I was voter number 51 at 17:50

we had a by-election here, the lady insisted that I had to have a pc ballot paper, even if I didn’t want to vote, and place it in the ballot box. I said no, she relented in the end.

I voted for an independent! Didn’t look like many had bothered. A complete waste of time and money this. But I suspect nowhere near the waste of time and money it will now become! Hurray for another layer of utterly pointless bureaucracy to shell out for, with the added bonus of politicising the police. Which can only ever be a good thing 🙄

totally agree. Massie shake-up in the nature of policing, moving to US-style political interference. The cynic in me suggests the lack of publicity, fanfare and information was deliberate as the incumbent government think they will win the majority of positions, and it will assist them further in their ideological reform of public sector institutions.

I think any election below a certain turnout should be null and void.

My views do not necessarily reflect those of my employer…

Look on the net FFS! Take some f######g responsibility for your choices!

And if you do bother looking you learn sweet FA, or i did when i looked.

Pointless.

If the government want to do something positive, scrap centralisation and give power to the regions.

I’ve voted in every election I could have done since I turned 18.
Today I spoiled my ballot.

And if you do bother looking you learn sweet FA, or i did when i looked.

Really? How hard is it to find http://www.choosemypcc.org.uk/ – linked from multiple other sites and gives pretty comprehensive information.

I wasn’t going to vote, and minded to spoil my ballot to express my contempt for the system, but as it happens I found there was an independent standing who appears he might have a clue (30 years experience in the police, lots of community service, runs a business) and is certainly a better alternative to the ones standing on a party political ticket who appear to be career politicians. I was also in the local school this morning which was right next to the polling station, so no excuses.

An amusing notice outside the polling station suggesting you turn up in plenty of time to avoid missing out on your vote due to queuing – the lady who issued my ballot was also amused by that. Didn’t check exactly where I was on the list, but it looked like only a handful had voted at 12:30pm.

First result is in and the turnout was 16%. Hardly a thumping vote of confidence, is it?

I suspect crashtestmonkey is bang on, and that this is going to become an ideological battleground. Just what we need our police forces to be! Tory Police commisioner’s are going to be furthering Tory central Offices privatisation agenda, with Labour councils trying to frustrate this.

I can’t see any conceivable way that this is somehow going to lead to better, or more accountable policing. Its being packaged as democracy. I fear the net result will be the polar opposite.

God help us when we get the first major ‘incident’ – like the recent shootings of the 2 officers in Manchester. We’ll now have, instead of a police spokesman, another career politician mouthing political soundbites, as an ‘opportunity’ to get his face on telly, and score some cheap points for his Central Office Masters

A brave new world indeed

At least one person voted for their left arse cheek.

I think any election below a certain turnout should be null and void.

Every election should have a None Of the Above candidate, which would cause a rerun if it won.

First result is in and the turnout was 16%. Hardly a thumping vote of confidence, is it?

Do the candidates lose their deposit if they win votes from less than 5% of the electorate? I wonder if any winners will lose their deposit?

Tory Police commisioner’s are going to be furthering Tory central Offices privatisation agenda

In the end, what swung voting for me was voting for the candidate who stated hat they were opposed to privatisation of the police force. So, Labour got my vote, followed by the independent. It was an anti-Tory vote, more than a pro-PCC vote.

I’m now wishing I’d stood. My only policy would have been that I’d do absolutely nothing and donated all the money to the police force.

On R4 this morning they seemed to give the impression of total dissolusionment when interviewing..
And only one person pipped up with “well we think the lack of turnout is directly attributable to a lack of public awareness”
Not too sure if that person has been walking around with his head up his arse but as far as I’ve seen it’s been plastered all over billboards, TV, Radio and them there Newspaper thingys.

Ohh, hang on I think it was the person who brought the whole shebang to the Public for a Vote.. 🙄

Utter waste of money.

I’m now wishing I’d stood. My only policy would have been that I’d do absolutely nothing and donated all the money to the police force.

Well as the new role replaces the existing Police Authorities I presume you are happy for the police to have no oversight whatsoever and have no accountability to the local community.

The phrase “if its not broke, don’t fix it” springs immediately to mind

And I can’t think of a single thing instigated by a politician that’s primary intention wasn’t to further their own self-interested agenda

If you read this report there is a suggestion that most were only performing adequately so arguably the system could be improved – no doubt we will find out in due course.

costs of this estimated between £75million(telegraph) and £100million (guardian)

just for the elections

couldve put a few thousand extra coppers on the beat for that, rather than another layer of party political (mis)managers

it really is so utterly pointless offering a choice between candidates , they are all gonna be in favour of the same thing!

ather than another layer of party political (mis)managers

It is not another layer, it is replacing a 15 person committee structure with one person.

I presume you are happy for the police to have no oversight whatsoever and have no accountability to the local community.

We’re already there around here.

From the Beeb…

But Labour’s Chuka Umunna said: “It has been a total shambles and the £100m spent on it could have been spent on 3,000 police officers.

“At least if you are going to have the elections, organise them properly and don’t have them in the middle of winter.”

Did I miss some mahoosive climate change event?

of course one politically driven person is always better than a commitee of 15, with its checks and balances, accountability my arse– people on here freely admitting they voted for something they know nowt about– i suppose thats called democracy !

Well as the new role replaces the existing Police Authorities I presume you are happy for the police to have no oversight whatsoever and have no accountability to the local community.

It wouldn’t matter what I wanted, it would have been the will of the electorate.

