Polling in Pudsey

A few weeks ago The Leeds Guide tweeted an emergency call for volunteers to be electoral workers for the May 6th election. By that I mean polling clerks, ballot paper counters etc. I reckoned I was up for that, so I applied, as did Lisa. We didn’t hear anything until Tuesday 4th May when we were asked to attend Leeds Town Hall at 6.30am on the morning of the election. Our role was to be on stand-by in case any already appointed volunteers failed to tun up.

Lisa and I arrived at the Town Hall at 6.30am and were taken up to what appeared to be the council’s nerve-centre for the election. There were a couple of other people there already and we were sat at one end of a large office. We listened to various presiding officers calling the office with a few early morning teething problems such as missing hand-rails at polling stations and apparently broken ballot boxes. After about 20 minutes we were asked whether we came as a package. We laughed, said yes and were given the task of going to the largest polling station in Pudsey where two polling clerks had failed to show. It was a lucky deployment on our part as the trip to Pudsey from Leeds City Centre took us past the polling station where we could cast votes in our constituency, Leeds West. We went there first, voted and cancelled each other out in the process, doh, before then driving up to Pudsey.

The polling station was poorly addressed but we eventually managed to locate it and found that we were part of a team of five. One presiding officer called Elizabeth, two local Pudsey chaps then Lisa and me. Elizabeth split the electoral roll in two, leaving Lisa and me with addresses starting with A through L. We had a very quick crash course in what to do; trust me it’s just common sense stuff with a bit of PR thrown in. Once we’d been given the low-down we started accepting our fist voters and it wasn’t long before the package was performing like a well-oiled machine. It’s simply a case of cross-checking names against the electoral roll, recording poll numbers on a separate sheet and then handing out ballot papers. Easy.

The voters came in surges, twenty or thirty would turn up at the same time and then none for five minutes or so. The busiest times occurred when people were on their way to work in the morning, school-run times, people on their way home from work and then the busiest period between about 6.00pm and 9.00pm. Lisa and I worked solidly all day without a break until 10.00pm when we assisted Elizabeth in finalising the procedural matters and locking the polling-station portakabin. We made sure Elizabeth was OK before visiting a local pub in Pudsey for a quick pint . It was rather welcome!

The interesting points of the day were:

• Seeing young first-time voters turning up, sometimes alone and sometimes with their parents. One young girl in particular called the occasion “A momentous point in her life” and I felt quite honoured that I was the person facilitating her first voting experience.
• Interestingly, there were quite a few first-time voters who were clearly well into their twenties or thirties. Perhaps the election really did engage the apathetic voter this time around
• Realising that in the main, the voting public are decent and good. It doesn’t matter what their party allegiances are, people are OK
• Dealing with a cross-dressing chap who to all intents and purposes looked like your trendy Aunt or Grandmother. I was fooled but his male name gave the game away. I think I paid him a compliment by being fooled, I hope he realised that.
• A few laughs during the day. Such as asking one young bloke for his address by saying “Where do you live?” to which he replied “Just up there…” pointing up the hill. Awwww bless.
• Hearing a loud sportscar pull up outside and then in walked a full-on airline pilot in his uniform. He perhaps thought he looked cool, I thought he looked like a prat.
• It was inspiring seeing people with walking disabilities turning up to vote. I like to think they’d turned down the opportunity of a postal vote or proxy to actually carry our their civic duty. Top stuff indeed. If you couldn’t be bothered going slightly out of your way to cast your vote, shame on you.
• Lastly, although a few people asked if we were working all day, one of the last people to attend the polling station really made me feel worthwhile. He came in, voted without saying too much and then left the building. He returned a few moments later, popped his head around the door and thanked us for what we were doing. Brilliant.

 

All in all the day was a very rewarding experience. OK we’ll be getting paid for the day but to honest if you had to do it without payment, I think I’d have done it anyway. I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the democratic process. Hopefully Lisa and I suitably impressed and we’ll be asked to participate again on a regular basis. You can’t put a good package down you know.