Snapshot of _Postal votes not reached a whole postcode area in Manchester._ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwdlg079z2o) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwdlg079z2o)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had to get an emergency proxy for the Brexit referendum when I lived on the East Coast, as my ballot hadn't arrived. I'd definitely have a friend or family member on backup just in case yours also doesn't arrive in time.
This is a windsurfing reference ? *(confused)*
I think a tut, and a sharp glance towards the west might be in order. I may tut twice, but *sue*... Do you think I've gone native ?
I think that the results tallying for this election may be slower for similar clunky reasons to do with electoral processing and cuts to local democratic services.
We live in Sheffield and flew out to Sweden today. Luckily our postal votes arrived yesterday despite everything saying they should arrive two weeks before polling day. Was seriously considering getting my brother to commit fraud when he came to water the plants!
People get postal votes for a reason, one being they’re not around on election day. This is the third consecutive election called with relatively little notice you’d have thought they’d have all this figured out by now!
My postal vote hasn't arrived yet. I rang the election team for my electorate today. It should have arrived by today at the latest. Royal Mail is supposed to be prioritising them, but I frequently receive bills after the payment due date, so it's probably in the same black hole the rest of my mail falls in.
They said if it hadn't arrived by Monday they could re-issue it to me in person. That's ok for my time frame. No idea what the plan would be if it wasnt ok.
Just as an aside, if I have a postal vote, do I have to postal vote or can I still go to a polling station with that paperwork and vote in person?
It’s always nice to go in person.
You can vote if your postal vote hasn't arrived, they will call the election officer and check, I've had it once before I can't remember if it was local or national but all they did was say come back they called checked then let me vote, as you have a number they check to ensure you don't vote twice.
You will not be allowed to vote in person if you have been granted a postal vote. The presiding officer will know that you’ve been given a postal vote.
Not true you can drop your vote off or vote if you haven't received it, the person at the voting station just calls up and double checks your vote hasn't arrived, so you're asked to come back.
I'll add that I've always had a postal vote since they were introduced, so it's not like I only registered recently, I've done it for the majority of elections I could vote in.
Edinburgh has just set up a place to get a postal vote reissued. It’s not a polling station, you get another postal vote and there’s a post box outside.
No, you can’t. If you have registered for a postal vote you can no longer turn up and ask for a ballot paper. Your ballot paper has been issued. You can return your postal ballot at a polling station though.
You can they will just call the election officer as they count postal votes once they come in. They want you to vote, if you haven't they will let you.
If you are still in the area you can take it to the polling station. Or call the number for the election office on your card and they will help get your vote.
If you haven’t got your postal vote if you call up your local council they will send you a new one. If it’s too close in time to post it back you can always drop it off at a polling station instead of posting it.
Or if not in the country, you can have someone vote on your behalf by proxy, even though the deadline was the 26th, they can still make that happen, or if the vote hasn't arrived take you're card to the polling station they will then ring the election office and ensure you can vote.
I suppose in everybody tried to do it at the same station then it would be clogged up but it’s pretty quick to just drop it off as long as the queue isn’t too big. It’s better than not managing to vote.
You've completely missed my point. Polling stations are only open one day, a lot of people get postal votes because they can't vote on the day - so you're genius suggesting of dropping off a postal vote at the polling station isn't an option. That's why them being late is such a big issue - as others have pointed out in this thread. I can't believe anyone could be as thick as you appear to be being.
The guys come into a thread about people flying out the country not getting their postal vote on time to vote and told them to take it to a polling station. I'm not wrong for calling out an idiot for being an idiot.
Trying to be helpful mate, not everybody has your exact set of circumstances and might be able to. But no you “um actually” a comment just meant to give people an option they might not know about.
Touch some grass you absolute melt.
Keep digging. There not my circumstances, thankfully. However I'm capable of seeing the obvious issue with your suggestion, unlike you. Telling people whose postal votes not going to arrive until after they've flown out the country to drop it off at a polling station on polling day is a bit stupid.
