Geograph - photograph every grid square

The occasion was the General Election held on 8th June 2017. Elections are run by the local authority in accordance with electoral law as administered by the Electoral Commission. In this area the Returning Officer is the Chief Executive of Warwick District Council; the elections team is experienced and efficient. The district includes parts of two constituencies: mostly Warwick and Leamington with a small part of Kenilworth and Southam. For the convenience of local electors and the logistics of staffing a suitable building, two polling stations, A and B, were sited in Leek Wootton village hall (an excellent gig with good facilities for staff during their 16-hour stint). In the photo the Presiding Officer completes the arrangements for Station B, whose electoral register listed electors in just two roads. Seen on the table at Station A are, right to left, the checklist of proxy voters, the list of streetnames in the area, the register itself showing under each street the elector number, qualification to vote, name and housenumber or housename; it is marked to show that a person has voted. The green sheet records the number of ballot papers issued in each hour, enabling turnout to be estimated; to its left is the corresponding number list which records the elector number against the ID of the ballot paper. It is the document that would be referred to in any investigation into electoral fraud. After any election all this stuff is securely stored in sealed bags for a period. The ballot papers, the number of records that must be kept and the notices that must be displayed add up to a mind-blowing quantity of paper. Presiding Officers deserve full praise for staying on top of it and getting it all to the count in quick time.