Go And Vote! Get Others Out To Vote Too…!

As usual we have kept objective at Wrexham.com during this election, but today have a political message: Go and vote!

Polls are open from 7am to 10pm today – with the results known locally perhaps as soon as 1am!

You will not be able to do this again for another five years, so Wrexham FC will be in the Championship, a Mars manned spaceflight will be taking off, car parking in town will likely cost 10 euros for 10 minutes and the landscaping by ‘Wrexham Village’ will still not be completed!

Or…. we could be going through this all over again in a few months if national polls are right with a hung parliament and any coalition falls apart.

Either way, voting is your chance to indicate what you think and you have that chance today so make sure you do. If you do not fancy voting, you may choose to do what quite a few have said they will be doing – that is spoiling their ballot.

For a reminder of candidates and what they think on some issues our candidate lists and Q&A’s can be found by clicking here.

Some readers have asked how do you actually vote – the answer is in this handy graphic produced by the Houses of Parliament below, noting you do NOT need to take your polling card with you.

There are two PDF documents on the Council website showing the lists of polling station and locations if you do not know where you have to go–one for Wrexham is here, and the other for Clwyd South is here.

SELFIES!
Resist the urge to take a selfie with your ballot paper as it could cause some legal problems! The law says it should be a secret vote, so pictures inside polling stations are a no no, but feel free to go wild outside them and tweet them to @wrexham or vine us.

SOD EM IM SPOILING IT!
For those looking to spoil your ballot we have had this insiders view passed to us: “If you are going to spoil your ballot make it interesting as they are checked, so more quick jokes and less swearing”. We have been told that essays have been written, jokes added, extra boxes with fictional candidates.

Candidates do get a chance to ‘inspect’ spoilt ballots, so you can write direct messages to them but your vote will not be counted so the impact is lessened.

Be warned though, aside from your mark (the ‘X’) any other scribbles or marks could be seen as you spoiling your ballot paper so be clear with your vote!

Rejection can happen if you vote for more than one candidate, or vote for no one. If you write anything on the paper which could identify you – such as your name or address – it will be rejected as votes have to be anonymous. Finally, if the ‘voter’s intention is unclear’ it will get rejected, this latter category is the one most used for er, imaginatively spoilt papers.

Hopefully you will exercise your right to vote, or not vote, and join us at the count later this evening for our live coverage!