Centralised Counts - The Way Forward for e-Elections

With a constant pressure on election officials to deliver fast secure election counts, while continually watching the bottom line, the consolidation of count activities is the solution to many of these demands.   Careful application of technology to the administration of the count can bring huge benefits with regards to speed and accuracy while greatly minimising the use of hundreds of expensive, and often exhausted, count staff. 

In 2003 three innovative Local Authorities decided to gain the ultimate economies of scale from the use of e-Counting technology by centralising their Local Government election counts from three distributed counting centre’s to one single count venue. 

Despite the additional distances that each authority was now required to travel, The Electoral Commission’s evaluation of the 2003 voting pilot schemes in England was clear in its findings; electronic counting allowed results to be declared significantly earlier than at a manual count.  

Combined e-counting leads the way

DRS managed four of the pilot schemes held in England in May 2003.  Combining ecounting with all-postal voting, in this instance DRS worked in partnership with County Durham based Derwentside, Chester-le-Street and Wear Valley District Councils to undertake the first ever combined, multiple council election count.

For this major project, the first of its kind in the UK, DRS designed and produced voter packs for the entire combined electorate of 160,000. On the day of the count, the e-counting solution, supplied wholly by DRS, started at 6.00pm. All returned postal ballots were scanned through DRS’ own sophisticated e-counting technology which stored the votes securely and accurately, and recorded images of doubtful ballot papers for on-screen adjudication.

Each ballot paper featured a unique barcode not only to reduce electoral fraud, a major concern when the pilot schemes were announced, but to also guarantee that each paper could only be counted once. The first results of the election were declared at 9.05pm and all results for Chester-le-Street were declared before 9.25pm, just under three and half hours from the count start. In fact, the Chester-le-Street declarations were the first in the country to appear on the BBC Ceefax service.

Across the three districts, local election turnout had been declining considerably over the years and one of the many objectives of the project was to increase turnout to above 50%. In this instance the three authorities decided to run an all-postal election to help them to achieve this objective.  On May 1st 2003 this target was achieved. The combination of all-postal voting and e-counting had reversed the downward trend as they achieved turnouts of 54.0%, 50.3% and 51.3% respectively. After the count, Mike Bonser, Derwentside Returning Officer said “We are absolutely delighted. The aim of the exercise was to increase voter turnout and it has certainly worked.”

The Electoral Commission’s evaluation into this pilot scheme concluded “The all-postal element had a significant effect on voter participation” and went on to say “The electronic count allowed most results to be declared significantly earlier than at a manual count.” The Commission also reported that the authorities involved stated that the overall partnership and co-ordination by DRS was first class.

Multi-channel Solutions

Electronic Counting triumphs in multi-channel election

DRS also managed the e-counting element of the multichannel election undertaken by Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council on May 1st 2003. The Council offered all electors the opportunity to vote using five different channel options including postal, on-line (internet), digital television, voice recognition (via touchtone telephone) and a limited number of on-line polling stations or kiosks. DRS again worked closely with the Council to design and print the ballot papers and voter packs for the 40,000 strong electorate. Returned papers were automatically recorded as they were received to ensure each voter could vote only once.

The Borough Council set themselves a target of increasing their turnout figures from 41.08% in 2002 to 50% in 2003. The multi-channel election succeeded in reaching this target with an incredible 54.8% turnout recorded, and in one parish a turnout of 69% was reached. Although the election was multi-channel, The Electoral Commission’s evaluation states that “19% of voters used the electronic channels, with the remaining 81% choosing to vote by post.” Robin Hooper, Chief Executive of Shrewsbury & Atcham Borough Council said “The e-counting technology seamlessly integrated with the other channels and enabled results to be declared in record time. The election count was a complete success.”

Once again, due to the complexity of this type of multi-channel election, DRS’ knowledge, skills and experience was vital in ensuring the results were delivered quickly, accurately and securely.

The way forward

The Electoral Commission’s recommendations aim to simplify and streamline the administration of election counts and DRS leads the way with innovative e-counting technology and solutions. Not only applicable for the counting of postal votes, DRS technologies have bought enormous benefits to traditional elections, with complex polling station ballot papers being scanned and recorded automatically in a fraction of the time taken to manually count.  DRS can help authorities to work towards and achieve the challenging Government target of modernising the election process.

And there’s more to DRS than e-counting.  DRS offer a full range of multi-channel e-voting solutions including Internet Voting, Telephone Voting, and DRE’s as well as fully outsourced election services.  So whether you are looking to streamline a complex single transferable vote, or meeting the demands of a large consultation, referendum or election DRS can offer a solution that will help to both increase turnout, and bring methods of voting into the twenty-first century.