - even then it felt antiquated.

 

Remember when you put your cross in the box it must be the bottom box

 

...or the one above it

 

Wish somebody had told me about this cross thing earlier.

 

When they can get the old systems to work flawlessly, then mayhaps it's time to think about updating it

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/14552705.Hundreds_of_polling_cards_sent_out_to_ineligible_EU_voters/
http://www.thejournal.ie/dublin-city-council-says-cards-are-not-necessary-1109910-Oct2013/

But as has been said, the volunteers are usually of the aged variety and temporary station stations may not have any computer access, plus it's still open to abuse if access to the lists is possible

 

Err laptops would do or even tablets, there has to be a quicker way to find someone eligible to vote rather than trawling through paper lists, this higgle D piggly way of doing it now is a joke. I went at 7am and it was quiet but still a bit of a wait, I hate to think what it is like when it gets busy.