2020 Local Elections

[martinwhelton]

With the May Day bank holiday being moved to Friday 8 May because of VE Day, will this now have implications on the local elections due on the 7th as I presume the won’t want counting taking place on the Friday or overnight. Local elections moved to the 14th May - or counting on Saturday?

[greatkingrat]

Not sure why it would be a problem to count on the Friday as normal? Saturday isn't a working day either, so they are not likely to leave the count until the following week.

[Andrew_S]

You're making me feel old with this thread.

[myth11]

Jun 8, 2019 14:24:40 GMT greatkingrat said:

Not sure why it would be a problem to count on the Friday as normal? Saturday isn't a working day either, so they are not likely to leave the count until the following week.

For a lot of people Saturday is a working day and the rise of online is likely adding to the ranks of Saturday workers.

[andrewteale]

In the European elections just gone the Western Isles and Northern Ireland counted on a bank holiday Monday.

[hugh01]

The trouble is with this bank holiday it is meant to be a national commemoration of VE Day. You wont have overnight counts running into a bank holiday or on the Friday as the national news will rightly be focused on commemorative events. Similarly so will most of the weekend as from the government press release it’s meant to be a weekend of commemoration. We could well see no verification or counting until the Monday.

[John Chanin]

Jun 9, 2019 10:13:24 GMT hugh01 said:

The trouble is with this bank holiday it is meant to be a national commemoration of VE Day. You wont have overnight counts running into a bank holiday or on the Friday as the national news will rightly be focused on commemorative events. Similarly so will most of the weekend as from the government press release it’s meant to be a weekend of commemoration. We could well see no verification or counting until the Monday.

I think you're right.  If we have a government capable of any forward thinking (ie not the present one) then surely the local elections will be moved to the 14th.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Jun 9, 2019 10:18:07 GMT John Chanin said:

Jun 9, 2019 10:13:24 GMT hugh01 said:

The trouble is with this bank holiday it is meant to be a national commemoration of VE Day. You wont have overnight counts running into a bank holiday or on the Friday as the national news will rightly be focused on commemorative events. Similarly so will most of the weekend as from the government press release it’s meant to be a weekend of commemoration. We could well see no verification or counting until the Monday.

I think you're right.  If we have a government capable of any forward thinking (ie not the present one) then surely the local elections will be moved to the 14th.

This issue is mentioned in a briefing paper for the London Assembly, but not helpfully:

"Bank holiday, Friday 8 May 2020

4.30 An unexpected challenge is that Government has confirmed that the 2020 May Day Bank Holiday will be moved to Friday 8 May 2020 to commemorate the seventy fifth anniversary of VE day. Outside London, local elections planned for Thursday 7 May 2020 might now be moved, to avoid counts occurring on a bank holiday. Such a change would require primary legislation.
4.31 However, moving the election date in London would not be practicable, due to the three large ‘count centre’ venues – already paid for – that are required to facilitate electronic vote counting.
4.32 Even if funding were found to re-book the venues and contractors for an alternative date, it has already been established that the venues themselves – which were originally reserved last year - have no availability in the following weeks. A manual count has never been tried in respect of the Mayoral and Assembly elections – and is not considered a viable option.
4.33 The GLRO has written to all Constituency and Borough Returning Officers and their election teams to note the importance of their continued assistance on what will now be a bank holiday. The holiday is not anticipated to affect the e-counting solution or security, or election day and count centre activity. However, it will increase the costs of managing the counts, as bank holiday rates will need to be paid to staff; and may also make transport to and from the venues more difficult."

[johnloony]

Jul 11, 2019 14:49:23 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Jun 9, 2019 10:18:07 GMT John Chanin said:

I think you're right.  If we have a government capable of any forward thinking (ie not the present one) then surely the local elections will be moved to the 14th.

This issue is mentioned in a briefing paper for the London Assembly, but not helpfully:

"Bank holiday, Friday 8 May 2020

...
4.32 Even if funding were found to re-book the venues and contractors for an alternative date, it has already been established that the venues themselves – which were originally reserved last year - have no availability in the following weeks. A manual count has never been tried in respect of the Mayoral and Assembly elections – and is not considered a viable option."

