DISTRICT/PARISH COUNCIL ELECTIONS 3Rd MAY, 2007

Redditch Borough Council

Worcestershire County Elections Count – 5 May 2017

INSTRUCTIONS FOR VERIFICATION AND COUNT (ASSISTANT) SUPERVISORS GENERAL

There is one Count Centre for the County Elections on Friday 5 May.

Abbey Stadium Birmingham Road, Redditch B97 6EJ

Please dress smart casual.

On arrival you will be allocated a Counting Table and will be asked to sign a form to confirm your attendance authorise your payment.

Verification/Count (Assistant) Supervisors must be in the hall by no later than 9.30am for a short briefing and to be ready to start at 10am.

On no account must any drinks or food be taken anywhere near the counting tables, although sweets are allowed.

Verification Assistants and Counting Agents will sit on opposite sides of the counting tables on the instructions of the Deputy Returning Officer.

No person other than the Deputy Returning Officer and their staff shall handle the ballot papers – Counting Agents may not assist with the sorting or counting of ballot papers.

Verification Assistants must not leave the hall, apart from toilet breaks, without the permission of the Deputy Returning Officer or their Assistants.

VERIFICATION/COUNT ASSISTANTS

Count Supervisors will have overall responsibility for two teams of 5 and one Assistant Count Supervisor.

Count Supervisors and Assistant Count Superviors have direct responsibility a team of 4 Verification/Count Assistants on a numbered table. They will arrive at the Count Centre 9.45am. They will already have received “Instructions for Verification Count Assistants” which you should also read.

of 7 Make sure they sign in when they arrive and sign out at the end of the evening. Signing in forms must be put back in the folders at the end of the evening.

PROCEDURES AND OTHER DETAILS FOR VERIFICATION/COUNT SUPERVISORS

A. VERIFICATION

You will have full details of the Ballot Boxes to be received, emptied and counted in respect of your table (the Verification Summary contains all these details).

Ballot Boxes/Ballot Paper Accounts

You will be given the ballot boxes and ballot paper accounts relating to your table. Record the amount on your verification summary sheet and Ballot Box Record Card then place the ballot paper account in the basket for collection. A runner will then take the Ballot Paper Account to the top table.

Equipment

Coloured slips of paper, thimbletts, trays, pencils, clips etc, will be provided and need to be made available at each Verification Table/Team. You will have a clear box for mixing ballot papers. There will be clear bags provided for holding ballot papers from a box if totals do not match. You will be provided with a separate table to lay out trays to compile the results behind your team for you to work on.

Opened Ballot Boxes

Once a Ballot Box has been opened, and the papers tipped out, place the opened Ballot Box in the area behind your team removing the lid totally so that you can see if all papers have been removed. Make sure you show any agents/observers that the box is empty.

Verification (Please refer to Verification Assistant’s Instructions)

Please take particular care to ensure that the papers from one box cannot possibly be mixed up with papers from another at this stage. Proceed to verify i.e. Verification Assistants to count into bundles of 25 FACE UPWARDS and clip each bundle together. Any bundles of less than 25 should have a counting slip on top, indicating the number. Assistants should swop bundles and recount to check.

If the numbers agree, complete the ballot box record card and put up your hand for the runners to collect the card and take to the top table for sign off.

of 7 If the numbers do not agree, ask the Verification Assistants to recount.

After this, if the numbers, still do not agree, check if there is another box from that location (this will be shown on the Verification Summary Form) – it may be that the missing/extra paper(s) relate to the other box. Ask a runner to tell the top table that you are going to verify another box from the same location. Seal the first set of ballot papers in a clear bag and place on your table. Verify the other box to check if totals then match.

If ballot papers still do not match after this, call a runner and give them your figures on the ballot box record card. The DRO or one of their assistants will check that the Ballot Paper Account has been correctly filled in and that the SPOILT ballot papers have been deducted from the figure for the number of Ballot Papers issued. The DRO may decide it necessary to check the unused ballot papers if there are two or more papers missing/over or to ask you to do a further final re-count.

Once signed off you can start the next box.

Verified papers will go into the clear mixing box.

The empty boxes can then be stacked out of the way.

Postal Votes

You will have one postal ballot box for the division you are working on.

Completion

When you have had all boxes checked ask a runner to have the Verification Summary form signed by the top table.

Once all your boxes have been verified the Deputy Returning Officer may allow you to start the Counting of papers before the final turnout is announced.

B. COUNT

 The Deputy Returning Officer will let you know when you can commence the Count.

 The ballot papers must be kept face upwards at all times.

