A (mostly) impartial guide to today’s election in Crawley

Today a third of the seats on Crawley Borough Council are up for election. The borough council run around half of local services in Crawley, with the others being the responsibility of West Sussex County Council.

In addition to running a number of important services, the borough council gets to set part of Crawley’s council tax, with the remainder set by West Sussex County Council and the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner.

At the moment, there are 19 Labour councillors, 16 Conservative councillors, and one vacancy following the sad passing of Andrew Belben who represented Pound Hill South & Worth as Conservative councillor. No party other than Labour or the Conservatives have come close to winning a seat in Crawley since 2007.

With the things so finely-balanced, a change of a single seat would put the council back into No Overall Control, two seats would see a Conservative majority. Elections in Crawley tend to run very close. In 2005, Labour won the constituency by just 37 votes. In 2006, the Conservatives won the council on a coin toss, following an equal number of Labour and Conservative votes cast in the deciding seat. Every year we have seats won or lost by just a handful of votes.

Polling stations are open today from 7am to 10pm, although anyone who is queueing at that time will still be allowed to vote. You don’t need your polling card to vote, but you will need to show valid ID. You can check your ID online here: https://openbritain.typeform.com/to/BBC4QUZ9

If you don’t have valid ID, emergency proxy votes can still be applied for by returning this completed form to the Town Hall by 5pm: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-04/Emergency%20proxy%20Photo%20ID%20GB.pdf

To find your local polling station go to: https://iwillvote.org.uk

If you haven’t already sent your postal vote back, it needs to be handed in at any polling station in Crawley. Political parties are banned from handling postal votes, so unfortunately we won’t be able to help hand these in.

Parties will be working to increase turnout on the day by knocking people’s doors. This is why we have people at some polling stations, we ask to see your polling card or get your address. We’re not being nosey, we use this information to avoid bothering people who have already voted. Sorry for any disturbance caused by our campaigners, but the evidence is it significantly increases voter turnout, which is why our members are using up their annual leave to do it.

In the polling station, find the right table for your street, give your name and address and show your ID. You will then be issued with a ballot paper. There are alcoves provided so you can vote in secret. As there is only one election taking place in Crawley on Thursday and no by-elections, you will only receive one ballot paper and will be able to case a vote for a single candidate. Please put a clear cross in the box next to the name of the candidate you wish to vote for and put nothing else on the ballot paper. Anything other than a cross centrally located in a candidate’s box might result in your vote being discounted. Votes containing any details from which you could be identified (name, address, signature, etc.) is automatically rejected to preserve the secrecy of the ballot.

When polls close, boxes are sealed with a tamper-proof tag and stored securely overnight before being taken to the count the next morning. Candidates, a limited number of their guests, and journalists are all allowed to attend the count to ensure the process is conducted fairly.

The first step of any count is checking that the number of ballots in each box either matches the number which were issued at its polling station (that’s the paperwork they draw a line on when they give you your ballot) or for the postal votes that it matches the number verified at the Town Hall (again, this process is open to party representatives to supervise). Once all of that has been verified, we start counting the actual ballots and it’s at this point that the returning officer takes a decision on any unusual ballots, in consultation with parties’ election agents. Once this process is concluded, we have a result (subject to recounts).

If you’d like to know more about the candidates up for election this year, local party websites tend to contain details, alternatively the independent website https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/ provides summaries about each candidate on a single website.

As this election could produce either a Conservative or Labour controlled local authority, you might also wish to look at local party manifestos. The Crawley Labour manifestos for this and past years can be found here: https://www.crawleylabour.org.uk/manifestos/

Unfortunately, no other local party appears to have produced a manifesto for this year’s election, but their respective websites and Facebook pages are likely to contain some details of the policy commitments they are making at this election.

Obviously, I strongly feel that one party stands to really look out for the needs of the community, but whoever you plan to vote for, please do take the time to vote. People continue to fight and die for the right to choose their own Government, just as past generations of our countrymen fought to secure and defend our rights.