Post in City council elections, 1 May

May 02 14:44 UTC

In response to the various messages:

1. Turn-out: I believe it was down from 2006 (though that was quite a high).
In Australia, they have compulsory voting -- a system which surely could
only be anywhere near fair if the ballot paper included RON -- Re-Open
Nominations. At the same time, as the e-mails here show, non-voting can be a
positive choice, just as we have to be careful in how we read shifts. Those
of us who are elected representatives know that people don't necessarily
vote for each of us as an individual, nor do they necessarily vote
positively for a party, sometimes voting against the other parties.

2. Fraud and polling cards: yes, it is an amazing rule that you only have to
remember who you are to be able to vote; impersonation is an issue. I
thought the law was changing and a form of ID (but, let's hope, never an ID
card) would be requested from each voter.

3. Polling stations:  a resident pointed out to me during the election
campaign that there was *no* list of polling stations on the council's
website. I got officers to put up the list, but it was late on and they
didn't have time to do what we should be doing: allowing residents to search
by postcode for their councillors, candidates, and polling station.