The general vote counting is the official count of the results of each constituency done by the electoral organisations in a public action in which participate of the candidacies that have taken part in the elections participate. The process normally includes the following phases:
- the documentation received from each voting station is analysed;
- the candidacies lodge their relevant complaints and claims about voting station activities that appear in the official records;
- then these are either accepted or rejected and, consequently, the results of such voting stations are taken into account, modified or annulled.
Once all of them have been checked, the results are added together and made official, at the same time attributing the corresponding seats to each candidacy in the relevant constituencies.
In this activity, common to all electoral processes, the application of the legal principle of the most favourable interpretation of the assertion of the right to vote can be corroborated, whatever their existing model of
electoral organisation may be. It is an essential criterion by which to judge the electoral processes, so in accordance with the maxim utile per inutile non vitiatur, the annulment of results is restricted to the minimum, so annulment only occurs when the flaws detected affect the final results of the elections.
To quote the Spanish Constitutional Court in its Sentence 26/90 of 19 February: 'the annulment or non-inclusion of validly cast votes in elections
undoubtedly means the denial of the assertion and effectiveness of this right, therefore, maintaining this will expressed by valid votes must constitute the preferential criterion when it comes to interpreting and applying electoral procedures. And from this perspective it is clear that, even though the result of the voting has to be protected against manipulation and fraud that would alter the will of the people, the effectiveness of validly cast votes cannot depend on irregularities or minor inaccuracies, that will always be common in an electoral administration which is not specialised and which, with regard to voting stations, consists of citizens designated by the drawing of lots. The principle of conserving valid votes appears as pre-eminent.'
On the other hand, it is worth paying special attention to the responsibility the political parties have when it comes to delimiting the scope of discussions during vote counting. At this point, the scheme whereby the
political parties have representatives or vote counting inspectors that try to be present at the majority of the polling stations becomes very relevant, as they possess their own data on the count and try to make them valid in case of doubt or discrepancy.
It is evident that parties that have participated at all the voting stations are in a position to carry out a genuine monitoring and control of the general scrutiny operations.
Once the scrutiny has been done, the electoral organisation makes the results
known publicly (see Challenging Results). Except in countries where the electoral administration forms a fourth power of the state, whose decisions are cannot be revised by any of the other state powers, this is not yet a final announcement.
Usually, a term is set for possible appeals against the results or the appointment of those elected, on behalf of any of the candidacies that have participated in the process. Depending on the internal regulations, the ordinary judiciary or the constitutional court acting as the electoral
court will be commissioned to resolve these appeals. They are characterised by four points:
- with regard to their legitimate subjects, they are usually reserved exclusively to the contenders in the process that have directly benefited from or been harmed by the decision;
- as far as their object is concerned, the procedures are usually ruled by the principle of preclusion, that is to say, they have to deal with issues already discussed at the polling stations and at the general vote counting;
- regarding the scope of control, the courts also have to apply the principle of conserving the valid records referred to when the electoral administration was discussed;
- proceedings should be concise with very swift resolutions, because of the very nature of the issue being argued.
By and large, the electoral process is formed as a continuum, so a matter that was not reported before cannot be reopened in a subsequent phase. The aim of the electoral regulations is for these processes to be resolved by the time that the organ whose election is being disputed, has to be officially constituted.
