I HAVE been involved in election counts for the last 30 years and I have never been to one that was so disorganised as last Thursday's at Harborough District Council.
For example, it took the counting staff a total of eight hours to separate and verify the County votes and European votes before the count could actually begin!
Why didn’t Harborough use two ballot boxes as most other areas appear to have done, es
pecially as the county council count was on Friday and the European count on the following Sunday?
Also, the Market Harborough Town counts, by far the biggest, were left until the end of the afternoon, which meant counting staff (many of whom had been on duty at polling stations the previous day) were tired and concentration levels were poor by then.
The first count for the Harborough East Ward showed the Conservative candidate beating the Liberal Democrat by three votes. Following a recount, the Liberal Democrat candidate was ahead by over 50 votes!
A further two recounts were carried out with different results each time, after which, the margin was reduced sufficiently to be accepted. What was wrong with the old system of sticking ballot papers onto a large sheet of paper, which clearly identified the number of votes for each representative? In the past, this method has resulted in more accuracy and avoided this number of recounts and the false hopes created.
Perhaps HDC needs to take the advice of GK Chesterton who said: “Never take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.”
Chris Etherington,
Coventry Road,
Harborough.
