Mark Chadbourn: Queuing at my polling station in Tooting before the doors opened and still queuing at 11am. #UKGE2024

Queuing at my polling station in Tooting before the doors opened and still queuing at 11am. #UKGE2024

Exercised the franchise here in West Oxon as lunch time. Steady stream of voters. LibDem and Labour tellers outside cheerfully cooperating on taking poll card numbers so as not to hold people up. Tory teller sitting on his folding chair six feet away, looking down at his clipboard.

Billy No-mates.

Very much so. He looked so pissed off.

dumb question, is a teller someone you tell how you voted?

They’re party reps who sit outside polling stations and take your electoral number when you’ve voted. They cross it off a list so you’re not contacted again for the GOTV op and they can see you’re a regular voter for future elections.

In my case I'm opting out of texts as quickly as I can. Once you're on one list they proliferate wildly. But I have finally reached a point now where I think I'm on few if any at this point.

i promise not to text u Renee

thanks, that's not something we have here.

Didn’t realise that.

Yes we do, they’re called poll watchers.

No, they're from party organisations. They go round chasing up people they canvassed who said they would vote for them, and haven't. You don't have to give tellers your number, but you may get a call in the evening to vote. It's kind of in your interest to give it to them.

thank you!

I haven’t seen a queue at a polling station since 1997.

Tough! No sympathy !

Voted at the Town Hall shortly before 9:00 - no tellers outside, and only a trickle of voters. It's a Tory heartland seat but with the sitting MP retiring, so it could go Labour. If so, we'll have a council by-election as the Labour guy is our local councillor

That's Dave's old seat?

Yes indeed. And once upon a time, Douglas Hurd's

That's mad! Is the Queen's coffin in the polling station?

She was coffin' but someone got her a fisherman's friend and all is ok now ;)

Incidentally, a ballot box is called an 'urn' in some other languages. The dark joke goes that a man took his mother in law to vote so that she'd get accustomed to the urn.

In French, for instance. Although we typically add "funéraire" for the other meaning.

In Hungarian we say szavazóurna, "voting urn".

Do you donate money in it 😏

Swedish, too (urna). We assume it for dead folks unless told otherwise.

Can't help but remember this... www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlyq... Also, lmao Tooting. :P

Solving Westminster Lying in State Queue Issue (from ig: @_richardparry_ & reddit: @_RichardParry_)www.youtube.com Queen's coffin is in Westminster, how should we solve the queuing issue?Use a Kawasaki robotic arm!#kawasaki #queenelizabeth #solution #uk #british #queen #w...

My polling station is in a pub. I’ve rarely encountered another voter there (it’s a very low population rural area) but, two today! Practically a mob!

Honestly, that would be my absolute favourite polling station.

Aren't there laws against serving alcohol at polling stations, or is that just in the US? 😄

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I think they should offer it everywhere! Turn voting into a party!

I think we should have election sausages like the Aussies!

I’d go for that.

So do I. I wonder if they’d send me some. 🤔

My polling station is in the conservatory of a pub. Happy to report that I have confirmed with my next door neighbour that we will be having our traditional post vote pint.

I have no idea! I went earlyish, so it wasn’t open anyway. I think probably the rules are that candidates and their minders can’t buy voters drinks, at least, not until the votes have been cast. But there aren’t any police around (rural, remember?), so no-one would know anyway.

Pre revolution, America had the same tradition. George Washington lost a race for the house of Burgesses badly, because his opponent offered more booze on election day. 3 years later, he offered a ton more and won the seat.

Just checking -- you mean there was a queue first thing, and you've been past it again now and there's also a queue? Not that people queuing at 7am still haven't voted yet? (Lots of replies seem to be taking the second meaning.)

Yes, you’re right. Sorry for the confusion! People constantly joining the end of the queue as it flows through.

In parts of the US, a many-hour queue is common. Hence the confusion. Also, does being from the UK make you immune to the juvenile fart jokes about living in Tooting?

Yes, just normal now!

Yeah, I thought it worth clarifying partly for that reason. (The queuing-for-hours things seems unbelievable from a UK perspective.) We're mostly immune to Tooting jokes. Don't ask us about the Yorkshire village of Wetwang, though.

🤣🤣 We remember making jokes when transferring train to bus in Woking (train, bus, and walking??), so we're clearly too immature for UK place names.

Despite the fact the uk votes with pencils and hand counts the votes we are pretty good at having enough polling stations that queuing for more than a few minutes is rare

And we definitely make tooting gags

Our polling station was busy but I also had a proxy to put in for my son in law at a polling station further into Glasgow, at Shawlands, and it was absolutely rammed.

I too voted at 11AM. Very busy polling station. This looks good for turnout! The staff said they will all be working the whole 15 hour shift, but they are paid & have refreshments provided.

Queuing is also going to be impacted by the ID check aspect. Slows things down a bit

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