Reply #44: Our constituencies

[Febble]

are of of about 30,000-50,000 voters.

Dingwall is where the count is held for the constituency of Ross, Skye and Inverness West, not just Dingwall.

There is always a race to complete the count. The race is usually won by Sunderland South

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4518843.stm

Polls close at 10.00pm and in 2005, the result was declared at 10.43.

So it is done fast. I think both the speed and the unit of the count are important. Speed is important because it reduces the time the ballots are not secure, and the size is important, because it is large enough to be witnessed by crowds, bipartisan scrutineers and candidates, but still small enough to be done quickly.

And it can be done quickly because there is generally only one race - it there is more than one, there is more than one ballot, printed on different coloured paper for ease of sorting.

Your precincts are, IMO, too small to guarantee this kind of kind of oversight (TV cameras at each precinct?) and I'm not sure what the next unit would be. But that might be soluble. The real challenge is your ballots.

And to people who say there is no hurry - there is. The faster you count, the more people will be watching. If you take weeks over it, there will be ample opportunity for fraud.