If I’d stood with that policy, I’d have a mandate to do nothing. After all, as many as 7% of the electorate would have chosen me.

Lots of people on radio saying they wouldn’t vote as no one had told them anything about the candidates. Apologies but this really riles me – fair play if you don’t agree with the whole idea, fair play if you want a “none of the above” option, but to say you’re not voting because nobody told you about the candidates is just pathetic. Look on the net FFS! Take some f######g responsibility for your choices!

If the people standing can’t be bothered to canvass or provide literature, then that speaks volumes about how unimportant they feel these elections are. Meanwhile, the Home Secretary has been busy explaining all the things the PCCs won’t be able to do.

Why would you vote for someone on that basis?

druidh – Member

From the Beeb…

But Labour’s Chuka Umunna said: “It has been a total shambles and the £100m spent on it could have been spent on 3,000 police officers.

“At least if you are going to have the elections, organise them properly and don’t have them in the middle of winter.”

Did I miss some mahoosive climate change event?

I know! It was the nicest day we’ve had in months yesterday. I went to vote after banging 40 clear, crisp, dry miles in on the bike. I’ve not been able to say that many times this year! 😀

A ballot box in Newport contained no votes 😯 not sure if that says more about the good burghers of Newport or the idea of voting for a Police Commisioner.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRqns2xtTYc[/video]

If the people standing can’t be bothered to canvass or provide literature, then that speaks volumes about how unimportant they feel these elections are.

They couldn’t afford to send out leaflets, after the government removed the one free postal delivery per candidate.

The areas covered are much larger than in most elections, so they’re not able to visit each household, or hand-deliver leaflets using volunteers.

The only person in our area who could afford a leaflet delivery was the independent. I’m suspicious about the source of this money; who gains by him winning?

They couldn’t afford to send out leaflets, after the government removed the one free postal delivery per candidate.

The areas covered are much larger than in most elections, so they’re not able to visit each household, or hand-deliver leaflets using volunteers.

Many of the candidates are standing for the main political parties – if they won’t fund them…

I note that the Lib dems didn’t even bother to field a candidate in many areas.

The most important issue: was my vote spoiled, or spoilt?

For the Wiltshire PCC out of a total of 514,855 eligible voters only 81,477 cast a vote with a total of 2,683 votes rejected (one was mine as I fundamentally disagreed with political candidates being able to sack my chief constable)

Didn’t really matter tho my mate Dave’s mate was duly elected – result said my mate Dave and its only another £80k added to the burden of bureaucracy in Wiltshire. Everyone’s a winner

So as I understand it, the government thinks that a union should have to get a majority of all their members to vote in favour of strike action for the vote to have any validity. However, it’s absolutely fine for police commisioners to get in with a majority of the 10% who turned out.

Its amusing hearing the political class blame everything from the fact its November, it was dark and the London media [ they did not tell us enough – though of course the govt refused to pay for a mail shot for the candidates but sent a mail shot telling me it was on as if the ballot paper was not a big clue] rather than just accept that the majority of the country think its a daft idea and not worth voting on- what a waste of money

I spoiled/ spoilt/ f’ed up my ballot paper at 19.15, I was the 2nd name on the 2nd page to “vote”, the old dear sat there reckoned about 30 folk had been through all day.

Good work Team Tosspot (my new name for the cockalition)

I went for a night ride round Woburn, had a great time.

what a fiasco, the omnishambles rumbles on.

Spoilt/spoiled.

Moist/soiled. It’s a fine line really.

I spent all yesterday evening checking the polling stations of the Ribble Valley. One station had had 8 people in by 8pm

Quite a few colleagues worked on the polling stations, most stations worked out about £10 pound per vote on staffing costs alone.

I was all in favour of a campaign for spoling votes/boycotting, but decided that throwing a strop wouldn’t help, and decided to find out about the candidates:

The Labour candidate was vice chair of the current Police authority, and his main aim was to campaign against the cuts – so he was out, I need someone who will try and do the best job despite the cuts

The Tory – apart from being a Tory – was deputy leader of the council, and I wasn’t voting for a career local politician

The independent guy was an ex-special constable who claimed to have a vague knowledge of turning round struggling businesses, so maybe…..

The UKIP guy was proposing to be tough on crime/criminal, used the phrase “zero tolerance” and said that if savings could be found he would plough them back into coppers on the beat….

God help me, I voted UKIP 😥

Where I went to vote in mid afternoon there were two tables you could choose from. One table had just 15 people all day, reckoned that would be about 60 for the full shift!

There was a turnout of 9.46 percent in Stoke-on-Trent! How long till we get rid of the commissioners?

I wrote a nice little message on my ballot paper 🙂 In Wiltshire, the guy got elected with 6% of votes, and 3% of papers were spoilt… I heard on r4 tonight, “many papers had been spoilt, some deliberately….”

That will be Radio 4 pushing the Cabinet Office line then. They have to make up after grovelling for the previous lot.

Shamelessly stolen from somewhere sensible…

… when the Public and Commercial Services Union announced a strike of border guards in July 2012.

Damian Green MP: “This is a completely selfish and irresponsible decision by the PCS leadership. With only around one in 10 voting for industrial action, they have no authority to call their members out on strike.”

My local PCC is a career B-list politician who had the vote of 6.8% of those eligible. What was that Damian?

Tom B – Member
There was a turnout of 9.46 percent in Stoke-on-Trent! How long till we get rid of the commissioners?

its very hard to roll back ‘democratisation’