These were taken this evening by a Stoke local, via a regular friend of the SKWAWKBOX – and they clearly show UKIP breaking electoral law at the Park Church polling station in Stoke.
Electoral law forbids anyone but the candidate and their electoral agent wearing party rosettes or other items in a polling station, but a UKIP woman has been parked there with a UKIP rosette.
UKIP must be desperate – and someone needs to go and kick out that kipper and report her.
Edit: apparently it’s going on all over the city, in clear breach of electoral law:
UKIP in multiple breaches of rules. Rosetted tellers hanging around *inside* & directly outside entrance to polling stations. #StokeCentral
— Phil BC (@philbc3) February 23, 2017
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At just after 7am this morning, there was a Ukip person wearing a rosette standing inside the polling station at Stoke Minster Primary School.
I thought this was a promising blog. Turns out they can’t even get the basics right. Just another Fake News merchant. A pity.
“Polling agents have the right to enter and to remain in the polling station and to observe voting……….If they do wear a rosette or badge, it should be plain but may display the name of a candidate, party and/
or emblem”
.http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/164255/EPE-Polling-station-handbook.pdf Page 13.
They’re not polling agents, then, as official complaints have apparently been made to the electoral officer.
Tellers are allowed to stand inside the building with the permission of the polling officer, provided it isn’t in the room where voting takes place and they aren’t obstructing access. http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/141890/Tellers-guidance-generic.pdf
They’re also allowed to wear badges, but can’t canvass and are restricted in what they can ask. A complaint may well have been put in by someone who wanted to make sure they were behaving properly but if they really were in polling stations all over the city, this was probably agreed by the polling officer. Every polling station is visited by the police and the polling officer at least once to ensure that the poll clerks are sticking to the rules.
Unless there was harassment or canvassing and they were in the right location, this is fine.