Different Types and Requirements for Vote Counting

This file introduces the two files dealing with the differences in where vote counting can take place, viz. the voting station or at another centrally located counting centres, and, the differences in how vote counting occurs.

Where the vote counting takes place

Vote counting takes place either at:

1. the voting station,
2. centrally located counting centres, or
3. a combination of voting stations and counting centres.

Most jurisdictions count votes at the voting stations, rather than transport them to a central counting venue. This enhances transparency as there is no need to transport the ballot boxes and there can be no perception of ballot box tampering during the transportation. It also provides for timeous counting as there is no delay transporting and delivering the ballot boxes. Counting at counting centers may be a cost determining factor as fewer counting officers will need to be recruited and paid.

However, in jurisdictions vulnerable to electoral fraud, counting at centrally located counting centers may be perceived as providing for opportunities to tamper with the ballot boxes, during the period when the ballot boxes are transported.

Some jurisdictions may use a combination of both locations for vote counting, giving the electoral management body the discretion to determine when it may be necessary to count some voting stations’ votes at a centrally located counting centre.

One such reason may be that the voting station is in a politically volatile area and it may be difficult for the security forces to protect the voting station staff once results are announced.

How voting occurs

Each jurisdiction determines, in their legislation, the process of vote counting that will be undertaken. Generally accepted best practice requires that vote counting has the following elements:

• verification and reconciliation of the ballots and other voting material,
• sorting of the ballots into piles representing the different political parties, candidates and, in the case of referendum, choices,
• counting of the ballots,
• completion of the results sheets or statement of votes,
• capturing the results,
• announcement of results.
  
  

Each jurisdiction will determine the combination of counting elements, and the content and process of each element, in their vote counting process.

Some jurisdictions will choose to conduct their vote counting manually, others will use and automated process and others, a combination of the two, e.g. where the results are tallied manually but captured and conveyed to a central point electronically.

In determining the process of vote counting it is important to maintain the integrity of the electoral process. Too frequently vote counting is not given the attention that it needs by electoral administrators and managers, whereas it is the most fundamental element of the electoral process, as it is most vulnerable to fraud and manipulation.

It is during vote counting that an election can be won or lost and unless it is conducted in a transparent and accountable manner by the electoral management body, it may be perceived by the public and international observers as being flawed.

Throughout each step of the counting process there needs to be a series of checks and balances to ensure the integrity of the process and to allow for objections and challenges by those contesting the elections; political parties and candidates. A process of checks and balances is seminal to a professional, effective and reflective vote counting process.

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Differences in terms of Where the Counting is Held

The counting of votes can take place at the site that is used for voting (voting station) or a more centralized counting location, either at the district level, municipal level or regional level. In some jurisdictions all counting takes place centrally at the national level.

Advantages of Counting at the Voting Station

The main advantages of vote counting at voting stations are speed, cost effectiveness and transparency. As the vote counting can start as soon as the voting station closes, interim results can be released faster than at a counting centre. For an average estimate, a poll of four hundred voters, counted categorically, could take less than two hours. Since the same staff receive, count, and transport the ballots from and to the local office, fewer personnel are involved in the overall process.

This reduces the pressure of logistics, eliminating the need to identify counting centres, recruit and train additional personnel, develop or procure specific materials. Also, physical requirements are mostly identical to those used for the voting procedures: table, chairs, forms, pencils, calculator, fasteners, seals, etc.

Since the ballot boxes are kept at the same place where the vote took place, the same voting station officers, national and international electoral observers, party representatives and candidates stay during the counting process.

This makes supervision easier for the person in charge of the voting station. Counting at voting stations indirectly promotes participation of the population since the process is closer to their home, making the results more tangible. The process then tends to be regarded as open, accessible, and legitimate.

Not only does it demonstrate transparency, but it can also enhance public confidence, especially if voting station officers are carrying out their duties in the same area in which they live.

There is no need to move the ballot boxes from the voting station to the alternative counting centre. The integrity of the voting and counting process may be severely affected if there is a perception that the ballot boxes may have been/or were tampered with during the transit to the counting centres.

Opportunities for fraud will always exist, but safeguards can be developed to make them difficult when votes are counted at a voting station and transmitted in duplicate to local offices.

Disadvantages

One disadvantage of counting at voting stations is the long hours required of the personnel involved in the process. It is quite common for voting to open at 6h00 and close at 20h00 or later, followed by a two hour or longer counting process. This would mean a very long working day for the voting and counting officers.

Since they are not allowed to leave the voting station during the day, this may increase the possibility of mistakes when the time comes to count the ballots and fill out the forms. To avoid this adequate food, water, and sanitary facilities should be provided.

In terms of security, it is harder to protect many voting stations than one or several counting centres. This can be an important issue in highly contested elections taking place in a violent area or politically charged environment. However, this factor may not be important if security is already provided during voting day/s.

