Election day

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Generally good voting experience today. My polling station is the student union, and I was a bit disconcerted to see the square outside the building filled with canvassers. They assured me they were technically outside the exclusion zone, because the polling station was using the accessible entrance at the other side of the building. Still, it did mean potential voters approaching from the obvious direction would pretty much have to go through a gallery of hawkers shouting which way to vote and thrusting leaflets at them, which is the sort of thing that exclusion zones are supposed to prevent. Mostly Labour and Green, as they're the two major contenders here.

The polling station was indeed accessible to wheelchair users, though the dropped kerb was in a puddle (not the election officers' fault that it's raining, this is a general problem with student union), and they'd put the Polling Station sign kind of in the middle of the ramp, making it potentially a slightly awkward turn in a wheelchair. I wouldn't like to vote in the SU ballroom if I had a sensory disability, though, it's a big, echoey, very poorly lit space.

I deliberately chose what I thought would be a fairly quiet time of day, when the showery rain was definitely on the side of rain, mid-morning and in the middle of the hour so not likely to fall just after a class ended. Even so, there was a queue of about a dozen people ahead of me, and the officers commented that they couldn't remember seeing so many people at this polling station in previous elections.

While I was waiting there, I saw them politely and helpfully turn away a student who didn't speak English fluently and hadn't realized that she needed to register. And I didn't want to eavesdrop too much but one of them was on the phone trying to sort out another voter's problems with registration, explaining that she could still vote if it could get sorted by 5 today.

When it came to my turn I explained that I'd already cast a postal vote in another constituency, so I just wanted the borough and parish ballot papers. The information that I'm dual registered was not recorded anywhere, which is probably as it should be, but the officer was mildly confused, though rose to the occasion. He did joke, "oh, good thing you're so honest", which I thought inappropriate, so I said in my most carrying voice "well, I'm hardly going to commit electoral fraud, am I?"

And then I walked home through the bluebell wood as the sun came out after the rain, and felt at least briefly good about myself, though I'm still dreading pretty much any likely outcome of this election.

FYI, if you're thinking of voting in the UK:

naath has clear and useful information. In fact, I'm particularly grateful to her for explaining that I, and others in my position, can in fact vote in local elections in two different places, as long as you only vote once in the General Election. Also to ghoti for clarifying ambiguities in the rules

lethargic_man put up on FB the following summary of major policies. Sorry for the image of text; here's a transcription. 38degrees are not entirely politically neutral but they're not affiliated with any one party either and do try to give relatively unbiased information. Of course there is bias in what they consider to be the six "key issues", and I think it's not quite a coincidence that their table comes out with all ticks under Labour and Green and mostly crosses for Con and UKIP. But at least they're not outright lying about what the parties intend to do. I also can't easily find data for Wales, Scotland or NI or at least not for the parties that are only standing in the regions.

Election forecast has reasonably detailed and reasonably unbiased electoral predictions, based on reputable polls and quoted with confidence intervals. I mean, polls are only as good as polls ever are, but again, it's a site that's not actively lying in order to try to influence potential tactical votes. They're predicting a Conservative plurality (and a zero percent chance of a majority government!), and they probably know what they're talking about more than me with my prediction of a Labour plurality.

ewx has a nice summary of election leaflets for Cambridge.

I'm also extremely grateful to everybody who's volunteered for the election, campaigning, voter education and all that proper boots on the ground activism stuff, especially people like cjwatson and naath who got up scarily early this morning to distribute Good Morning leaflets before most people leave for work. And grateful to everyone who has voted or will be voting for a better society today, even if we disagree about which party is most likely to deliver that. And I appreciate my friends who've explained why they support they party they do in detail and without just repeating party slogans. rmc28 and davidgillon come to mind especially, but just everybody who has had civilized, thoughtful discussions about fraught issues, you're making democracy better and you deserve kudos.

Comments

Transcription of 38degrees' Key Issues table

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	Con	Lab	LD	UKIP	Green
Private companies should not be able to compete for all NHS contracts	✗	✓	–	✓	✓
The government should raise new taxes to fund the NHS	✗	✓	✓	✗	✓
The government should restrict zero hour contracts	✗	✓	✓	✗	✓
The "bedroom tax" should be scrapped	✗	✓	✗	✓	✓
There should be a limit on the amount landlords can increase rent each year	✗	✓	–	✗	✓
The government should set targets for carbon emission reduction	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