Watching the British election being counted BY HAND.

Computer voting companies like Diebold have nothing to do with British elections. The British count by hand and the first precinct (Sunderland) was counted in less than an hour. The BBC predicts all precincts will be counted by around 2AM, and this is with the polls closing at 10PM.

So, please remind me once again why we need computers to count our votes?

It's certainly not because it's faster.

The voters are being counted just fine.

The MPs, on the other hand...

How long would it take to count votes for President, Senator, House Member, State Senator, State Assemblyman, County Commissioner, etc, AS WELL AS the two dozen referendum that a State like California goes through?

Unfortunately, voters (and by extension,the media) want everything counted as quickly as possible. Personally, as long as the actual votes are on paper (which is becoming the predominant system), I don't object to the initial count by optical scanners.

There is zero reason to have an immediate count. Successful candidates do not assume office the following week.

You're trying to apply a Presidential model to a Parliamentry system. First off, we also had local elections today (state government). Secondly, we vote for parties here, not people or offices. The party that wins a majority of Commons seats gets to form teh government.

All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for election.

in addition, at the level of a precinct, there really are not that many votes to count. And even if it took, say, a week, it would be worth it.

Some districts have local elections as well as the national one.

You just can't beat them. I shudder at the thought of our system here in the UK ever changing to the Micky Mouse one you've got in the USA. We've got the ultimate paper trail in the event of any dispute. :)

paper forms or cards that are optically scanned?

Just a list of three or four names and a no.2 pencil. Make your mark, fold the paper in half and post it in the big padlocked box. At the end of the night, all the ballots are dumped out on a big table where they're counted by a team of volunteers who are watched by a rep from each party who can object at any time. Error rate is miniscule and most of the districts will have declared by 2am.

...when there is only one thing to vote on. Means the ballot is handled a lot less too.

Sounds good to me.

Just wanted to know if optical scanning was used.

There are normally a few very close seats, where you have to have recounts, that they have to take a break for and start again in the (daylight) morning. And one or 2 seats had said earlier they weren't going to start counting until 9am (though someone may have told the election officers to damn well pay the overtime to get the count started now). And one or two, like the Western Isles, take time to collect the ballots together.

4am is more likely. Most will have declared by 2am but there are always a few stragglers.

But for those three, turnout is hovering around 55-60%. We'll have more idea in a little while.

They don't, you know. They vote for party slates.

You are, perhaps, thinking of the European parliament elections. This, however, is electing members of parliament, where each seat elects one person. Until about 20 years ago, they weren't even allowed to have their party name on the ballot.

It was my understanding that you only had to choose your MP--i.e. one vote. Is that not correct?

and yes one vote for for one of those only - no second choice whatever. Paper slips are also clearly marked with political party names.

In other words, there is a single choice involved, as a opposed to the 30-50 choices presented on many American ballots.

That is why it is possible to count by hand quickly.

We only have additional ballot questions here for referendums and they're very, very rare. Last one was over thirty years ago (about whether to join the EEC).

That is the district electing one senator and two representatives to the Washington State legislature. The national Congress is entirely different. Our LD is split between three different national Congressional districts. There are also county and municipal offices to consider. The LD includes parts of four different cities and also unincorporated areas with library, sewer, school, water and fire districts, each with commissioners to elect. We are all in one county (King, the second largest in the country after Los Angeles County), and are split among four different county council districts (only two precincts for one of them). This is yet a different way of slicing the district from the Congressional District divisions. {Some legislative districts are split among counties also.)

And then there are the bond issues, initiatives and referenda, and elections for judges at vaarious levels from district court all the way up to State Supreme Courtt. You would hand count all of this how, exactly? Are you surprised that well-known election integrity activist Andy Stephenson, who also lived in King County and knew Elections Department people here, favored optical scanning at the precinct level with mandatory random hand count audits?

Count the senate ones first - you have to combine those with other areas, and there's no point in keeping people waiting because one area is behind. Then count the house ones, because the national picture is important there too. Then do the local ones (just as the count of local ballots has been held back to today here in Britain).

I'm happy with optical scanning myself, but if someone did insist on hand counts, you'd prioritise, based on how you have to combine the results with elsewhere.

We even have to split precincts sometimes, because half will be in one fire district and the other in the other half. And you forgot about bond issues, judges, initiatives and referenda. Reconbinations get exponential fast.

The county as a whole typically has more than ONE THOUSAND different ballot formats.

When we have multiple elections because local elections coincide , as we did where I live yesterday , each election is on a separate piece of paper. They use different colours for ease of separation. Put it this way - if you'd used paper and pencil would Bush have won ?

You aren't paying attention to OVERLAPS at all. Thousands were disenfranchised in Britain because polls were closed before they could get in. How do you train enough workers to hand out one legislative district form and get them to hand out the correct congressional form? How long do you think it would take them to figure out which ballots to hand to people? We'd require three different congressional ones. Then there are the four DIFFERENT county council forms, one type of which goees to only two precincts. Cities of any size are commonly split among different legislative and congressional districts also. And what about the school boards, fire, sewer and water districts and initiatives and referenda?

However, Kucinich in 2006 proposed a paper ballot for president/vice president and optical scan for everything else. That is something I could support.

Pencils and paper are not a magic cure-all.

And if just .01% of the population were hired to count votes it would be 514,460 vs 3,092,050.

You assume its one person counting them all?

Or could we rightly assume that the number of people assigned to counting could/would be proportional to the number of votes?

It's the only fair process. However there were problems in this election - several voters never cast their ballots because the lines were so long. People are upset and there will be a public inquiry.

Caused by non-compulsory voting. Did they underestimate the numbers who would vote?

Love it or hate it, voting (or at least turning up and having your name crossed off) is compulsory here in Oz and I can't ever recall people being not able to vote because of long lines. It's easier to cater for the turnout if you're expecting everyone.

The turnout was much higher than expected so there were all kinds of problems with long lines, lack of ballot papers, etc. Paxman on the BBC was tearing the election commissioner apart over it and there'll be a public inquiry.

Consider that the differet numbers of combinations go up, well, combinatorially.

The British have a ballot with several candidates on it. You vote for one candidate and the votes are counted. That's it. Last election meanwhile I had to vote for President, Senate, US House, State House, and several dozen county and judicial offices. In 2006 I had to vote for Governor, Senate, US House, Attorney General, Secretary of State, State Auditor, State Senate and State House and that's not even counting the super-local offices.

Apples to oranges really. Though I am quite pleased rather than Diebold we have recountable optical scan ballots. Probably wouldn't have our Senator Franken today without them.