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London Mayoral Election 2024

I didn't get to vote. ☹️ I hadn't managed to send in my postal vote, so went in in person (had to take my daughter anyway) and they said I couldn't change to an in-person vote because it was after 5pm. None of the govt websites mentioned that. Still, at least it's better than last time when they claimed I had to go to the town hall to do it.

If Khan loses by one vote, I'll know who to blame!
you could have handed in the postal vote, though.
 
Voting in person is using the postal vote. It's basically just handing your vote in and filling in a form about it.

You could only cancel your postal vote up until April 17th. But I wasn't asking to do that.

I'm not misreading, you know. I was eligible to vote and the polling officers got it wrong.

Maybe your postal vote said something different somehow, but mine is very clear, and it's not like I photoshopped it.
if you took your completed postal vote, in its envelope and correctly signed, in to the polling station, it should have been accepted.
 
(ETA - posted before i saw #198 so have repeated some of what you said)


i did the postal vote thing this time, as i knew i was going to be away for work today and couldn't face either getting up even earlier to go and vote, or having to go on the way home (office is about an hour and a half away, but i only go there about once a month)

the bumf i got says pretty much the same thing as the image you've posted about 'if you miss the post....' - handing it over at council office during office hours, or before 10 pm at any polling station on the patch but you have to fill an additional form in to do that.

it says you can only cancel your postal vote (to change to voting in person) before 17 april, so i don't think the concept of changing to an in-person vote on the day is a thing. (i think the rules are national rather than each council making their own rules up, although there's an outside chance the rules are different in london mayoral / GLA compared to a local council outside london)

the idea of having to fill in a separate form when handing over a postal vote seems new - i know there have been allegations of dodgy practices with people gathering a lot of other peoples' postal votes and going to hand a bundle of them in.

but i think someone (at your polling station) has blundered, may be worth contacting the council once they have caught up on their sleep next week.

if council i work for is anything to go by (i live too far away to consider doing poll clerk duty there) there's probably a lot of new people on election duty today, but when i did poll clerk somewhere else years ago, i was told that if a situation happened i didn't know what to do about, to refer to the presiding officer rather than risk giving a wrong answer. and even if something happens that presiding officer at a polling station isn't sure about, there are roving senior officers they could have called.

or alternatively make a huge fuss if candidate you don't like wins by 1 vote...

:p
yes - the form when you hand in a ballot paper is new. It is to stop the political parties from hoovering up postal votes. I have never experienced party representatives handing in dozens at a time, but I have heard that it used to happen, and this initiative is to stop it.
 
I was very clear about what I wanted to do, and showed them the relevant part on my form. There's no point arguing with them though - in my area we even have a cop at every polling station and they're pretty jumpy.
the only thing you could have done is to hand in a completed postal vote. I don't know what form it is, but I would also have sent you away if you came with anything other than the postal vote to hand in.
 
the only thing you could have done is to hand in a completed postal vote. I don't know what form it is, but I would also have sent you away if you came with anything other than the postal vote to hand in.

Yes. I know. The postal vote is the form I was referring to. The one with the info on it that I took a photo of and posted earlier.
 
It always seemed a massive betrayal of the electorate that H’ngus didn’t attend meetings and other executive mayor commitments in his full costume…
I remember the initial outcry. He won them back however through his policies and occasional wearing of ceremonial dress.
 
That reminds me of the running joke from 24 Hour Party People where Peter Saville repeatedly turns up with flyers he's just finished while the event they're supposed to be advertising is going on.
I suspect Hall’s tardiness is down to deliberate stalling by whoever was paid to deliver them
 
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