The presence at the voting station of people with high political profiles from the community can be intimidating for some workers in the voting station during the count.

In some circumstances, counting at a voting station may also affect the secrecy of the vote, once the results are known. Post-election intimidation and threats to voters from a voting station can be made by political parties, if it is known that nearly all voters voted in a particular manner. This factor is minimized, but not entirely eliminated, in the case of counting centres based on electoral districts.

There is a risk that the counting criteria for rejecting ballots and reporting results will be inconsistent between voting stations The risk of these problems arising decreases when effective and detailed training and instruction is provided.

A reliable communication system is required for transmission of voting station statements of the votes to a central location. Depending on the number of voting stations, the local office may need the capacity in their communication system to handle several voting station results coming in at the same time. If a system failure occurs, then all the results are delayed.

This affects the speed of releasing the results, which may generate uncertainty in the political environment. In some countries where telecommunications networks are not well developed, this can be a major problem leading to mistrust of the system and accusations of manipulation or fraud.

Counting at Counting Centres

Some jurisdictions conduct their counting at central counting centres.

Rationale for Counting Centres

A counting centre approach may be used in the following situations:

• when voting stations are not properly equipped for counting;

• when there are very few party or candidate representatives or observers available to observe the count in a large number of voting stations;

• when a complex ballot makes the count too time-consuming and complicated for the voting station officers to manage after the close of the station, warranting the specially trained personnel and facilities that a counting centre can offer.

A complicated ballot could be one on which several questions are posed on the same ballot; or when voters have to prioritise their choices;

• when the secrecy of the vote preference of an individual may be compromised by the announcement of results in voting stations with very few voters;

• when the secrecy of a community's vote preference needs to be safeguarded due to the threat of violence, repercussions, or intimidation in politically volatile situations;

• when security conditions are such that it is deemed easier to secure the protection of a smaller number of counting centres rather than of a large number of voting stations;

• when a mechanical or computerised counting system requires centralisation.

In a counting centre approach, where ballots from two or more elections are mixed together, with results published by counting centre instead of by voting station, it is more difficult to link communities with affiliation.

This may help to protect the secrecy of the voting pattern, especially in some small communities (normally the ballots are counted by voting station but the centre approach will give the possibility to merge).

Even in countries where the count is predominantly done at voting stations, one or more counting centres can ease administration for certain types of ballots.

This includes absentee votes, mail votes from armed forces, diplomatic missions, refugees, incarcerated persons or persons residing outside their electoral district which may come from various voting stations, local or abroad, or directly from the voters (by mail).

Such ballots can be forwarded to the appropriate counting centre and added to the ballots from applicable voting, making counting easier to organise and easier to protect the secrecy of such absentee votes.

There may be many counting centres or there may be only one national counting centre.

The limit to the level of centralisation will be the level at which votes are translated into a number of legislators or seats. In a First Past the Post (FPTP) system the counting centre may be at the electoral district level (at a town hall, for example) but not at the national level.In a proportional representation system based on regional lists, a counting centre may not be more centralised than the region that the list is based on.

Differences in terms of How the Counting is Done

Irrespective of the method of vote counting; manual or automated, each jurisdictions vote counting process should consist of the following:

• verification and reconciling of the ballots and other voting material,
• sorting of the ballots into piles representing the different political parties, candidates and, in the case of referendum, choices,
• counting of the ballots,
• completion of the results forms or statement of results,
• capturing the results,
• announcement of results.

Verification

Verification includes:

• Recording the number of unused ballots and spoiled ballots. (Spoiled ballots are those that a voter has inadvertently spoiled by marking it incorrectly, and then exchanged for a new blank ballot, or ballots that are improperly printed, torn, soiled, or otherwise marked in a way that could be linked to an individual voter and does not guarantee vote secrecy):
• Determining the total of number of voters who voted according to the voter’s list;
• Unsealing the ballot box and counting the number of ballots;
• Reconciling the number of ballots in the box with the number of voters according to the voters' list or other record of the total number of persons who cast ballots.

Sorting

The ballots are sorted according to political parties or candidates (in the case of referendums, by choices).

In some jurisdictions party and candidate agents will have an opportunity to object to the sorting by objecting to the counting officer in charge of counting, either verbally or in writing, as prescribed by legislation. The counting officer in charge of the counting will then have to determine action on the objection (see Criteria to determine when votes should count as valid).

Counting

The counting officers then count the number of votes cast for each party or candidate.

In some jurisdictions party and candidate agents will have an opportunity to object to the counting by objecting to the counting officer in charge of counting, either verbally or in writing, as prescribed by legislation. The counting officer in charge of the counting will then have to determine action on the objection.

The counting officer will set aside challenged ballots and determine acceptance or rejection of challenged ballots according to established rules. (see Criteria to determine when votes should count as valid).