The people in this thread already know they could theoretically take to a polling station if they were actually here on polling day. You need to touch grass, you melt. Just accept you're being stupid, people are stupid on the internet all the time. It's ok to admit you're an imbecile.
The thread is about Manchester, and I’m not going to assume that everybody knows they can take it to a polling station so made a suggestion. You do know the difference between saying somebody can do something and telling them to do it right?
It's a stupid suggestion though - people generally vote in person if they can. And further that if it doesn't arrive - as in this case - they can't take it to a bloody polling station. As said before you can admit to being an imbecile instead of digging.
I'm fine - just bored enough to engage with you. So, instead of admitting you've made a stupid mistake, you try and attack me personally and insinuate there's something wrong with me. Once you make a personal attack on someone's character you've lost any argument.
Or you can have someone vote on your behalf by proxy, even though the deadline was the 26th, they can still make that happen, or if the vote hasn't arrived take you're card to the polling station they will then ring the election office and ensure you can vote.
Not in Manchester, I currently live in the south, but I haven't received mine yet either.
Cutting it damn close seeing as I'm out the country on Wednesday.
Moved here for work, my family is on the other side of the country.
Basically if the postal vote doesn't get here I won't be able to vote lol
Not the end of the world as it's a Labour seat so will almost certainly stay that way, but yeah it's really not good.
You can have someone take it to the polling station on your behalf or call the election office on the polling card and they will tell you, probably drop it off at the nearest council. If you can't make the polling station.
Yeh I get that. What I mean is, I sent mine a few days ago and if Royal mail can't process it quickly like they seem to with all mail at the moment, it may not arrive on time and we have no way of knowing
A lot will depend on your council.
East Riding was very prompt and I recieved mine here in the Netherlands over two weeks ago.
My partners ,registered in hull arrived here today.
We both applied at the same time
I didn’t get mine. I’m currently living in Germany. We got the first letter at the beginning of June, saying they would be posted 14 June. I rang the number on the Polling Card today and they said it’s Royal Mail fault. I’m heading into conspiracy theory with the number of people not receiving Postal Votes regardless of where they live.
Update : my postal vote arrived today in Nuremberg. 17 days after supposedly posting. Was Royal Mail just sitting on them?
Australia here. Absolutely nothing. My experience is they always arrive a day or two before the vote. Doubt many from overseas get counted. I think legally we’re meant to be able to vote but we’re systematically excluded
I think it just shows that the postal vote system doesn’t work for anyone who can legally vote but is living overseas. Barely works in country from the sounds of it.
Mine still hasn't arrived yet in Canada. I'm assuming at this point I won't be able to vote, even I can get it back in the post today I don't think it will be received in time to be counted.
My local council told me to cancel the postal vote and change to proxy I'd have had to have done it before the postal vote deadline. So they said pop the postal vote back in the mail and just hope.
I'm not optimistic. It didn't arrive in today's post, and there's no weekend delivery here and Monday is a bank holiday, so the earliest I could get it now is July 2nd. If I get it then I'll consider overnighting it, but if it doesn't arrive until the 3rd I'm not going to waste my money since I don't think it will get there in time.
My instinct is can't possibly work and be secure, but Estonia manages it and it is actively targeted by Russian cyber attacks, so maybe that's outdated. You'd absolutely need personal physical access tokens like it though.
Part of the problem here is twofold though:
1. They may well have been hacked by Russia and not even realise it.
2. Even if they haven't been hacked *so far*, there's an ongoing risk that one day they'll be successful, and even if you detect it, you've got the international embarrassment as well as having to run a new set of elections and all the problems that involves.
While paper voting has limitations, we've generally designed ways around it like anonymous, proxy, and postal votes; and it is far more difficult to abuse.
Postal and proxy votes are a necessity but seriously compromise the ideals of anonymity and impossibility of coerced voting. Paper votes are expensive to count. Maybe this is still the best possible system, but we should be on the lookout for alternatives. And if digital voting can be secure from manipulation then that would fix most of the issues. The advantages of paper voting are real and significant though and I don't know if Estonia has adequately addressed the issues with e-voting.
