A Spring Poll

Today I worked at a Poll Clerk for the first time. On a practical level this meant setting my alarm for 5:10 am so I could leave at 6:10 in order to arrive at the Polling Station I was allocated to for a 6:30 start.  The Presiding Officer and I then had half an hour to set the Polling Station up and get all the posters in place and discuss how we were splitting the work (and get our food in the fridge) so the Polling Station could open on the dot of 7 a.m.  Fortunately he'd visited the previous evening to put the tables, chairs and polling booths up as one of the toilets was leaking and there was water all over the floor. If we'd had discovered that at 6:30 am it would have been a bit of a nightmare.

We had a visit from an official to check the station was set up correctly at 7am and our first voter shortly after. There was steady voting throughout the day which was gloriously sunny (although not appreciated from inside the station) and our last voter appeared 30 seconds before we closed at 10pm. Then the closure process had to the followed and the building returned to it's normal state. I left at c10:30.

It was fascinating to see this from the other side of the desk. On a practical level, you get periods of no voters, followed by a small group of people arriving together. This can be driven by things as random as a popular programme on tv ending, or the local bus arriving as well as the more obvious trips to and from work. I worked at a smaller station so there were only the two of us there, but you still had to take a punt on whether you could just nip to the loo, make a cup of tea or grab some food before the next voter arrived. I've never been working for 16 hours straight before, I'm posting this the following day and I'm still absolutely knackered!  The work is not continuous, but you have to be available at any time a voter should arrive to cast their vote.  I'm glad I did it, but not sure I'll do it again - I'll see after a few days if my back recovers ok!!! Obviously the next vote in June is a really key one - maybe I'll see if I can get involved in the count!