Completing the results sheet or statement of the vote and capturing the results

The statement of the vote, or the results sheet, is compiled, signed, and transmitted to a local office before being transmitted to the regional or national level. Representatives of political parties and national and international electoral observers can copy the results.

There is no interruption in the process until the statement of the vote of the voting station is released and sent to the local office of the electoral management body. Once the counting process is completed, electoral materials are taken to a local office for secure storage.

Interim results are also sent to the national level and publicized. Special measures and procedures need to be followed during the entire counting process in case results are challenged.

As with all other aspects of conducting an election, there are administrative considerations which are directly or indirectly related to vote counting at voting stations. Each of these procedural components has particularities and subtleties associated with it.

Representatives of political parties and candidates should be able to examine the ballots, and if they do not agree with the decision of the counting officer, be allowed to make formal objections that can form the basis for contesting the results of the count.

Using a count sheet, all valid ballots are recorded, as well as spoiled and rejected ballots. All ballots are counted and none are destroyed. A verification of the count and a last reconciliation should be done before completing the statement of the vote.

The ballot box can then be re-sealed (with the new seal number duly noted by party and candidate representatives and observers), and appropriate counting documentation can either be enclosed or attached to the ballot box in a separate sealed envelope.

Party and candidate representatives should have the opportunity affix their seals or signatures to the resealed ballot box/es.

The results recorded on the statement of the vote will be communicated by the counting official to the local/national office of the electoral management body by telephone or other means. Representatives of political parties and candidates, and observers, if present, can make a copy of the statement, where the law provides for such.

The count at the voting station itself is now over, and all the electoral materials may be transported to a secure local storage room. In the event of a recount, all the prepared documents are needed, so elaborate precautions, and sealing the ballot box contents, are important.

The local/national office of the electoral management body totals the results transmitted by all voting stations of the electoral district, as well as results of any special ballots, advance polls, mobile voting stations, etc.

Interim results should include all types of ballots, so as to avoid discrepancies between interim results and final results. In addition, these results should be for each political party and candidate and posted on a wall, board, or spreadsheet, as they become available.

Unofficial interim results should be publicized as soon as possible. This is often done by the media or political parties, leaving the announcement of final results to the electoral management body.

In the following days, the local offices of the electoral management body may perform the final count and prepare the official results. If results are challenged, additional procedures may apply.

Manual or automated vote counting, or a combination of both?

While the use of manually counted paper ballots is still the most common method of voting, automated methods of voting and vote counting are becoming more accessible and effective, and more countries are opting to use them.

Automated technology can be cheaper, faster, and more accurate than manual counting.

It can also improve the democratic process by making the counting of complex electoral systems easier to use.

Technological approaches can be used to replace traditional paper ballots. Voting directly using mechanical or electronic devices, or using machine-readable ballots, can eliminate the need to count ballots manually and greatly speed up the counting process.

Computing technology is often used to count the results of manual ballot counts, to produce summaries at the counting centre, and regional, or national level. Standard off-the-shelf office software products, such as spreadsheet or relational database software, can be used to aggregate individual counts and produce summary totals and various reports, either in paper or electronic format.

Computer vote counting systems require care to function correctly. Faulty calculations, data entry errors, or loss of data can seriously compromise the conduct of an election.

Rigorous testing is necessary to ensure electronic election systems work flawlessly before they are placed in production, even if they are to be used only to compile preliminary results, or used only for a short time.

Data entry forms should be designed to minimize error and to facilitate the data entry process. It is common practice to design data input forms so that they mirror the data entry screen. Training of persons who manually complete these forms must stress the importance of legibility and arithmetic accuracy.

As with any vote counting process, it is crucial that checks and balances be built into any computerized counting system. Clear audit trails should be in place to track the progress of the count. Balancing figures should be used to check that output results are consistent with inputs.

For example, it should not be possible to calculate a total vote figure for any level of counting that is higher than the number of ballot papers issued to voters at that level.

Data entered into a computerized vote counting system should always be checked against the original input data. This can be done by checking figures after data entry against the input documents, or by entering each set of data twice, using different operators to produce a parallel count.

Contingency plans should also be built into any computerized vote counting system. Data should be regularly backed up (and stored off-site if the counting proceeds for some time). Spare hardware should be available in case of hardware failure. Where a network server is used, it is common to have a duplicate server set up that can take over if the main server fails.

Technicians should be on hand if problems arise. Back up power supplies should be available to guard against power failure, even in the most developed countries.

Power supplies should be protected against power surges that can corrupt or destroy computer files. Even simple steps, such as regularly saving live data from RAM memory to hard disk, are sometimes overlooked, and can cause serious problems.

Worst-case scenarios should also be anticipated. Provision should be made to switch to a completely manual operation if the computer system fails and cannot be recovered. Portable calculators are valuable emergency devices. (See Elections and Technology).