Recounting recounts

[johnloony]

Feb 28, 2017 22:28:23 GMT froome said:

Is there any limit to the number of recounts that can take place?

At what point is a toss up of a coin taken - is it only when all candidates accept the count as valid?

I think the law is that it is entirely at the discretion of the Returning Officer, but common sense and case law would probably say that it all depends on what is "reasonable". If three consecutive counts have all given a winning margin of 50 - or perhaps 50, 47, 46 - then it would just not be reasonable to have a fourth count just because one candidate still doesn't accept it.

If it's a dead heat, it would depend on whether the numbers have been exactly the same for 2 or 3 counts. In each different case it might depend on a handful of spoilt or doubtful papers, each of which would have been scrutinised at length.

Any sensible R.O. Would have to make a reasonable judgement in balancing time/cost, and getting enough certainty to avoid a legal challenge. Theoretically, it would be possible for a R.O. to toss a coin after a dead-heat in one count, with no recount, but doing so would bring a high risk of an election petition and all the attendant bad publicity that would come with it.

[yellowperil]

Feb 28, 2017 18:38:47 GMT finsobruce said:

Feb 28, 2017 18:09:04 GMT Andrew_S said:

I'm curious to know how you know there wasn't a recount in Yeovil in 1945.

yellowperil was there - to judge from his previous post.

well not physically there ( I was only 6) and I am relying on memory which has already proved faulty last time I got on to the 1945 GE - so I don't want to be shot down in flames again, but the Labour candidate was living with us as part of the family and this was much discussed at home so I am pretty sure I'm right this time.

[yellowperil]

Thank you everybody for any number of enlightening posts. I would assume that the most likely cause of a major upset at recount,as against just the odd vote, is a discovery of bundles incorrectly ascribed. That was what happened in my own election referred to in my preamble, when at the fourth count(!) a bundle of 50 ascribed to the LibDems was actually 1 LD vote atop 49 Con ones.Fairly crital when the 3 previous counts had been within a few votes one way or the other. One question is what on earth were the counting agents doing? Which reminds me of another similar case when our counting agent pointed out a similar though smaller error in our favour, which the opposition counting agents had failed to spot. Our candidate was somewhat miffed by our counting agent costing him the election, and took the view that if the opposition counting agents were that dozy they deserved to lose. Our main agent took the moral high ground and backed our counting agent, saying all she was interested in was a result that was correct. I took the pragmatic view that had it gone through unchecked it would almost certainly have come out in the ensuing recount. How say you?

[Andrew_S]

I haven't been able to find it so far in order to check, but in the ITN guide to the 1992 election it mentions that in Hyndburn in 1983 there were I think 7 recounts and the first 2 or 3 of them put the Labour candidate ahead.

I know the Labour majority in Rossendale & Darwen in 1992 rose from 79 to 120 after a recount, and in Sittingbourne & Sheppey in 2005 recounts transformed an initial Tory majority of 130 votes into a Labour one of 79 votes. Apparently a number of bundles of votes were found on the floor that hadn't been counted the first time. That must have been a disappointing experience for the Tory candidate.

[carlton43]

Mar 2, 2017 9:55:29 GMT yellowperil said:

Thank you everybody for any number of enlightening posts. I would assume that the most likely cause of a major upset at recount,as against just the odd vote, is a discovery of bundles incorrectly ascribed. That was what happened in my own election referred to in my preamble, when at the fourth count(!) a bundle of 50 ascribed to the LibDems was actually 1 LD vote atop 49 Con ones.Fairly crital when the 3 previous counts had been within a few votes one way or the other. One question is what on earth were the counting agents doing? Which reminds me of another similar case when our counting agent pointed out a similar though smaller error in our favour, which the opposition counting agents had failed to spot. Our candidate was somewhat miffed by our counting agent costing him the election, and took the view that if the opposition counting agents were that dozy they deserved to lose. Our main agent took the moral high ground and backed our counting agent, saying all she was interested in was a result that was correct. I took the pragmatic view that had it gone through unchecked it would almost certainly have come out in the ensuing recount. How say you?

