eCounting – Scottish Local Government Election Gets the Right Results

“It went pretty much like clockwork – full marks to the Logica team.” Liz Ure, ICT Consultant, Scottish Government

Scottish Local Government Election Gets The Right Results
When you have a potential 4.7 million ballot papers to count across 32 councils in a single day you need an eCounting system that you can rely on. There is simply no room for error.

This was the case for the Scottish Government, who needed to introduce a new eCounting system for the councils taking part in the local government election in May 2012.

The Challenge
Scotland uses the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, which is considerably more complex than the first past the post way of voting – where the public votes for just one candidate.

Instead, it is possible for the electorate to vote for every candidate standing – in order of preference.

As a result, the manual counting of ballot papers in an STV election takes considerably longer – on average around three days if done manually. An eCounting system is essential to deliver the election results quickly, accurately and transparently.

Our Answer
We won the contract to work with the Scottish Government with eCounting software partner Opt2vote.

Around 40 tests were completed, processing around 10,000 papers, then a further eight or nine tests with 20,000 papers to iron out any issues. But 20,000 papers cannot really test the system to its limits, so a bulk test was completed, scanning and counting 165,000 ballot papers in one run.

In addition, the team ran a disaster recovery day, where Scottish Government was invited to watch a count and then quite literally pull the power plug half way through, in order to see whether the count could be retrieved and completed. It was.

The final stage involved ensuring the right equipment was in place to manage the counting across the councils and that staff were trained.

Key Benefits

• All ballot papers counted by 6.15pm
• Accuracy proven by a repeat result delivered on a recount in one council
• Fairness and transparency assured as questionable papers could be viewed clearly on screen for senior election staff to accept or count as spoiled in public view
• The next day’s newspapers covered the candidates and not the counting technology

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