Timeline for Traditionally, and currently, what stops human vote counters from altering ballots to make them 'Spoilt / Invalid votes?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 13, 2022 at 14:02 | comment | added | WS2 | Treatment of the spoiled ballots had already been agreed before we knew how close it was, but I doubt they would have made any difference. | |
| Oct 13, 2022 at 13:28 | comment | added | WS2 | @AndrewLeach A colleague of mine won a Borough Council seat on a single-figure margin. He eventually won it but only after his opponent had taken it to a third recount. The problem was that each of the recounts produced a different single-figure majority - but always in his favour. The other lot were pushing for a fourth recount, and with both candidates on the phone to their national party HQ's his people got the local press involved with mutterings of the others being "bad losers". At that point they caved in and let him take it. | |
| Oct 12, 2022 at 13:28 | comment | added | user36423 | @AndrewLeach I've been at one that was close enough for the opposing counting agent to request (and be granted) a full recount, but even in that case, he didn't dispute any of the spoiled ballots. | |
| Oct 12, 2022 at 12:52 | comment | added | Andrew Leach | @WS2 Wikipedia has one General Election tie for the United Kingdom (1886, settled by the casting vote of the Returning Officer) and 14 single-digit margins, the most recent being in 2017. In 1997 there was a by-election in Winchester which was actually caused by an Election Petition based on disqualified ballots. Such occurrences are rare, but they do happen. | |
| Oct 11, 2022 at 15:36 | comment | added | user36423 | @Landak Yes, that corresponds to my experience too (the bit about candidates' counting agents being able to inspect all the spoiled ballots, not the bit about the phallus). Usually a moment when three or four of us, who would normally very rarely agree about anything, could all instantly agree that the tellers and returning officer had made the right call. | |
| Oct 11, 2022 at 15:32 | comment | added | WS2 | @Landak As one who has stood as a candidate in a local election, the moment when the RO shows the spoiled ballots to the candidates always gives rise to a few laughs. Especially funny is the situation you describe where someone has written an insult, or obscenity against a candidate's name. Remarks like "Are you a **** John?", one candidate might ask of another. "Because if your one of those you've got the vote". It's usually all very friendly with a good deal of leg-pulling. But as you say the numbers of spoiled ballots are so small that it is never going to decide an election. | |
| Oct 11, 2022 at 15:26 | comment | added | Landak | The other thing I have seen at the count in UK elections is that the number of spoiled ballots is so low that all are displayed in front of (representatives of) the candidates directly. When I watched this, the vast majority were blank, and some had "none of the above" on them. An argument started when one had drawn a very neat phallus inside the box corresponding to the Tory candidate, and they didn't know if it counted as a vote or not… | |
| Oct 11, 2022 at 15:24 | history | edited | WS2 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 482 characters in body
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| Oct 10, 2022 at 11:44 | history | answered | user36423 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |