Every vote must count
I love elections. You probably don't find that revelation so remarkable from someone standing in the biggest election that will happen this year. But it's true: I love the excitement, the expectation and drama as results roll in throughout the night. But there's one thing I love more than all that: and it's that our elections are accurate and that every vote counts.
At the coming election there's a real possibility that one vote in every three will be cast by post. 1 in 3. And as you would expect, postal votes have to be checked to make sure that they're cast by the people who applied for them. Checking such a large number of postal votes takes time. A lot will have been verified (that means that the accompanying declaration form, which the postal voter has to sign and add their date of birth to is compared with the signature and date of birth they provided when they applied for their postal vote, is checked) before the count, but a large number are delivered on the day of the election itself.
This increased amount of postal votes, coupled with the fact that this year the general election could coincide with the council elections on 6th May, has prompted some councils to decide to wait until Friday morning to begin counting votes, rather than immediately polls close. Such delays are not unprecedented: Northern Ireland usually counts the next day, as do some of the more remote constituencies where ballot boxes have to be collected from far-flung villages. Even urban boroughs like Kensington & Chelsea often count the next day.
But a number of politicians from across the parties have been demanding that the counts all begin within four hours of polls closing on election night. To me they're putting their own impatience for a quick result ahead of the greater interest which is an accurate result.
If we have some 15,000 postal votes cast in Putney - not impossible given that we already have 10,000 registered postal voters - I would rather they get correctly checked alongside every single other voter, instead of Putney being the first London seat to declare on election night, noteworthy though that would be.
The way politics gets covered nowadays you'd think elections were just a game, or sport, the outcome of which should be known the moment the last vote has been cast. A political equivalent of the X Factor or Big Brother, in which an instant result can be announced to a waiting public.
Elections are not. They are the foundation of our democracy. If we can be certain that every vote can be counted on election night, then - and only then - should the count be completed there and then. But if we can't - if there's even a chance that we can't, I'd much rather trade-in some of the excitement of election night for the guarantee of making every vote count.
At the coming election there's a real possibility that one vote in every three will be cast by post. 1 in 3. And as you would expect, postal votes have to be checked to make sure that they're cast by the people who applied for them. Checking such a large number of postal votes takes time. A lot will have been verified (that means that the accompanying declaration form, which the postal voter has to sign and add their date of birth to is compared with the signature and date of birth they provided when they applied for their postal vote, is checked) before the count, but a large number are delivered on the day of the election itself.
This increased amount of postal votes, coupled with the fact that this year the general election could coincide with the council elections on 6th May, has prompted some councils to decide to wait until Friday morning to begin counting votes, rather than immediately polls close. Such delays are not unprecedented: Northern Ireland usually counts the next day, as do some of the more remote constituencies where ballot boxes have to be collected from far-flung villages. Even urban boroughs like Kensington & Chelsea often count the next day.
But a number of politicians from across the parties have been demanding that the counts all begin within four hours of polls closing on election night. To me they're putting their own impatience for a quick result ahead of the greater interest which is an accurate result.
If we have some 15,000 postal votes cast in Putney - not impossible given that we already have 10,000 registered postal voters - I would rather they get correctly checked alongside every single other voter, instead of Putney being the first London seat to declare on election night, noteworthy though that would be.
The way politics gets covered nowadays you'd think elections were just a game, or sport, the outcome of which should be known the moment the last vote has been cast. A political equivalent of the X Factor or Big Brother, in which an instant result can be announced to a waiting public.
Elections are not. They are the foundation of our democracy. If we can be certain that every vote can be counted on election night, then - and only then - should the count be completed there and then. But if we can't - if there's even a chance that we can't, I'd much rather trade-in some of the excitement of election night for the guarantee of making every vote count.
Labels: elections and voting
posted by Stuart King at
08:48
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