The Slow Count

There was I on the road to the Hyde this morning and it as foggy as I've seen this year! Bye election should be sorted by 2 o clock I figured! 130 odd boxes should be handy enough, there’s only one seat! Anyway I was there for the Tally did my bit of mixing, chatting, renewing acquaintances. This is where I’m at total ease! I’m among a group of fellow junkies and we talk at a level that I can’t normally do. We know the importance of Geography, History all the things that can have an effect on votes! Pieces of paper draw a crowd as we look at the latest figures for the Tally.

Hugh “I was reading Rural Rossie great stuff keep it going”.  “What did Paddy Power do to you?” All these comments make a man feel good. Yeah I’m being read. Anyway as I left the Hyde to go home I started getting phone calls and people were cross because there was no count at 1:30!! Lads nothing to do with me! “Scotland stopped voting at 10pm and at 6am the following morning they had the result of their referendum! “ Why can’t the Republic sort themselves out?

It’s not just a Republic of Ireland thing either! I read a piece previously on the BBC website about the manual counting of votes system in Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland's chief electoral officer Graham Shields wants future elections to use an electronic counting system. He claims that there is technology that would allow the process to be completed in a matter of hours rather than days. "Mr Shields said the system allows ballots to be read and calculated by a computer instead of being counted by hand. He claims it had been used in Scottish local elections since 2007 and that it was "very, very efficient".

My proposal is we continue with Bertie’s pencil and paper but we use electronic counting of the votes. We can’t trust the voting machines at the moment. What we’ll get is, results with a paper trail, a quicker result and we’ll be able to stand over it. What more do we want?

Well I suppose the great thing we have in Ireland is common sense in elections. We have the “doubtful” votes pile which are checked by officials and candidates before they are judged to be spoiled votes. In any electronic counting system the votes that may be doubtful must be checked by humans as we do at the moment! (Can’t have a German type application of a black and white rule on doubtful votes.)

That was as far as I know the only issue Scotland has had with its system which it introduced in 2007!

Will Roscommon South Leitrim By-election be the last manual count in Ireland? I fear not.