A lot of Constituencies will be holding their General Election counts on the morning after the election instead of immediately after the polls close.
There are no cost issues here for local authorities because 'reasonable costs' of General Election counts are recoverable from the Government.
Delaying counts provides concerns about a vacuum of power for up to 24 hours after an election, the security of ballot boxes and the sheer loss of the excitement and 'immediacy' that a count provides when done immediately after the polling stations close. In this day and age when fewer people are taking an interest it can only damage the electoral process to reduce devalue the excitement that attaches to counts.
Over 200 MPs have signed an early day motion supporting having counts immediately after the polls close. A Facebook Group has 5,500 members of the public signed up as well so pressure is building for Councils to abandon late counts for general elections.
The Electoral Commission has written to all Constituencies, 646 of them to find out when they plan to hold their counts. So far less than 250 have replied (2 weeks later) of which 27, just over 10% have said they would start the count Friday morning. 134 have said immediately after the polls close and 86 said they have not made up their minds.
Dover has not yet replied. Neither have Shepway, in case they intend to repeat that horrible joint count farce.
So can we ask what will be happening in Dover?
Given that funding is not a big issue there is no compelling reason for a Friday am start. Doing so would merely be a matter of convenience for the staff, who themselves, as largely volunteers, may not be too happy about losing out on some out of hours extra pay.
Link to the list here:
http://www.parliament.uk/deposits/depositedpapers/2009/DEP2009-2588.pdf