The London Assembly and Mayoral election counts should always have been done manually. Electronic counting has always been an abomination. I have always resented the people who untruthfully pretend that manual counts would not be practical.

[owainsutton]

Jun 9, 2019 10:18:07 GMT John Chanin said:

Jun 9, 2019 10:13:24 GMT hugh01 said:

The trouble is with this bank holiday it is meant to be a national commemoration of VE Day. You wont have overnight counts running into a bank holiday or on the Friday as the national news will rightly be focused on commemorative events. Similarly so will most of the weekend as from the government press release it’s meant to be a weekend of commemoration. We could well see no verification or counting until the Monday.

I think you're right.  If we have a government capable of any forward thinking (ie not the present one) then surely the local elections will be moved to the 14th.

Indeed, a government functional enough to pass the necessary legislation?

[piperdave]

Jul 11, 2019 15:43:29 GMT johnloony said:

Jul 11, 2019 14:49:23 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

This issue is mentioned in a briefing paper for the London Assembly, but not helpfully:

"Bank holiday, Friday 8 May 2020

...
4.32 Even if funding were found to re-book the venues and contractors for an alternative date, it has already been established that the venues themselves – which were originally reserved last year - have no availability in the following weeks. A manual count has never been tried in respect of the Mayoral and Assembly elections – and is not considered a viable option."

The London Assembly and Mayoral election counts should always have been done manually. Electronic counting has always been an abomination. I have always resented the people who untruthfully pretend that manual counts would not be practical.

While I don't think electronic counting is inherently an abomination, I would agree that it is not nearly as vital as the GLRO seems to think it is. It will be certainly be a huge task and need plenty of planning and bodies to carry it out, but it is by no means impossible. Scotland and Wales have managed to deliver the equivalent of the Assembly side of it no problem, and in a timescale not dissimilar to the electronic counts from London. You are adding the Mayoral vote on top of that but it ought to be straightforward to do the first count. Arrangements for the second count could be a little more problematic as you don't know when you could start that if needed, unless you decide to suspend that until the Saturday morning and every starts again at the same time.

Logistically, it would seem better to do the count with each borough having its own count centre (the City could have its own or share with someone else). It would also avoid some of the hold-ups there have been over the years with just three centres.

So it's up to MHCLG whether or not to move the date. If not, then who knows what each RO will do, but it's their decision at the end of the day.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

I would remind you that London is bigger than Scotland - the Scottish Parliament electorate of just over 4m is significantly smaller than the London local electorate of 5.7m. And Londoners cast four votes, while Scottish Parliament voters cast only two.

The decision to have three large count centres was a good one - it does ensure a smoother count and minimise the glitches that hold them up. There have been problems that have held up each of the elections so far; but if there were 33 counts instead of three, that's ten times as many opportunities for problems to occur. Because of the use of SV the count staff would all have to stay around until the runoff Mayoral result was declared.

Also one of the main reasons behind Tower Hamlets' 2014 election count disaster is that the only venue the council could find was the Troxy nightclub, which was way too small and couldn't be made properly secure; some other boroughs have difficulty finding a venue. The City of London chooses to partner with Westminster for things like European Parliament elections and referendums; it has to do so for Parliamentary elections; however it would be in difficulty if part of a manual count for GLA elections because the City is in a different constituency from Westminster.

[pl]

Aug 6, 2019 22:50:59 GMT Davıd Boothroyd said:

Also one of the main reasons behind Tower Hamlets' 2014 election count disaster is that the only venue the council could find was the Troxy nightclub, which was way too small and couldn't be made properly secure; some other boroughs have difficulty finding a venue.

