thumb|A polling station situated inside a suburban library in the north of [[Cambridge during the 2005 United Kingdom general election]]

A polling place is where voters cast their ballots in elections. The phrase polling station is also used in American English, and Canadian English although a polling place is the building and polling station is the specific room

Since elections generally take place over a one- or two-day span on a periodic basis, often annual or longer, polling places are usually located in facilities used for other purposes, such as schools, churches, fire stations, public libraries, sports halls, Gym, Post office, Community centre, Retirement home, local government offices, Metro and Railway Stations or even private homes, Hotel, Bank, Restaurants, Fitness centres, Private Shops, and may each serve a similar number of people. The area may be known as a ward, precinct, polling district, or constituency. The polling place is staffed by officials (who may be called Returning Officers and election judges, or other titles) who monitor the voting procedures and assist voters with the election process. Scrutineers (or poll-watchers) are independent or partisan observers who attend the poll to ensure the impartiality of the process.

The facility will be open between specified hours depending on the type of election, and political activity by or on behalf of those standing in the ballot is usually prohibited within the venue and immediately surrounding area.

Inside the polling place will be an area (usually a voting booth) where the voter may select the candidate or party of their choice in secret. If a ballot paper is used, this will be placed into a ballot box in front of witnesses who cannot see for whom the vote has been cast. Voting machines may be employed instead.

Some polling places are temporary structures. A portable cabin may be specially sited for an election and removed afterwards.

There are five types of voting technologies that are currently being used in the United States polling locations. These comprise hand-counted paper ballots, mechanical lever machines, punch cards, optically readable paper ballots, and electronic voting machines. is a room or cabin in a polling station where voters are able to cast their vote in private to protect the secrecy of the ballot. Commonly the entrance to the voting booth is a retractable curtain.

(A collapsible desk or table provided by the facility, erected for the duration, with a large corrugated cardboard trifold on top as a screen, is used in most elections polling places across Canada. )

Usually access to the voting booth is restricted to a single person, with exceptions for voters requiring assistance.

The booths aren't in all states but some, as others use a form of mailing.

Voting machines generally use either a voting booth or some other form of privacy cover to obscure voters from the view of others.

History

The word "poll" means "scalp" or "head". When votes were taken by gathering people together and counting heads, the place where this was done (sometimes an open field) was called the "polls".

Polling places used to gather and count ballots in elections have changed significantly over the past 250 years. Properly identified votes would go to a voting booth where the votes are captured. After all votes were captured, voters could examine the voting ticket before submitting the ballot to the poll worker, in a ballot box, or on the computerised ballot. which travel to remote communities via several forms of transport, generally in four-wheel-drives (4WDs), but also on light aircraft, helicopters and boats in many cases. For example, in the federal seat of Lingiari (the larger in size (but smaller in population) of the two federal electorates in the Northern Territory), where Indigenous people make up around 40% of the population, most people have their votes collected by RMVTs and thus there is low turnout on election day in Lingiari. Grey (South Australia), Kennedy (Queensland), Leichhardt (Queensland), O'Connor and Parkes (New South Wales).

RMVTs also operate for state and territory elections. In the Northern Territory, most people vote before election day, but those who do that live in remote electorates (i.e those outside Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs) have their vote collected by RMVTs, whereas those in urban electorates (i.e those in Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs) vote at regular polling places. In the seats of Daly, Katherine and Namatjira, the majority of voters vote at regular polling places but for those in the remote parts of the electorate, RMVTs do exist. In Queensland, RMVTs are used by some remote voters in the seat of Cook.

See also

  • Dogs at polling stations

References

  • Handbook for polling station staff, UK Electoral Commission, 2010