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Elections
How are the Councillors chosen?
County Councillors are elected to represent people in their area for a period of four years - the area they represent is called an electoral division and there are 84 of these in Lancashire. Every four years there is an election when people will put themselves forward for election - these people are called candidates. Most candidates will have been put forward or "nominated" by one of the main political party's but some will not - these candidates are called independents.
The ballot system
- If you have registered to vote, you will be sent a 'poll card' just before an election, which tells you where and when to vote and which also identifies whose card it is.
- On polling day, you go to the polling station (usually a local school or community centre) where there will be people who will ask you your name and address and check that you are on the register and are eligible to vote.
- They will then give you a ballot paper which lists all the people standing for election (the candidates) and is stamped with an official mark.
- You then go into a closed off area called polling booth where nobody
can see how you vote and put a cross (X) in the box next to the person or party
you want to vote for. If you write anything else on the paper your vote will
be spoiled and not be counted. When you have marked your vote, you fold the
ballot paper in half and put it into a large black box called a ballot box.
At the end of polling day the ballot boxes are sealed and taken to a place where the votes are counted. - When all the votes are counted the results are announced. In County Council elections the candidate elected becomes a County Councillor and is responsible for representing all the people who live in the electoral division.
People, particularly those who find it difficult to get to a polling station, can ask for a ‘postal vote’. A ballot paper is sent to them in the post to vote and send back. This is called ‘postal voting’.
The government would like to encourage more people to vote by post to get more people to vote or ‘increase the turnout’. The government is currently experimenting by holding some elections by ‘all postal voting’. In these elections people can only vote by post and cannot use the ballot box.
Other ways of voting are also being looked at such as by the Internet and mobile phones.
Click through the illustrations at the bottom to understand the ballot system better.
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