"I'll thank you to mind your own business sir, whom I vote for is between me and the ballot box. Though for the record, I voted Conservative, Communist on the list and everyone but Labour on the council form. Cheers!"
(extract from The iLL Man: A Life Lived In Imagined 'Vox Pop' Interviews)
How can people get it so wrong? Nah, not voting SNP in unprecedented numbers (one of the Scottish publics better moves in my humble opinion). I mean the whole ballot paper fiasco. Sure, there were fuck ups with machinery, abandoned counts, ferry/helicopter tribulations and the postal votes were handled extremely badly, but surely the biggest cock up of all was on the part of the 150,000 or so voters who failed to read the instructions on the ballot paper properly.............
Ok, some people get confused by such things, the elderly in particular. Indeed, there are people (not unlike myself) who roll through life in a state of absent mindedness and may have cocked up their council form...............But it's the numbers. 150,000 people.
We're talking here of people who are of sound mind and judgement, though obviously not 100% on what the system is, who couldn't be arsed looking at the instructions on the ballot papers. There were of course some very decent people in some polling stations who were more than willing to explain how it all worked. Other polling stations were less accommodating
Holding the council elections on the same day was probably not a good idea either, as this simply adds to the ratio of fucked up ballot papers/confused voters.
Ok, now I've had my Roy Keane/Vinnie Jones/Billy Abercrombie style 'studs up tackle' moment on the Scottish electorate, I think it's time I showed some solidarity. How embarrassing must it have been to see those images on the front of newspapers and on the Tv news, of the computer images of fucked up ballot papers, only to see the very vote you had cast staring back at you. Yes, the one with the cross and the no 2 in the corner, or maybe the number with the scrubbed out cross, or vice versa........
Nobody needs their noses rubbed in it.
Human beings have a propensity not to read instructions and I include myself in this. You don't need any elaborate system, you don't need any instruction seminars or leaflets or hectoring broadcasts. Simply hand people the form at the polling booth, tell them to read the instructions and if they're still confused, provide a few people per station to assist and explain. Maybe the person they deploy on the door to tell you where to go and vote, despite there being signs up telling you where to go and vote, could be better used no?
Anyways.............A big thanks for the response to the subject of the stain on the right leg of my jeans. The stain was last seen with it's agent at a Camden watering hole, in the company of Jack White, Geri Halliwell and Bruce Forsyth and sharing a taxi home with Melinda Messenger and Charlie Manson. Saucy!
I also hear the weather is to turn shit over the weekend. After near enough ten days of lovely sunshine, I'm sure some will say this is Gods punishment on man for returning the Feegie Fatman to his seat on Paisley Council. I say it's more to do with the law of sod dictating that 'thou shalt have the worst fucking weather possible for thine bank holiday weekend and thou shalt be happy with it'. Someone mentioned something about random chance, low pressure and isobars, but I chose to ignore them. Witchcraft I call it!
Youtube anyone?
(extract from The iLL Man: A Life Lived In Imagined 'Vox Pop' Interviews)
How can people get it so wrong? Nah, not voting SNP in unprecedented numbers (one of the Scottish publics better moves in my humble opinion). I mean the whole ballot paper fiasco. Sure, there were fuck ups with machinery, abandoned counts, ferry/helicopter tribulations and the postal votes were handled extremely badly, but surely the biggest cock up of all was on the part of the 150,000 or so voters who failed to read the instructions on the ballot paper properly.............
Ok, some people get confused by such things, the elderly in particular. Indeed, there are people (not unlike myself) who roll through life in a state of absent mindedness and may have cocked up their council form...............But it's the numbers. 150,000 people.
We're talking here of people who are of sound mind and judgement, though obviously not 100% on what the system is, who couldn't be arsed looking at the instructions on the ballot papers. There were of course some very decent people in some polling stations who were more than willing to explain how it all worked. Other polling stations were less accommodating
Holding the council elections on the same day was probably not a good idea either, as this simply adds to the ratio of fucked up ballot papers/confused voters.
Ok, now I've had my Roy Keane/Vinnie Jones/Billy Abercrombie style 'studs up tackle' moment on the Scottish electorate, I think it's time I showed some solidarity. How embarrassing must it have been to see those images on the front of newspapers and on the Tv news, of the computer images of fucked up ballot papers, only to see the very vote you had cast staring back at you. Yes, the one with the cross and the no 2 in the corner, or maybe the number with the scrubbed out cross, or vice versa........
Nobody needs their noses rubbed in it.
Human beings have a propensity not to read instructions and I include myself in this. You don't need any elaborate system, you don't need any instruction seminars or leaflets or hectoring broadcasts. Simply hand people the form at the polling booth, tell them to read the instructions and if they're still confused, provide a few people per station to assist and explain. Maybe the person they deploy on the door to tell you where to go and vote, despite there being signs up telling you where to go and vote, could be better used no?
Anyways.............A big thanks for the response to the subject of the stain on the right leg of my jeans. The stain was last seen with it's agent at a Camden watering hole, in the company of Jack White, Geri Halliwell and Bruce Forsyth and sharing a taxi home with Melinda Messenger and Charlie Manson. Saucy!
I also hear the weather is to turn shit over the weekend. After near enough ten days of lovely sunshine, I'm sure some will say this is Gods punishment on man for returning the Feegie Fatman to his seat on Paisley Council. I say it's more to do with the law of sod dictating that 'thou shalt have the worst fucking weather possible for thine bank holiday weekend and thou shalt be happy with it'. Someone mentioned something about random chance, low pressure and isobars, but I chose to ignore them. Witchcraft I call it!
Youtube anyone?
