ACE

Re: Timing of Counting Votes

Alejandro Tullio, October 22. 2014

Las normas y la practica en Argentina y muchos países de la región (con leves variantes) prescriben que los votos se cuentan en la mesa de votación en forma inmediata posterior al cierre de las mismas, esa operación se denomina "escrutinio de mesa". Los resultados de ese recuento se inscriben en actas y se procede, de variadas maneras, a su suma informática denominada recuento preliminar y tiene una finalidad informativos. Después de un lapso de 48 horas destinado a que los actores políticos puedan formular reclamos o impugnaciones de las actas de cada mesa, se inicia el denominado escrutinio definitivo, ocasión en la que se resuelven las eventuales reclamaciones y se proclaman los resultados definitivos.

Re: Timing of Counting Votes

PASSOU ESSOHANAM M., October 22. 2014

Le cas du Togo est quasi similaire à celui décrit par Ababacar Fall du Sénégal. Sauf que dans notre cas la CENI commission électorale nationale indépendante, organe suprême du management électoral, a des démembrements appelés CELI. Cette dernière est logée au sein de chaque Préfecture et où après 17heures,heures de clôture des votes, les urne et les procès verbaux de dépouillement y sont acheminés pour une compilation. Notons que l'heure de démarrage est fixée à 7heures et les autres du dépouillement sont aussi bien relatés par Fall du Sénégal

Re: Timing of Counting Votes

Henry Atem, October 24. 2014

The legal framework of each country is known to define how vote counting is conducted and safeguards necessary to ensure the credibility and transparency of the counting process. Vote counting remains one of the most important step in election administration and decisions are usually made based on specific country context.

E-Day, immediately after the closer of the voting process remain the ideal and most common time to count votes as the case of Cameroon. Manual counting of votes necessitates counting after voting, in the presence of contesting parties and observers to avoid any form of misconception and or security issues or give opportunity for contesting parties to expect magic overnight. In the case were voting machines are exclusively used, counting is done electronically. However, best practice warrant that counting be conducted on the lawful E-Day even though voting may have taken days or weeks.

It is important to understand that if enough safeguard are available and a consensus reached between key stakeholders counting can still be conducted a day or days after the polls. Several instances may trigger this decision; security, technical issues like the case of Ghana in 2012 where voting continued to the next day in some polling centers, the number of electors in each polling station versus voting time frame etc.

While voting is conducted once for each election be it presidential, legislative or municipal, counting and consolidation of votes is conducted several times at various stages and levels until the proclamation of results of same election, indicating the importance of this specific activity in the electoral process. The principles of transparency, security and credibility of the entire electoral process can be undermined if acceptable safeguards and standards are not implemented during counting.