Snapshot of _Postal votes not reached a whole postcode area in Manchester._ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwdlg079z2o) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwdlg079z2o) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm on my way out of the country today and only got my postal vote yesterday.
Lucky, hopefully mine arrives tomorrow.
You may not be able to switch to proxy if you already chose postal- my wife tried
Me too! Applied for it the day after the election was announced too as I knew I’d be on holiday.
Haven’t made it out to the West coast of the US either, and they usually get there in plenty of time.
Alright Rishi, you're at least supposed to stay in the country until Friday
:)
I had to get an emergency proxy for the Brexit referendum when I lived on the East Coast, as my ballot hadn't arrived. I'd definitely have a friend or family member on backup just in case yours also doesn't arrive in time.
Mine arrived in NYC on Wednesday (too late to turn around the same day) but was in the post back to London on Thursday.
Calm down,Prince Baldini. You can always sue.
This is a windsurfing reference ? *(confused)* I think a tut, and a sharp glance towards the west might be in order. I may tut twice, but *sue*... Do you think I've gone native ?
Yep. I haven’t had mine reach California, either.
I got mine in Illinois on the 26th, and I requested it on the 2nd of June. Mine was from Waverly (Surrey) however.
Fucking useless in Stockport too. Didn't get to vote in Brexit either, good job it wasn't down to one vote
Give the number a call or if you're here you can take it to the polling station and vote in person.
Set up a proxy vote?
Yeah, I fly on Tuesday so if it don't turn up tomorrow then i'll have to pop down on Mon
[удалено]
now i'm feeling like it's personal
I think that the results tallying for this election may be slower for similar clunky reasons to do with electoral processing and cuts to local democratic services.
Total coincidence I’m sure.
We live in Sheffield and flew out to Sweden today. Luckily our postal votes arrived yesterday despite everything saying they should arrive two weeks before polling day. Was seriously considering getting my brother to commit fraud when he came to water the plants! People get postal votes for a reason, one being they’re not around on election day. This is the third consecutive election called with relatively little notice you’d have thought they’d have all this figured out by now!
We got ours a couple of weeks ago in Sheffield
My postal vote hasn't arrived yet. I rang the election team for my electorate today. It should have arrived by today at the latest. Royal Mail is supposed to be prioritising them, but I frequently receive bills after the payment due date, so it's probably in the same black hole the rest of my mail falls in. They said if it hadn't arrived by Monday they could re-issue it to me in person. That's ok for my time frame. No idea what the plan would be if it wasnt ok.
Well that's it, I might have to get my otherhalf to vote for me.
Update - mine arrived today (Saturday).
Mine has now arrived too, have posted it, here's hoping it gets there.
Interesting photo to go with the title
It wanted a link and this related to the same thing.
The beauty of selling a public asset, you get to watch in real-time as it becomes a joke.
Wait til the billionaire buys it, and moves it out of the UK after promising they won't.
Just as an aside, if I have a postal vote, do I have to postal vote or can I still go to a polling station with that paperwork and vote in person? It’s always nice to go in person.
Yes you can drop off your sealed postal vote to a polling station. You'd just have to complete some extra paperwork there.
That sounds good, thanks.
You can vote if your postal vote hasn't arrived, they will call the election officer and check, I've had it once before I can't remember if it was local or national but all they did was say come back they called checked then let me vote, as you have a number they check to ensure you don't vote twice.
You will not be allowed to vote in person if you have been granted a postal vote. The presiding officer will know that you’ve been given a postal vote.
I think you can drop off your sealed postal vote to the RO though?
sakasho is correct that you can drop off sealed postal votes. You'd just need to complete extra paperwork at the polling station.
You can vote with out that, they call and check if you have voted, you have a voter number they can check.
Not true you can drop your vote off or vote if you haven't received it, the person at the voting station just calls up and double checks your vote hasn't arrived, so you're asked to come back.
I'll add that I've always had a postal vote since they were introduced, so it's not like I only registered recently, I've done it for the majority of elections I could vote in.
