You Heard it Here First!- General election 9th May!
- Thread starter Jon_in_london
- Start date
Rolfe
Adult human female
My postal vote will be going back to Hamilton by direct post, posted by my own fair hands!Darat said:
I just can't believe some of these shenanigans! When I was helping out at the 1994(?) Euro-elections, somehow the postal vote for an elderly housebound man in the constituency came into the possession of the SNP office. I was given the envelope, and instructed to get my backside round to the house and make sure it was all done properly. It turned out that the old man's wife had signed the original application with his name, as he couldn't write, so in the end I just sighed and let her sign the voting papers too. And then he started shilly-shallying about who should he vote for, and asking me what I thought. I said, whoever you want to vote for. Turned out that Jim Davidson, his local councillor, who had got him the postal vote, was the father of a guy in my own branch of the party. We had a little chat and I mentioned that I was sure Jim would approve if he voted for Alan Macartney. Finally, he put a cross on the bloody paper, and I made sure all the signatures and so on were as in order as they were ever going to be.
I felt quite uncomfortable with the whole affair. It was obvious that the household were SNP supporters, otherwise why the friendship with Jim, and how come we'd got the voting papers (God knows how). But I didn't think it was really appropriate for me to be involved with the whole exercise, even though I was busting a gut to make sure the old man was free to vote whatever way he chose.
But nobody in the office ever even hinted that I might do otherwise, or mark the paper myself, or pull any sort of fast one. And that was the only postal vote I saw the entire fortnight. I'd just drop dead of shock if the SNP was involved in anything like that news report, in fact I'd probably resign from the party.
Labour? Bunch of scumbags.
Rolfe.
Rolfe said:
From what I've read it is just a matter of the Labour workers being the most successful e.g. there was widespread abuse and fraud by many party workers.
It’s a great bit of evidence for confirmation of my bias that in my view local party workers and especially local party officials and councillors are the biggest bunch of crooks going – allegedly!
Rolfe
Adult human female
Part of me agrees with you, because the evil reputation of the Labour Party in Central Scotland is not undeserved. On the other hand, I've helped with elections at local level in a number of different constituencies, and speaking only from knowing what goes on in the SNP offices, I've never seen the smallest sign of fraud or double-dealing. I've sat through a number of lectures about behaving well and always abiding by the law and the local electoral rules (and know what these are so you can report any of the other party workers you see breaking them!), and I'm perfectly convinced the agents giving the lectures meant every word.Darat said:
Oh, there was the matter of the big "Vote Conservative" poster in the middle of the field on the road between Peterhead and Aberdeen that went on fire mysteriously one night. We got the blame, but all I know is that the students who were bunked up in the election offices didn't have any transport after I dropped them off for the night, and if anybody in our camp either did it or knew anything about it, they kept it remarkably quiet.
Rolfe.