Out for the Count

I’ve got butterflies.

Tomorrow we face an election that will, whatever the outcome, define a new political era.

But my nerves are closer to home.

For I’m one of the tens of thousands of people who will be playing a tiny tiny part in the machinery of British democracy.

And these are pretty much the only tools I’ll need;

A clip, a table, a thimble.

These simple items, and the ability to count to 10, are all I’ll need to perform my role as a human bean, tallying up ballots at my local election centre, one of the several hundred venues that will return the 650 constituency results in the 2024 General Election.

The UK elections are surely one of the few remaining almost-completely analogue experiences of the 21st century.

Pencils, rulers, paper, rubber bands, bulldog clips, boxes, trays.

These are the mission-critical equipment that keep the wheels of democracy turning.

Barely a computer or a digital screen in sight; excluding the media coverage, UK election counts are a largely digital-free zone.

And this is by design.

It’s still regarded as the best way to remain immune to electoral fraud (the most recent example of election crime in the UK involved influencing people before they voted).

It’s not just this ‘old fashioned’ approach to the technology that seems to make it a ‘Very British Affair’.

It’s also the atmosphere.

I made my ‘election debut’ in May - volunteering for to count at the Local & Mayoral elections in Greater Manchester.

And I was blown away by the experience - something I likened to a cross between

• a giant knit-a-thon (huge, collective effort where one's tiny part contributes to a greater whole)
• jury service (public service contribution and sense of duty)
• the Eurovision Song Contest (it is after all, a form of competition and the candidates are all there, jittering from toe to toe in your eyeline).

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This last point is only too evident because of the party agents who are entitled to monitor the ballots as they are counted, standing in front of you at your trestle table as they do.

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I was curious about my fellow counters - who were all walks of life, all motivations - and all ready for action.

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The roles are paid (it varies with every council but ￡15 an hour seems about average, and every council will have a page where you can find out more about how to get involved yourself).

But most people I spoke to seemed to do it for the 'buzz', being part of something important.

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And all of us, every one, just LOVED to count.

To sort, to clip, to batch, to bundle.

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Being the beads on the abacus. The constituent parts of the UK’s Vote Counting Machine.

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And it seems once people have done it once, they get the bug and want to come back time after time (most of my compatriots were 'regulars', including a family who’d volunteered together for many years).

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The shift is not long by comparison, but it is through the small hours, and there are large parts spent waiting.

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In these down periods, we’re like hungry piranhas, keen for the moment we spring into life, and can devour those ballots with our counting fingers.

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The simplicity of the processes, honed over decades, are beautiful.

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• Put the votes into bundles of 10.
• Double check.
• Count the bundles.

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• Sort the votes into candidates.
• Put the candidate votes into bundles of 10.
• Double check.
• Count the bundles.

(The system includes measures to ensure its impossible for the numbers not to tally.

{If the totals don’t match those on the ballot box, then the votes are counted again.

And each stage has a similar process to first establish the totals, then cross check}.

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Having said that it is also a matter of complete pride for none of us to make a mistake - so if bundles need to be re-checked, each of us is desperate for it not to be our error.)

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So - while every Election Count has its own version, in nutshell this is the simple, foolproof system that will deliver the 2024 General Election Result, of around 30 million votes (est.).

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And I'm back, because for me there was something extraordinarily uplifting about being in a hall with hundreds of other strangers, knowing each of you is working alone to play a small part in a bigger thing, that you can only do together, yet not even knowing another's name.

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Being connected through a collective doing is perhaps at the heart of what it means to be a human?

So that’s where I’ll be from 10pm tomorrow night - as the polling station teams are heading home for night, and the first Exit Poll is announced - we will be getting ready to count.

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Bring It On. ??