Right to Vote?

No doubt one or other of us Stroppybloggers will offer a comprehensive analysis of the General Election results pretty soon. But in the meantime, I feel the need to comment about people being unable to vote.

Frankly, I'm astonished that this has not provoked more outrage and more media coverage than it has. To my knowledge, it is unprecedented that thousands of people have been denied the right to vote despite turning up to the polling station on time. It is an affront to democracy, and promises that it won't happen again are just not good enough.

Some councils didn't even print enough ballot papers, others obviously did not have enough polling stations or sufficient capacity within the polling stations that they did have. Queues were, in some places, several hours long, so even people who turned up with plenty of time to spare were shut out.

Some may argue that it did not affect the result. That may be true, I'm not certain. But in any case, it is irrelevant. The working-class movement did not fight for the right to vote just to see people denied the right to exercise that vote.