Dan Moore gets vocal about his time running a polling station in Blackpool
Thursday was just a regular day for most people. For me, it started at 5am and ended at 11pm as I ran a polling station in Blackpool for the local elections. In a world of astonishing technology and mind-blowing artificial intelligence, there’s nothing quite like writing on a good old piece of paper to exercise democracy at an unusual community landmark.
My full-time job is communications and engagement for the NHS working to make improvements to our local hospitals – a role in which I am often encouraged to think outside the box. Having been drafted in for election day, I was very much thinking inside the box as I had to guard one with my life during the 15 hours of polling. As the presiding officer for my polling station, I was in charge of issuing ballot papers to eligible voters and maintaining the secrecy of the ballot box.
‘I don’t do politics’
I’m convinced people say they ‘don’t do politics’ because it can be a struggle to make any sense of it. Let me quickly try and explain. Blackpool is divided up into smaller geographic segments, known as wards. On Thursday, people were voting for political candidates to represent their ward on Blackpool Council. If enough candidates from one political party are elected, then their party controls the council.
Last time, in the 2019 local elections, Blackpool Council wasn’t controlled by any political party as there was a mixture of Labour, Conservative and independent councillors who were elected. Labour had 23 of42 councillors, Conservatives had 15 councillors and the remaining four were independent. So I imagine Labour was keen to win a few more wards this time, and secure control of Blackpool Council.
Can I see your ID please?
New for this election was that people were required for the first time to bring an accepted form of photo ID in order to vote. There was a lot of chat about this in the media in the lead-up to the election, and much of the debate was centred around whether it was truly necessary or not. The training I received focused around inclusivity: we were trying to assist people to vote in a friendly manner, rather than acting like border control with an intense ID check or a club bouncer on a power trip. We wanted nobody to feel intimidated by this new ruling, and even set up private areas for ID checks if people felt uncomfortable.
From my experience inside the polling station, the vast majority of voters got the memo and had their ID ready (people who vote in local elections tend to follow politics a little more closely, so this wasn’t a great surprise). Passports and driving licences were the common forms of ID people were bringing, along with bus passes which were acceptable as well. There were also accepted forms of ID that I imagine people weren’t aware of, such as expired passports, provisional driving licences and blue badges. There were a small number of instances where people weren’t aware and had to go home to fetch an accepted form of ID. We also experienced people dropping in on the way home from work who thought that their staff photo ID badge would be acceptable (I could see the logic, but sadly we had to ask them to come back too). A tiny minority of people were furious about it, and I was only sworn at once which I tried not to take personally. Although it did happen 10 minutes after opening, and I wondered what I’d let myself in for over the next 15 hours…
You can imagine people’s shock and annoyance when they were told they couldn’t vote at the community centre they’ve always come to, and had to go away and find a tennis club.
Overall, the requirement for ID didn’t appear to cause a significant issue at the polling station. However, anecdotally a few people did mention that their neighbours had stayed at home because they didn’t have ID. It is impossible to measure how many people felt excluded in this way, which feels a little problematic to me. I want everyone to have the opportunity to vote, and I’d hate to think that people wrote it off completely over the ID ruling. What I’d say to those people for next time is to look to apply for a Voter Authority Certificate on the Government website. Yes it’s admin, but it’s worthwhile if it means you can vote in the future. I suspect needing an acceptable form of ID to vote will cause a bigger issue in a general election due to larger numbers of people wanting to vote, and the type of people who want to vote generally being less aware of the new ID rules.
Something else which caused a bit of confusion was that some of the ward boundaries had changed, so people were turning up to vote but were in fact at the wrong polling station. You can imagine people’s shock and annoyance when they were told they couldn’t vote at the community centre they’ve always come to, and had to go away and find a tennis club. Some people said they didn’t have the time or didn’t want to travel to the correct polling station, meaning they presumably didn’t end up voting. The constituency boundaries are due to change for the next general election too, so I would encourage all people to look on the back of their poll card for the polling station they can vote at before travelling – some people may get a surprise, which is definitely best to find out before setting off!
Who did I meet?
I met so many lovely people, but what really surprised me about working in the polling station from 7am-10pm was the age of voters. If I had to estimate, I’d say that the average voter was probably over 70, maybe even over 75. I am really enthusiastic about everyone having their say, and I was really keen to see voters of all age ranges. I’d hazard a guess that I saw a medium to large handful of people under the age of 40 all day, which felt a little disheartening. There’s definitely work to be done to engage younger voters for future elections. Admittedly, more people do usually turn out for general elections, but it would be good to see more engagement with local elections too.
I enjoyed seeing #DogsAtPollingStations (an ever-growing trend thanks to Twitter) and I found families voting strangely heart-warming – the idea that parents have taught their children the importance of having their say and they are doing this together as a family, with the youngest generation now being over 18 years old.
What matters to people?
There’s a need for polling stations and its staff to be politically neutral throughout the day, but political candidates are allowed to visit. From what I gathered from candidates who made an appearance, national issues were dominating conversations on doorsteps with voters – things such as the conduct of ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson and recent media stories on Blackpool South MP Scott Benton. Traditionally, voters have used local elections to show their support or discontent towards the national government. Much of the commentary from the media suggests this is what happened across the country during this election, with the Conservatives losing more than 1,000 councillors at the end of the counting.
The result
After a full day of voting, the result was that Labour gained control of Blackpool Council, with 28 of 42 seats this time. The turnout for the ward where I worked was just 29 per cent, meaning many more people could have voted but sadly didn’t.
Overall, a long but good day. The sunny weather is known to help bring more people out to vote, however I would like to see more younger people voting if I were to find myself in charge of a polling station again.
Dan Moore grew up on the Fylde Coast and returned to Blackpool after graduating from the University of Oxford in 2015. When not working for the NHS, Dan is a classically-trained pianist and his music-making has taken him everywhere from Blackpool to the Royal Albert Hall in London.
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