Hundreds denied vote in UK election

It seems I am not the only British citizen unable to vote in this historic general election.

There are probably other disorganised and tardy ex-pats who didn't manage to get their registration organised in time. And, as I alluded to in a previous post, there were also those who forgot to register because no one bothered to knock on their door and hand-deliver them a form, as has usually happened in the past^*. More shockingly it seems that hundreds of people who actually were registered were turned away from polling stations at 10pm BST when voting closed.

Some of those people had been queuing for 3 hours!

Imagine that. You get home from work. You make the tea, feed and bath the kids, get them to bed, tidy up and do the dishes, pack the kids' school bags for the next day, maybe have a quick shower, sit down in front of the telly with a cup of tea and then think, "oh I'll just pop up the road to the school and cast my vote." You get there and there's a queue. "Never mind. It's pretty important. I mean, we don't want a hung parliament, do we?" You wait 45 minutes. Someone comes out and says "sorry love, voting's closed."

WTF??

It seems that those with ballot papers were still allowed in to vote but still... I find this absolutely shockingly outrageous. I have NEVER had to queue to vote. I've always just popped up the road after tea or on my way home from work and cast my vote. I think I've usually had a ballot paper, mind.

For a country that whinges at every election about low voter turn-out, that still hasn't managed to figure out a way to allow voting, or even registering to vote, online, this is ridiculous. Especially considering the expected hung parliament.

For the full story see Election 2010: Voters turned away as polls close

^* Strangely, the website with the original story (www.general-election-2010.co.uk) seems to have since disappeared.