On 05/05/06 08:56 Stephanie Clarke wrote: > On May 5 2006, Martin Thorne wrote: > >>How come I only received my polling card yesterday, on election day? > > I had mine a while ago, so perhaps yours took the scenic route. Still, you > probably had fewer problems than I did getting past the reception committee > of candidates/reps wanting my voting card number. It took several minutes > before the Tory chap was persuaded that I really wasn't going to give it to > him. He even said he might visit me to ask why I hadn't voted, as if that > would change my mind. Grr... I heard him use that line on someone. Possibly you if this was at around 14:30-15:00. I thought at the time it might be taken the wrong way. That's why I never take my card as it avoids the conversation you had. > (Unsurprisingly, he didn't come round. Just like every other time I've had > that conversation outside polling stations. Do they ever?). Theoretically yes, but only if and only if you've been silly enough to suggest to any party when canvassed that you might vote for them. Certainly this time the Tories where cross checking against their canvassing list so if you'd said you were going to vote for them and you didn't turn up you might have had a knock on the door or a card through the letterbox later in the day. I'm not sure if the Lib Dems were doing the same. The candidate was taking numbers when I was there but no one was there cross referencing to their canvassing list when I was hanging about chatting to the candidates. I'm reminded by all this of a story I think I first read in John O'Farrell's "Things Can Only Get Better". He was told by an old lady that she always told the Tory canvassers she was going to vote Tory and they then offered her a lift to the polling station. When John said that Labour would do that too she said the Tories always had much nicer cars and she liked going to the polls in a Jag. She still voted Labour when she got there though. Always had. Now that's class warfare at its finest ;-)