 Since all divisions are multiple vacancies there will be block counting and grass skirt methods employed.

of 7 1. This method is used where electors have tended to vote by ‘block’ for two candidates of the same political party. We look for the common voting pattern (the ‘blocked votes’) and sort the ballot papers into labelled baskets for these. For example, in a division where there are two seats being contested by six candidates, it is likely that the voters will have ‘blocked’ their votes for either the two Labour candidates, or the two Conservative candidates or the two Liberal Democrat candidates. All the ‘blocked votes’ are sorted out and then the ‘others’ are dealt with.

2. For example - the ballot papers should therefore be sorted into five piles: one for all Labour votes; one for all Conservative votes; one for all Liberal Democrat votes; one for all other combinations and one for doubtfuls.

3. The (Assistant) Count Supervisor takes the piles and places them into the appropriately labelled baskets.

4. Once all ballot papers are sorted and the doubtfuls dealt with, the Count Supervisor will give the ballot papers for the first political party alphabetically to the Counting Assistants who will count them into bundles of 25 and arrange the bundles into 100 banded with an elastic band. Any incomplete bundles must have a slip attached that shows the number therein.

5. The Count Supervisor will then count the bundles, including the incomplete ones to ascertain the number of votes for each candidate on the ballot paper and enter them on the summary sheet.

6. The basket containing the “others” can then be dealt with by using the “modified grass skirt” counting method, as follows:

7. The (Assistant) Count Supervisor will give the ballot papers to the Counting Assistants who will count them into batches of 25. Once there are several bundles of 25, the Count Supervisor will instruct some of the Counting Assistants to count the votes by using the “grass skirts”.

8. Working from right to left on the grass skirt, the Counting Assistant takes one of the coloured copy ballot papers and tucks it under the clear plastic strip at the base of the grass skirt, keeping well to the right.

of 7 9. The Counting Assistant then takes one bundle of 25 ballot papers and tucks them under the plastic strip, overlapping them so that only the crosses remain visible. This method is illustrated with larger ballot papers here: Start well to the right Work from right to left

Plastic flap Coloured copy ballot paper

10. The grass skirt will hold the ballot papers firmly enough for the Counting Assistants to work along, but care should still be taken with very long ballot papers not to knock the papers out of line.

11. Once 25 ballot papers have been slotted onto a grass skirt, the Counting Assistants should count the number of unused votes on each ballot paper and make a light pencil note of that number on the top right-hand corner of the ballot papers, as shown on this example:

ELECTION FOR WORCESTERSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL VOTE FOR NO MORE THAN TWO CANDIDATES

12. Then, the number of votes for each candidate should be totalled across and recorded in the corresponding voting boxes on the copy ballot paper. The number of unused votes should also be totalled. The Counting Assistants can now check their totals for that skirt; for divisions with two vacancies, the total number of votes (used and unused) recorded on the coloured copy ballot paper should equal 50. This is an important audit check and should be carried out carefully.

13. Once a bundle of 25 papers has been counted in this way, the Counting Assistants can extract them from the grass skirt, paper clipped them into a bundle, with the copy ballot paper and the number of votes on it secured on top. These bundles should be passed to the Count Supervisor for inclusion on the Summary Sheet.

of 7 14. During the recording of votes, the possibility of “doubtful” ballot papers will arise, and trays will be placed on the table for doubtful ballot papers. The principal defect may be leaving the paper totally blank. Where a Counting Assistant feels that a ballot paper may be doubtful it must be placed in the “doubtful” tray.

15. The Counting Agents may also query the validity of ballot papers, but they must not handle them and if a paper is queried, it should be put in the “doubtful” tray without any discussion. The doubtful votes will be reviewed periodically by an adjudicator.

16. A ballot paper may be rejected for any of the following reasons:-

(a) No official mark

(b) voting for more than one answer

(c) writing or mark by which the voter may be identified

(d) paper is unmarked or intentions unclear.

17. At no point in the proceedings must a ballot paper be placed face down so as to reveal the number on the back. Keep all papers FACE UP.

18. Once all the totals have been calculated by the Count Supervisor on his/her summary sheet, and the Deputy Returning Officer is happy with the result from this table, you may be instructed to join another table to help them and so on, until all of the table counts have been counted to the satisfaction of the Deputy Returning Officer. 19. Counting Assistants are reminded that there is no smoking in the Counting Hall, and please turn off or turn to silent any mobile phones.

20. Once the result has been declared you can remove all the paper clips from the papers and put them in the stationery boxes.

21. The Deputy Returning Officer will tell you when you can leave after all the results of all the table counts have concluded and the results have been announced. You are responsible for making sure your team sign out. Please leave all paperwork in the buff envelope provided. If necessary you may be asked to assist the Deputy Returning Officer with display of notices, and general tidying of the count hall.

RESULTS

A copy of the local Result is displayed at the Count Venue for the public to see.

of 7 OTHER

In your briefing to staff, remind them to turn any mobiles off. Remind them the key for a successful count is “accuracy above speed”.

Darren Whitney Deputy Counting Officer