Thread: UKIP to stand in Wanstead By-Election

Originally Posted by Tom Wilde

I don't even know if such figures are kept. Lots of folk here are experts on the whole polling process, so maybe one of them will say.

I was a counting agent for a UKIP candidate at the 1997 general election. As I was watching the votes being counted, I was trying to spot which wards we were doing best in, so that we could target those for local council elections in the future.

The uncounted votes went to a different desk for each ward, where they were then counted out into bundles (of 50?) for each candidate. The bundle for each candidate were then taken to a central desk to be totted up. I'm not sure that the information on which bundles came from which ward was even recorded, though it might have been. (I was a total beginner so I'm sure I didn't understand the whole process).

What generally happens is this :-


1) All ballot boxes are collected

2) 1st stage of counting is verification of votes, each ballot box is emptied and the votes straightened out and bundled by the counters, the boxes are identified from which ward they came by identifying letters on each box, there is no announcement as such but representatives of each party note which ward ballot box is being verified.

During this process the counters are one side of a long line of tables and party representatives scramble for a seat on the opposite side of the table, the ensuing scene resembles 50 or 60 chess games about to start as the boxes are emptied onto the tables one by one.

3) As the votes are unfolded one by one and put into bundles for counting at the next stage the parties representaives are able to see each vote as they are unfolded and pressed flat, the party lackies mark their own pieces of ready prepared paper with each candidates name on as they watch the counters do this thus gaining a rough idea of which wards voted for each party.

In this way the parties get a reasonabley accurate idea of where their vote was strong or weak and also that of their rivals.

4) After all the ballot boxes have been emptied and the votes verified then the voting slips are returned to the tables and actually counted.





The situation is that the parties who have loads of helpers can monitor most (not all) of the different ballot box counts but smaller parties just do not have the resources to dash between the different tables as new ballot boxes are emptied.

It is possible to sneak your figures off the sheets being updated by the other parties counters, some try to cover their papers but others are quite happy to show you the running total.

The problem is that if you are own your own you will never manage to keep up with the constant box openings.