A POLLING station was forced to turn a car into a voting booth after the church key holder slept in and didn’t manage to open up on time.
Pictures of the bizarre station appeared on social media this morning showing the makeshift booth outside the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in Oxford.
Local man Toby Porter snapped a picture of the DIY station which shows a black BMW sitting outside the polling station.
Workers have taped a polling station banner on to the top of the boot and have a list of addresses for which they are accepting votes.
Besides this, the ballot box can also be seen sitting in the boot of the car and the candidate lists hang from the rear window.
52-year-old Toby posted the picture onto his Twitter this morning, captioning his post: “The church warden has overslept apparently so just cast my vote in a car.”
The tweet has since gone viral, being retweeted over 800 times and liked over 6,000 times by social media users who have loved the station.
Social media users have also been leaving comments on the post about the hilarious station.
@81beesfan said: “Great initiative by the people running the polling station.”
@mwretired said: “Great as long as someone doesn’t drive off with the ballot box.”
@laurafellover added: “This is so amazingly British.”
“Unfortunately we do find key holders oversleeping so every election we see a handful of polling stations in cars until access to the building can be sorted.”
Deputy Chief Executive of Association of Electoral Administrators, Laura Lock replied to the post saying : “All polling station staff are trained on how to set up temporary polling stations for cases just like this.
Speaking today Toby said: “I was one of the first to arrive as I have a long commute to work so I got there about 7:15am.
“When I arrived they said ‘we aren’t open yet’ and I said you have to be open because I have to vote, legally you have to be open!”
Toby continued: “But the church warden hadn’t arrived yet.
“They told me they had a polling station open in the carpark.
“I was surprised it went viral but people just seem to love it. A lot of people are saying it’s quintessentially British.
“I think it’s humorous as the silly bit about sleeping in reminds people of their childhood.”
