From what I remember of previous NIA elections, it never took so long before to verify all votes and count first preferences as it did this year. I remember the verification and the first counts concluding across the 18 constituencies in the late afternoon or early evening, and the make-up of the assembly taking near-complete shape by 11.59pm on Friday night.marksi wrote:Yes, counts do take a bit longer to conclude under PR, but the first count winners should take no longer than FPTP. It took a minimum of 11 hours in this case, and that's down to incompetence by the electoral office.
The Stormont count didn't conclude until 2200 last night.
The AV result was declared on Saturday at 0200.
The council boxes haven't been opened yet.
This year, the final *first count* was declared just after 11.30pm on Friday night (from the accident-prone Omagh count centre - where soaked ballot boxes led to completed papers being stuck together and requiring hair dryers to separate them, two separate cases of laptops locking users out from inputting count data, then a table collapsing, scattering sorted votes across the floor which required rechecking and resorting - all of which are not directly the fault of those employed to count the ballots), almost 14 hours after the count started.
By this time, many centres had stopped counting for the night having only completed the first count process - only one centre completed the entire count for two constituencies until 2.45am.
There's also been media reports of counting staff sat idle waiting for instruction to begin the count in some locations. In this day and age, you shouldn't be hearing about this kind of thing taking place in a modern democratic society. It makes the organisational team at the Electoral Office of Northern Ireland - and may I stress, NOT the hundreds of staff employed to count the ballot papers - come across as incompetent clowns.
It seems today Elliott's outburst has surpassed the statistics. I also should have mentioned Peter Robinson's dedication to the late Constable Ronan Kerr in his election speech was an act of decency and human kindness lacking in modern politics.
