General voting question

ajf

ajf

ajf

Soldato
Joined
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Worcestershire, UK
I don't vote very often, but will be in the EU Refrendum.

However someone I spoke to recently during the local elections commented that when he went, they noted his polling card number as normal, but also gave him a numbered voting card and recorded the number of this too!

Surely that can't be right? I was always under the impression votes were completely anonymous, but as above, they could easily check who voted for who?

Is this the norm now or was he actually mistaken?
 
You get people from each of the parties trying to take note of who has attended (usually ask to look at your card) but that's so they know who actually bothers to vote and they'll target them next time
 
ajf said:
I don't vote very often, but will be in the EU Refrendum.

However someone I spoke to recently during the local elections commented that when he went, they noted his polling card number as normal, but also gave him a numbered voting card and recorded the number of this too!

Surely that can't be right? I was always under the impression votes were completely anonymous, but as above, they could easily check who voted for who?

Is this the norm now or was he actually mistaken?
Click to expand...


It varies from place to place.

My current polling station you check in, they take your voter card, cross you off the list and give you a generic untraceable ballot paper.

My old place did as above, you were given numbered papers.

I was told (not sure if true) its to do with fraud checking, in that if something comes up you may be contacted to ask who you voted for and see if your vote was altered etc.
 
You do get a numbered slip and that number is recorded, so yes it is feasible for a vote to be traceable. However it does not go to the party representatives, The returning officer would likely to be able to do this in the event of alleged fraud.
 
OK, thanks for the comments.
Least I know to expect it if they do it that way round here :)
 
Yeah, there has to be a substantial reason to do so but I can see why they do it. (For preventing election fraud and all that).

The other thing to note is if someone hypothetically writes a bomb threat or something like that on the ballet, they can still find out who did it.
 
I took part in the count of an election in Scotland in the last few years and asked the same question. Basically there are laws concerning the storage of the ballot papers and the documentation that identifies individual voters i.e. they have to be stored in separate, secure locations and are only accessible after the count with a court order.
 
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