Your vote was worth 200,000

[DanaC]

Ahh. I see.

We have 'postal ballots' here, which people can elect to have instead of going to the ballot stations. It's particularly useful for pensioners or people with motility issues. All our ballot papers are checked and counted manually though.

When I was elected in the local elections, we went along to the count. There were stations set up all around the sports hall. and two tellers on each station counting through the ballot papers. We had someone stood in front of each counting point, watching as they separated them into the different piles, based on which box the cross had been marked in, and were supposed to shout up if we thought they'd got one wrong. The postal ballots were all opened at the same time and fed into the count. Out of the 4000 ballot papers for my ward (there were I think 20 wards being counted in that room) there were 9 that were unclear. They were st to one side and atthe end of the count, myself and my competitors were called over to examine them. We came to a decision as to whether that slightly skewed cross was meant to be on that name, or the other double cross with one scribbled out meant that name.... we discounted 5 as genuine spoiled ballots and argued our case as to whether the others could be counted or not. Was fun:P