Polls open for police and crime commissioner election race

8:50am Thursday 15th November 2012 in News

VOTE today to decide who will be the county's first police and crime commissioner.

Polls opened at 7am and will close at 10pm.

Whoever is appointed will be in charge of policing priorities across Essex and a budget worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
 

Operational decisions will remain with the Chief Constable but the new commissioner will choose the focus for the force.
 

Six candidates are vying for the highly paid position in the biggest shake-up of top level policing in years.
 

They are Conservative Nick Alston. Labour candidate Val Morris-Cook, UKIP's Andrew Smith, Robin Tillbroon for the English Democrats and Mick Thwaites and Linda Belgrove who are standing as independent candidates.

Mr Thwaites is a former police divisional commander from Essex and Mrs Belgrove was vice-chairman of the Essex Police Authority.

Results are due tomorrow.

Comments(7)

Say It As It Is OK? says...
10:40am Thu 15 Nov 12

This is a totally pointless election that will only serve line the pockets of the successful candidate.

In this instance apathy rules supreme?

I spoke to a family member, who is working in one of the polling stations, she says, where she is, the turn out so far, is the lowest she has ever experienced in 25 years of election duties.15% to 20% is my prediction.

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romantic says...
11:02am Thu 15 Nov 12

I also have family working at a polling station. Not had any feedback yet, but they were looking at 15% maximum.

But the whole infrastructure has to be there, the same as for a general election. Polling stations have to be arranged and staffed all day, ballot boxes have to be driven down to Leisure World, votes counted. It all costs money!

The publicity for this has been minimal, I am sure there will be plenty out there who have no idea it is even on. It is a role which few people understand. Many people I know are saying they will simply spoil their ballot papers, which is a shame in a way, but if people have no idea what the candidates stand for, it is understandable too.

Would surely have made more sense to couple this with local elections, so at least the turnout is a bit higher.

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Sdapeze says...
1:13pm Thu 15 Nov 12

Stay at home and let the fascists in to power. Go and vote and keep them out. If you don't vote, you have no right to comment on the outcome.

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Say It As It Is OK? says...
1:40pm Thu 15 Nov 12

Sdapeze wrote:
Stay at home and let the fascists in to power. Go and vote and keep them out. If you don't vote, you have no right to comment on the outcome.
Not sure that any of the candidates standing in Essex could be considered fascists.

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Scoot says...
1:42pm Thu 15 Nov 12

Sdapeze, are you really Mystic Meg in disguise ?? You seem to already know who is going to win......... Seriously though I'm not going to vote as I know nothing about any of the candidates. None of them has pushed any leaflets through my door so I can' make a judgement as to who to vote for. I don't always vote for the same party in elections (and this will be the first time in 28years I haven't voted) I judge each by its manifesto either in general or local elections. I'm not just going to go along to the polling station and put a cross against one parties representative just for the sake of it.

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Reginald47 says...
9:22pm Thu 15 Nov 12

When I voted this morning the polling clerks looked half asleep. By the way I always vote no matter what, but thank goodness there were a couple of good independents.

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setbuilder says...
11:59pm Thu 15 Nov 12

Have to say I agree with Sdapeze. If you don't vote, don't complain if the result isn't to your liking. The candidates all had some form of 'blurb' published (albeit on-line). It's unfortunate that not everybody uses the internet but those of you complaining on this site certainly do so there's no excuse for not knowing their policies, even if some were a little sparse.
This election is not (or at least certainly should not be) political. Therefore not all of the candidates had a large financial backing and therefore can't afford to push paper through doors.
For what it's worth I voted for one of the independents. Politics shouldn't come into this.

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