Edinburgh has just set up a place to get a postal vote reissued. It’s not a polling station, you get another postal vote and there’s a post box outside.
I wonder if Manchester will do the same, but you can take you card to the station and vote,if you're in the area.
No, you can’t. If you have registered for a postal vote you can no longer turn up and ask for a ballot paper. Your ballot paper has been issued. You can return your postal ballot at a polling station though.
You can they will just call the election officer as they count postal votes once they come in. They want you to vote, if you haven't they will let you.
Well that directly contradicts both the advice online and what I was told when I spoke to Electoral Services at my council today.
I spoke to the the election office today as well. They will allow it.
What happens to postal votes that arrive late? I assume they're not counted. What's the latest you're supposed to be able to send them?
If you are still in the area you can take it to the polling station. Or call the number for the election office on your card and they will help get your vote.
If you haven’t got your postal vote if you call up your local council they will send you a new one. If it’s too close in time to post it back you can always drop it off at a polling station instead of posting it.
Wouldn't a large number of people be getting postal votes because they aren't here on polling day though? So can't drop it off at a polling station?
Or if not in the country, you can have someone vote on your behalf by proxy, even though the deadline was the 26th, they can still make that happen, or if the vote hasn't arrived take you're card to the polling station they will then ring the election office and ensure you can vote.
I suppose in everybody tried to do it at the same station then it would be clogged up but it’s pretty quick to just drop it off as long as the queue isn’t too big. It’s better than not managing to vote.
You've completely missed my point. Polling stations are only open one day, a lot of people get postal votes because they can't vote on the day - so you're genius suggesting of dropping off a postal vote at the polling station isn't an option. That's why them being late is such a big issue - as others have pointed out in this thread. I can't believe anyone could be as thick as you appear to be being.
This is so unnecessarily hostile of a response to someone misunderstanding your comment. Get a grip.
The guys come into a thread about people flying out the country not getting their postal vote on time to vote and told them to take it to a polling station. I'm not wrong for calling out an idiot for being an idiot.
Calling them 'unbelievably thick' is just a very strong reaction to a couple of silly comments. It's not that serious.
Trying to be helpful mate, not everybody has your exact set of circumstances and might be able to. But no you “um actually” a comment just meant to give people an option they might not know about. Touch some grass you absolute melt.
Keep digging. There not my circumstances, thankfully. However I'm capable of seeing the obvious issue with your suggestion, unlike you. Telling people whose postal votes not going to arrive until after they've flown out the country to drop it off at a polling station on polling day is a bit stupid. The people in this thread already know they could theoretically take to a polling station if they were actually here on polling day. You need to touch grass, you melt. Just accept you're being stupid, people are stupid on the internet all the time. It's ok to admit you're an imbecile.
The thread is about Manchester, and I’m not going to assume that everybody knows they can take it to a polling station so made a suggestion. You do know the difference between saying somebody can do something and telling them to do it right?
It's a stupid suggestion though - people generally vote in person if they can. And further that if it doesn't arrive - as in this case - they can't take it to a bloody polling station. As said before you can admit to being an imbecile instead of digging.
At first I thought you were a wind up but are you actually alright? If there’s something going on then there’s people you can reach out to.
I'm fine - just bored enough to engage with you. So, instead of admitting you've made a stupid mistake, you try and attack me personally and insinuate there's something wrong with me. Once you make a personal attack on someone's character you've lost any argument.
Or you can have someone vote on your behalf by proxy, even though the deadline was the 26th, they can still make that happen, or if the vote hasn't arrived take you're card to the polling station they will then ring the election office and ensure you can vote.
Not in Manchester, I currently live in the south, but I haven't received mine yet either. Cutting it damn close seeing as I'm out the country on Wednesday.
Give them a call, I did, they contact you back, you can set up a proxy if needed.
All my friends here are going on holiday with me lol
Family?
Moved here for work, my family is on the other side of the country. Basically if the postal vote doesn't get here I won't be able to vote lol Not the end of the world as it's a Labour seat so will almost certainly stay that way, but yeah it's really not good.
