When should election counts be held?
The Electoral Commission has a new consultation paper out, returning to an old issue: when should election counts be held?
As the paper says:
The key issue is that many Returning Officers have considered that increasingly complex election counts would be better conducted the morning after the close of poll when staff are fresh and less likely to make mistakes, while governments, political parties and candidates have often pressed for counts in major elections to take place immediately after the close of polls. This has led to controversies in the public domain ahead of major elections.
Last year Electoral Commission controlled this. It was an utter shambles with staff turning up late and with enforced delays, so that Sandwell was supposed not to start the second count until they had a message from Birmingham. As well as the vast waste of paper.
I feel more grumpily each year that they should not be allowed near elections. Good Local staff and cooperative parties make for better Counts.