to ask why some constituencies can declare a result before 11pm and other still haven't?

[AnMum]

Can anyone who has been a part of vote counting answer this? Sunderland managed to declare their results around 11pm last night, yet there are still some that have not declared. How is there such a difference? I understand that in larger areas like the Highlands, it takes longer to get all the ballet boxes to one place, but why do some others take so long??

Because they count slower??!

Because they don't care about racing to be the first to announce so don't control their traffic light systems like Sunderland do to ensure the boxes arrive quickly without traffic?

They haven't even started counting where I am yet. Our target is to get the announcement out by 1am. I don't live in a remote area, either - It's a pretty safe zone for the Tories, though.

We just seem to pride ourselves on being one of the last, so nobody worries themselves with staying up late to count.

My council runs three counts. They declared after 6am. I have no idea why it took so long, as this is SE London, very densely populated, a few miles at most between the furthest flung polling station and the town hall, and most of the adjacent councils (also doing multiple counts) got their results out hours earlier. I have no patience so was fretting till they finally finished the counting.

Turnout was low in those first few constituencies, just over 50%.

Sunderland have an insane counting regime. The rest of the country counts normally. Some constituencies have higher number of voters and I imagine it takes a bit longer if you have ten candidates as opposed to 4. Some places have recounts (3 recounts in one constituency)

Even taking low turn out in to account, a 7/8 hour difference is pretty extreme. Surely they should all be obliged to start counting straight away! Ah well - not something I'll have to worry about too much for another few years!

Some rural constituencies are huge. The ballot boxes have to come in from far and wide, geographically Sunderland is a very small constituency so easy to get all the boxes in and counting

Sunderland (and a couple of others) make an insane rush to count as they want the kudos of being first. As a previous poster said, they even fix the traffic lights so the vans carrying the boxes don't get held up!

It depends on how geographically wide the constituency is. How many counters they pay (and in Sunderland they have volunteers running the boxes in, more time saved) . Whether they are prepared to use local council budget to purchase more expensive time saving elements. Whether they do rehearsals on the day. Whether they lock up the papers for the night and go home.

Im in Birmingham and have a postal vote for both the general and local elections, two votes, one envelope. I think it's separating out the ballot papers which takes time, too.

Of course, if you're only voting in the general election, this won't apply

How does the Western Isles manage to be among the first Scottish seats to be declared, when boxes have to be delivered from so many small and scattered islands?

I wondered that. Lewisham Deptford (my constituency) is about seven miles long and three miles wide. No helicopters or boats needed to get the votes back to the count.

Once the Western Isles boxes are in though there were less than 16000 ballots to count. Lewisham is compact and bijou but had 41000 people vote (last election, only 60% turnout - could be more this time).

Lots of factors which could determine speed. Sunderland pride themselves on always being first.

Lewisham also had 10 candidates which may make divvying up the ballots a bit more time-consuming I guess?

We had general,district and parish elections yesterday. What took the most time at the count was checking there were the same number of bits of paper in the boxes as the polling station said their ought to be. People put the wrong slip in the wrong box quite frequently, and you can't start the count itself till you e verified that the number of slips is correct
We declared for the general election just before 5, no recounts, just a lot of votes

Also the western isles use planes to get the ballot boxes to the count, that makes a difference to when the count can start.

There are so many factors involved. I ran a polling station and didn't even leave there until 10.45, as people were voting right up to the wire at 10pm, then there is clearing up and paperwork to do. Then 15 mile drive to the count, wait in line to have boxes processed, then, as others have said, there is lots of checking before the count can start.

It's not a race, and as you can see, it really doesn't matter - Cameron went to see HRH before the majority was confirmed.

There are vast numbers of people involved in the process, and people do need to sleep at some point. I did a 19 hour day and didn't have time to eat!

Some constituencies don't even start counting till the next day.

As a party worker (and candidates wife ) in a previous election, watching the other lot romp home to victory overnight, our count was a bloody depressing exercise.

Ed balls had a few recounts, so morley and outwood was later than expected but still pre 9am. Maybe some areas have more counters than others??

I think some places (counting houses?) have to count for more than one constituency. And don't start one until after the first one is finished...

Hrh?
Her Maj surely?

Both Kenilworth and Stratford didn't start til 9am this morning.

The postal votes are often done early - Rugby did there's on Monday.

St Ives still hasn't declared as they count the votes from the sciliy isles- which is logistically troublesome to get them there. A lot of the late declarations have similar circumstances and others take their time for the reasons mentioned above

Sunderland is a geographically small area that that puts on a lot of staff in a coordinated effort to get it all done. All their local election results were in by about 1am too.

OTOH, not so far away is Berwick upon Tweed, which covers a large area without any good roads. It takes so long for all the boxes to get in that they don't bother starting to count until the morning.

It also takes longer in swing seats. If there's only a few hundred votes in it, there's likely to be a re-count.

It's not just the distance from the polling station to the counting venue that's the problem. It can be gridlock for presiding officers trying to get to the count venue with the other (170 ish in our case I think) other presiding officers all trying to drive in at the same time. The waiting time can be up to an hour (and, no, they aren't allowed to just park up a few blocks away and then carry their precious cargo on foot!

Another issue these days is postal votes - If you get a lot handed at polling stations on the evening of polling day, they will only get to the count venue with the main ballot boxes at around 11 (if you're lucky) and then they need to be processed and verified before the count can start.

Obviously, there are ways that things could be speeded up but most of them would cost money and a lot of councils are under severe financial strain and cutting basic services so this is unlikely to be a priority.