The local electoral management body will receive the interim results directly from the voting station after counting is completed. They will then compile the results for the electoral district and send it to the national electoral management body as per a pre-determined means of communication. The presiding officer will contact the local level of the electoral management body directly to communicate the results of each vote, but in some countries the very same information is also communicated directly to the national results centre. Adequate phones, computer terminals and bandwidth to cope with peak demands should be installed. Where interim results are called in by telephone, staff answering the phone at the local level should have a pre-printed form for recording results with the names of candidates and parties in the same order as they appear on the ballot paper. A procedure requiring the receiver of results to read back the results for confirmation by the sender could reduce the error rate further.
A list of the identification codes or passwords associated with the various voting stations should be provided to the staff as well. This means that the phone operators and those receiving the results need to have signed a confidentiality contract as they are dealing with sensitive information. Only pre-determined EMB officers should communicate to the local/regional/district electoral management body office the results of the voting stations.
At the point where the results are received, one team should take care of the incoming results, and should transmit the information to the data entry person or the person in charge of combining all the results for the electoral district. In order to avoid mistakes, abuse of misplaced statement of votes forms, this transfer of results forms from intake to data-entry could be regulated requiring affected officials to sign for delivery and receiving statement of votes forms for tabulation. If manual data-entry of the results is performed, extra care needs to be taken to avoid errors. At larger centres, double-blind data entry procedures could be utilized, while smaller operations would require a supervisor verifying the data entered with the statement of results in question before transmitting results. A spread sheet, board or print-outs listing each voting station should be prepared and completed as the results are received; both aggregated and voting station-based results. Representatives of political parties and candidates, and the media should have access to this information points, so that they can observe the results as they come in. Increasingly, EMBs are using their websites to make data available to the widest possible audience, in the shortest possible time for the lowest possible cost. The use of intranets and extranets allows these cost-effective technologies to be harnessed to effectively and securely disseminate data to a limited audience who may have been given usernames/passwords for access.
Special measures should be taken so as to make sure that the same results are not given twice. Numbering the voting stations and corresponding ballot boxes is a simple way to avoid such confusion. If such a measure is taken, it should be done before the election process and the EMB staff must be clear on how the numbering works and how to process the data they will receive on Election Day from each voting station. The number of each voting station should be used consistently on all forms used for the election, as well as on the ballot box. The use of this number will also facilitate the creation of an audit trail.
The local office of the electoral management body should send its results to the national electoral management body in several stages to accelerate the process of releasing interim results. Then, the national electoral management body will continuously compile, check, and release progressive results for each of the country’s electoral districts.
In some countries it is not necessary for the electoral management body to compile preliminary indications of the voting figures. Instead, the media, exit poll organizations and non- governmental organizations compile and publicize the interim results while the electoral management body concentrates on compiling the official results and communicating them formally, once verified.
National Level
At the national level, the same type of logistics and procedures for receiving the interim results should be used, but on a larger scale if a manual system be utilized. When all the results are coming in at the same time, the staff responsible for the incoming results should first make a quick quality control check in order to verify if the results make sense or not, for example, whether or not the totals are correct, and forms are signed and completed correctly.
Most national-level results centre are computerized and therefore efforts are made to pre-load the results system with software containing mathematical formula checks, logical inconsistencies and triggers for extreme or unusual results based on historical electoral data.
A more exhaustive quality control procedure, for each electoral district and voting station, will be done when the final official results are compiled. Some electoral districts might need more attention than others, especially those that are the subject of intense political campaign activities, or those with a higher degree of administrative difficulties, such as a very high concentration of registered voters (the core of a large city, for example). On Election Day, these electoral districts might need to be monitored more closely by the national electoral management body.
If a country is divided into several time zones, the results will come in at different times of the day at the national level (depending on the closing hour of the election), and the required staff should be carefully scheduled to be available when needed.
In case of an emergency, the head office of the electoral management body should always be able to reach their local offices, especially when results are coming in. In most cases, both a primary and secondary number (often landline and a mobile phone number) need to be secured and tested prior to Election Day. The phone number should not be the same one used to call in interim results.
Votes Cast at Mobile Voting Stations
The counting of votes from mobile voting stations may take place at the last station visited by the voting station officers, or at a local office of the electoral management body. These ballots are often not counted until the regular closing time of the voting on Election Day.
The location of the count of mobile voting stations should be known by representatives of political parties, candidates and observers thereby enabling their presence for the counting.
