[Magdalen] Whither Scotland?

[Jay Weigel]

We just heard that results from one polling station may be delayed because
of fog. How very Scottish!

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 7:48 PM, Roger Stokes <roger.stokes65 at btinternet.com
> wrote:

> On 18/09/2014 21:06, Scott Knitter wrote:
>
>> The official announcement is expected around breakfast-time or a
>> little later from the central election site near Edinburgh. I've
>> always admired U.K. elections for having official announcements. I
>> suppose we've got those, too, but we've all heard the outcomes ad
>> nauseam via news outlets' projections even before voting ends. In the
>> U.K, I gather every constituency has its announcement done publicly,
>> giving the final totals.
>>
>
> That is what happens.  I understand that in this referendum each local
> area will report its count to the central counting officer who will
> authorise them to announce their count.  At the end of the night, when
> everything has been tallied, she will announce the official result in
> Edinburgh.
>
> One big difference from the US system is that absentee (postal) ballots
> have to be received by the time the poll closes rather than simply being
> postmarked by then,  This means they are physically present when the count
> is conducted.
>
>  Seems efficient and civilized. And if the
>> scheme for collecting vote-counts is efficient, the results can bubble
>> up to whatever level is needed rather swiftly, with paper to back up
>> the results in case of dispute or very close totals.
>>
>
> The paper trail is important in case of dispute, and there have certainly
> been allegations that some US machines which do not have a paper trail are
> capable of having their tally manipulated.
>
> Roger
>