Redditch Borough Council
Worcestershire County ElectionsCount – 5 May 2017
INSTRUCTIONS FOR VERIFICATION AND COUNT ASSISTANTS
GENERAL
There is one Count Centre for the County Elections on Friday 5 May.
Abbey Stadium
Birmingham Road,
Redditch
B97 6EJ
Please dress smart casual.
On arrival you will be allocated a Table and will be asked to sign a form to confirm your attendance and authorise your payment.
Verification Assistants must be in the hall by no later than 9.45am to start at 10.00am.
On no account must any drinks or food be taken anywhere near the counting tables, although sweets are allowed.
Verification Assistants and Counting Agents will sit on opposite sides of the counting tables on the instructions of the Deputy Returning Officer.
No person other than the Deputy ReturningOfficer and thier staff shall handle the ballot papers – Counting Agents may not assist with the sorting or counting of ballot papers.
Verification Assistants must not leave the hall, apart from toilet breaks, without the permission of theDeputy Returning Officer or their Assistants.
VERIFICATION
- This involves simply counting the number of ballot papers in each ballot box in order to verify the ballot paper count for each box. No attempt is to be made at this stage to query doubtful papers or to count how many votes have been cast for an answer. You will work as a team of 5 with a Count Supervisor or Assistant Count Supervisor.
- The ballot papers will be emptied by the Count Supervisor from the ballot box onto the table in front of you and the empty ballot box will be placed behind your table (so that it can be seen which box is being verified). There will be one box from each polling station.
- Papers must be all counted face upwards(voting showing) andinto bundles of 25, and secured by a clip on the top left of the bundle.
- Four bundles of 25 should be banded with an elastic band.
- Any bundle less than 25 should have a slip of coloured paper attached to it indicating the number.
Once the total of ballot papers have been determined, the Verification Assistant should give the total number to the Count Supervisorto complete a ballot box record card, indicating the ballot box number and the totals of the ballot papers counted. The totals will then be compared with the totals given on the ballot paper account(s) completed by the Presiding Officer at the Polling Station. Verified ballot papers are to be left on the table until verification has been approved. The Count Supervisor will then clear away the verified ballot papers and the ballot box, and the process can then be repeated with another ballot box.
- If there is a discrepancy between the number of ballot papers counted and the number of ballot papers issued on the ballot paper account, it will normally be necessary to recount the papers on the table until the figures are reconciled.
COUNT
- The Deputy Returning Officer will let you know when you can commence the Count for your table.
- The ballot papers must be kept face upwards at all times.
- Since all divisions are multiple vacancies there will be block counting and grass skirt methods employed.
1.This method is used where electors have tended to vote by ‘block’ for two candidates of the same political party. We look for the common voting pattern (the ‘blocked votes’) and sort the ballot papers into labelled baskets for these. For example, in a division where there are two seats being contested by six candidates, it is likely that the voters will have ‘blocked’ their votes for either the two Labour candidates, or the two Conservative candidates or the two Liberal Democrat candidates. All the ‘blocked votes’ are sorted out and then the ‘others’ are dealt with.
2.For example - the ballot papers should therefore be sorted into five piles: one for all Labour votes; one for all Conservative votes; one for all Liberal Democrat votes; one for all other combinations and one for doubtfuls.
3.The Count Supervisor takes the piles and places them into the appropriately labelled baskets.
4.Once all ballot papers are sorted and the doubtfuls dealt with, the Count Supervisor will give the ballot papers for the first political party alphabetically to the Counting Assistants who will count them into bundles of 25 and arrange the bundles into 100 banded with an elastic band. Any incomplete bundles must have a slip attached that shows the number therein.
5.The Count Supervisor will then count the bundles, including the incomplete ones to ascertain the number of votes for each candidate on the ballot paper and enter them on the summary sheet.
6.The basket containing the “others” can then be dealt with by using the “modified grass skirt” counting method, as follows:
7.The Count Supervisor will give the ballot papers to the Counting Assistants who will count them into batches of 25. Once there are several bundles of 25, the Count Supervisor will instruct some of the Counting Assistants to count the votes by using the “grass skirts”.
8.Working from right to left on the grass skirt, the Counting Assistant takes one of the coloured copy ballot papers and tucks it under the clear plastic strip at the base of the grass skirt, keeping well to the right.
9.The Counting Assistant then takes one bundle of 25 ballot papers and tucks them under the plastic strip, overlapping them so that only the crosses remain visible. This method is illustrated with larger ballot papers here:
Plastic flap
10.The grass skirt will hold the ballot papers firmly enough for the Counting Assistants to work along, but care should still be taken with very long ballot papers not to knock the papers out of line.
11.Once 25 ballot papers have been slotted onto a grass skirt, the Counting Assistants should count the number of unused votes on each ballot paper and make a light pencil note of that number on the top right-hand corner of the ballot papers, as shown on this example:
12.Then, the number of votes for each candidate should be totalled across and recorded in the corresponding voting boxes on the copy ballot paper. The number of unused votes should also be totalled. The Counting Assistants can now check their totals for that skirt; for divisions with two vacancies, the total number of votes (used and unused) recorded on the coloured copy ballot paper should equal 50. This is an important audit check and should be carried out carefully.
13.Once a bundle of 25 papers has been counted in this way, the Counting Assistants can extract them from the grass skirt, paper clipped them into a bundle, with the copy ballot paper and the number of votes on it secured on top. These bundles should be passed to the Count Supervisor for inclusion on the Summary Sheet.
14.During the recording of votes, the possibility of “doubtful” ballot papers will arise, and trays will be placed on the table for doubtful ballot papers. The principal defect may be leaving the paper totally blank. Where a Counting Assistant feels that a ballot paper may be doubtful it must be placed in the “doubtful” tray.
15.The Counting Agents may also query the validity of ballot papers, but they must not handle them and if a paper is queried, it should be put in the “doubtful” tray without any discussion. The doubtful votes will be reviewed periodically by anadjudicator.
16.A ballot paper may be rejected for any of the following reasons:-
(a)No official mark
(b)voting for more than one answer
(c)writing or mark by which the voter may be identified
(d)paper is unmarked or intentions unclear.
17.At no point in the proceedings must a ballot paper be placed face down so as to reveal the number on the back. Keep all papers FACE UP.
18.Once all the totals have been calculated by the Count Supervisor on his/her summary sheet, and the Deputy Returning Officer is happy with the result from this table, you may be instructed to join another table to help them and so on, until all of the table counts have been counted to the satisfaction of the Deputy Returning Officer.
19.Counting Assistants are reminded that there is no smoking in the Counting Hall, and please turn off or turn to silent any mobile phones. The Deputy Returning Officer will tell you when you can leave after all the results of all the table counts have concluded and the local result has been announced.
20.A refreshment table, comprising squash, water and biscuits will be available. Please ask your Count Supervisorif you need to leave your seat for a toilet break. On no account should drinks be brought to the count table due to possible spillages.
Darren Whitney
Deputy Returning Officer
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