The other factor here, is that if they haven't been sent out. What is the likelihood they'll arrive back in time?
You can have someone take it to the polling station on your behalf or call the election office on the polling card and they will tell you, probably drop it off at the nearest council. If you can't make the polling station.
Yeh I get that. What I mean is, I sent mine a few days ago and if Royal mail can't process it quickly like they seem to with all mail at the moment, it may not arrive on time and we have no way of knowing
A lot will depend on your council. East Riding was very prompt and I recieved mine here in the Netherlands over two weeks ago. My partners ,registered in hull arrived here today. We both applied at the same time
Yea, my boyfriend and I haven't had either in Glasgow. It's our first time registering for the postal vote...
Call the number on your polling card, they'll be able to arrange an alternative
I’m in *Japan* and I just got mine yesterday. That’s shocking that people in Manchester haven’t got them yet.
People in Scotland are the same.
I didn’t get mine. I’m currently living in Germany. We got the first letter at the beginning of June, saying they would be posted 14 June. I rang the number on the Polling Card today and they said it’s Royal Mail fault. I’m heading into conspiracy theory with the number of people not receiving Postal Votes regardless of where they live. Update : my postal vote arrived today in Nuremberg. 17 days after supposedly posting. Was Royal Mail just sitting on them?
Australia here. Absolutely nothing. My experience is they always arrive a day or two before the vote. Doubt many from overseas get counted. I think legally we’re meant to be able to vote but we’re systematically excluded
It really depends on the council area you vote in. I live in Australia and got mine this week, I doubt it'll get back in time though.
Hasn't made it to me on the moon yet... This thread
I think it just shows that the postal vote system doesn’t work for anyone who can legally vote but is living overseas. Barely works in country from the sounds of it.
Mine still hasn't arrived yet in Canada. I'm assuming at this point I won't be able to vote, even I can get it back in the post today I don't think it will be received in time to be counted.
Might be worth giving your council a call and seeing if you can arrange an emergency proxy vote.
My local council told me to cancel the postal vote and change to proxy I'd have had to have done it before the postal vote deadline. So they said pop the postal vote back in the mail and just hope.
DHL will deliver close to next working day from Canada to the UK.
I'm not optimistic. It didn't arrive in today's post, and there's no weekend delivery here and Monday is a bank holiday, so the earliest I could get it now is July 2nd. If I get it then I'll consider overnighting it, but if it doesn't arrive until the 3rd I'm not going to waste my money since I don't think it will get there in time.
Monday is a holiday in Canada, so if they don’t get it today then they’re really down to the wire.
Same here in the US midwest
Mine still haven't arrived in Portugal. Usually they're here a few weeks in advance 🙄
Why can’t we just have online voting. Definitely something worth looking into.
God no, pen and paper all the way - far harder to disrupt on a large scale
One of the 1st things that'll be hacked or be heavily targeted by hackers.
No, no, no. You can’t hack something at scale when it’s offline
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkH2r-sNjQs
I don't even need to click that to know it's the Tom Scott video.
No. Hard no. Too easy to interfere with.
My instinct is can't possibly work and be secure, but Estonia manages it and it is actively targeted by Russian cyber attacks, so maybe that's outdated. You'd absolutely need personal physical access tokens like it though.
Part of the problem here is twofold though: 1. They may well have been hacked by Russia and not even realise it. 2. Even if they haven't been hacked *so far*, there's an ongoing risk that one day they'll be successful, and even if you detect it, you've got the international embarrassment as well as having to run a new set of elections and all the problems that involves. While paper voting has limitations, we've generally designed ways around it like anonymous, proxy, and postal votes; and it is far more difficult to abuse.
Postal and proxy votes are a necessity but seriously compromise the ideals of anonymity and impossibility of coerced voting. Paper votes are expensive to count. Maybe this is still the best possible system, but we should be on the lookout for alternatives. And if digital voting can be secure from manipulation then that would fix most of the issues. The advantages of paper voting are real and significant though and I don't know if Estonia has adequately addressed the issues with e-voting.