The Troxy was a bad venue - like many other venues Tower Hamlets insisted on trying over the years: York Hall, Mile End Leisure Centre. There are good venues in TH: Canary Wharf East Wintergardens, the Excel Centre in Newham. However, logic was never a Tower Hamlets strong point. I, and others, kept on explaining to TH why their venue choices were crap - but no one would listen. All the venues are ok from a security point of view - it is just TH is "special", and the Troxy choice didn't recognize this. At Mile End Leisure Centre they just gave up checking who was allowed to be there and let anyone in. At the Troxy please remember that the supporters of one of the candidates were encouraged to wait outside. We ended up in lock down - and eventually I was escorted out under heavy police escort!

However, the venue wasn't the biggest issue. Lack of count staff training and poor management were far bigger problems. The candidates kept on having to explain to the count staff what they had to do. The staff regularly fall asleep because they are left with nothing to do for hours at a time because the whole process was so badly managed. Staff quality was poor - on one memorable occasion a Labour councillor and I had to explain in bad Spanish how to do the split votes to a staff member who didn't know English numbers very well (back in the days when candidates had numbers). I could go on for hours....

[peterl]

Finding venues is a problem? Don't you have leisure centers in London? They seem to make good venues for the rest of the country. And in Central London there mus tbe any nunber of public buildings that could serve. Westminster Hall is rather large for instance.

[Chris from Brum]

Aug 8, 2019 12:02:30 GMT peterl said:

Finding venues is a problem? Don't you have leisure centers in London? They seem to make good venues for the rest of the country. And in Central London there mus tbe any nunber of public buildings that could serve. Westminster Hall is rather large for instance.

Perhaps they should consult their own website.

[timrollpickering]

Aug 7, 2019 6:04:34 GMT pl said:

The Troxy was a bad venue - like many other venues Tower Hamlets insisted on trying over the years: York Hall, Mile End Leisure Centre. There are good venues in TH: Canary Wharf East Wintergardens, the Excel Centre in Newham.

When we in Newham heard that Tower Hamlets was counting at the ExCel the first reaction was not one of delight at recognising the excellent conference facilities we have and the additional income brought to the borough, but instead one of horror at what might come with the count.

The candidates kept on having to explain to the count staff what they had to do.

The staff regularly fall asleep because they are left with nothing to do for hours at a time because the whole process was so badly managed.

Just how many times do counts grind to a halt because of this? And nobody ever seems able to explain why everything seems to have stopped.

[timrollpickering]

Aug 8, 2019 12:02:30 GMT peterl said:

Finding venues is a problem? Don't you have leisure centers in London? They seem to make good venues for the rest of the country. And in Central London there mus tbe any nunber of public buildings that could serve. Westminster Hall is rather large for instance.

Often there's a lot of competition for bookings. For example in one of the cases listed, when I worked on Queen Mary's exams operation York Hall was never available on Fridays because, IIRC, of permanent boxing. And this was also in May.

I did attend one count at York Hall many years back, for Lutfur Rahman's first election. Although this was de facto a Mayoral by-election, it still felt tight and cramped with limited rest facilities available (I don't think we were able to get up to the balconies).

Newham counts in my time have various used the ExCel and now the Velodrome (since it opened) for parliamentary and local elections. Smaller scale elections such as the European and also by-elections happen at the Town Hall.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Since most council leisure services are now run by contractors, the council cannot simply close the leisure centre and take it over for an election count - not without paying the contractor a lot of money to cover the loss of income. (Also there is a reluctance for councils to stop anyone using their leisure centre - the policy aim is to promote them and get a healthier population).

For the GLA counts you need a massive space, far bigger than leisure centres have.

[peterl]

Well you could have individual counts and feed it in the one overall count. European Parliament elections do this for instance. Then the overall count would just need a meeting room type space.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Aug 8, 2019 15:16:50 GMT peterl said:

Well you could have individual counts and feed it in the one overall count. European Parliament elections do this for instance. Then the overall count would just need a meeting room type space.

I've explained why that would not work. There are four ballots to count; everyone has to remain there until the count has been done, and there are often count glitches which need to be resolved. Having each council do its own count would mean the whole thing would move at the speed of the slowest, and offer ten times as many opportunities for hold-ups.