I used to drill and school counting agents in their duties and responsibilities and purpose. They are scrutineers in the interest of a candidate and probably a political party. They are not officials nor charged with fairness and due process or legality. They are there solely to protect the interests of the candidate. It is their task to gain intelligence about distribution and proportionality of respective votes box by box where possible. But mainly to maximize 'our' vote and diminish the opponent/runner up vote. So the important key element in the actual count process are

1) Watch the enemy bundles not our own. We don't care what is in our bundles.
2) Challenge anything that might possibly be rejected in their bundles.
3) Be diligent to ensure every vote that is not one of theirs (not just our votes) is removed so as to diminish their vote.
4) Attend to the other lesser party bundles SOLELY searching for our votes.
5) Challenge nothing in our bundles.
6) Do NOT point out ballots wrongly in our bundles. 
7) Do NOT point out their ballots wrongly in other party bundles.

[Arthur Figgis]

Mar 2, 2017 11:58:03 GMT carlton43 said:

Mar 2, 2017 9:55:29 GMT yellowperil said:

Thank you everybody for any number of enlightening posts. I would assume that the most likely cause of a major upset at recount,as against just the odd vote, is a discovery of bundles incorrectly ascribed. That was what happened in my own election referred to in my preamble, when at the fourth count(!) a bundle of 50 ascribed to the LibDems was actually 1 LD vote atop 49 Con ones.Fairly crital when the 3 previous counts had been within a few votes one way or the other. One question is what on earth were the counting agents doing? Which reminds me of another similar case when our counting agent pointed out a similar though smaller error in our favour, which the opposition counting agents had failed to spot. Our candidate was somewhat miffed by our counting agent costing him the election, and took the view that if the opposition counting agents were that dozy they deserved to lose. Our main agent took the moral high ground and backed our counting agent, saying all she was interested in was a result that was correct. I took the pragmatic view that had it gone through unchecked it would almost certainly have come out in the ensuing recount. How say you?

I used to drill and school counting agents in their duties and responsibilities and purpose. They are scrutineers in the interest of a candidate and probably a political party. They are not officials nor charged with fairness and due process or legality. They are there solely to protect the interests of the candidate. It is their task to gain intelligence about distribution and proportionality of respective votes box by box where possible. But mainly to maximize 'our' vote and diminish the opponent/runner up vote. So the important key element in the actual count process are

1) Watch the enemy bundles not our own. We don't care what is in our bundles.
2) Challenge anything that might possibly be rejected in their bundles.
3) Be diligent to ensure every vote that is not one of theirs (not just our votes) is removed so as to diminish their vote.
4) Attend to the other lesser party bundles SOLELY searching for our votes.
5) Challenge nothing in our bundles.
6) Do NOT point out ballots wrongly in our bundles. 
7) Do NOT point out their ballots wrongly in other party bundles.

This, especially. The number of counting agents I have seen that have diligently kept a hawk-eye out on ballots going into their own pile. Who cares!

[Deleted]

I've been involved in two recounts, one (my first election!) where I won by 28, IIRC, the other where I lost by 11.

In the first case there were two recounts, resulting in the majority going from 25 to 27 to 28, at which point the RO declared himself satisfied as although the margin was small, the direction of travel was uniform.
In the second case, there were also two recounts, and the Tory majority went (I think) from 6 to 8 to 11. At this point I conceded on similar grounds.

At the 2009 count for the county elections, neither I nor my Tory opponent knew which of us had won, and it was nip and tuck throughout the count (spoiler: I won by 80-odd). Something came up which I had never seen before, or since - a voter had carefully marked an X next to Yallop, Paul (Con), and then cut out that horizontal section of the ballot paper and put it in the box. Bizarrely, there were at least three of these. The RO disallowed them as they didn't have the official mark. There was also one for me which had been similarly treated by the voter - with the difference that as I was at the top of the ballot paper - Paul was at the bottom - the voter had left attached the top part of the ballot paper with the mark on it. As a result, the RO allowed it. At which point Paul Yallop's head exploded.

[ColinJ]

An odd experience stands out from my time attending election counts and is perhaps worth sharing.

At the 1989 European Parliament election for London North-West, the Conservative incumbent, Lord Bethell, seemed to have increased his majority from 7,422 in 1984 to 11,000. This was very much against the voting trends filtering through from other constituencies.

At the end of the count, the bundles of votes were piled on separate tables at the front of the hall allowing watchers from the sidelines to come up with the estimation of an 11,000 majority and this tallied with the numbers shared by the RO with the candidates and agents. The Lib Dem candidate, Chris Noyce, who was running a poor fourth, smelt a rat and instigated a bundle check. What followed was amazing, as the Labour and Lib Dem candidates and agents rifled through the bundles of 'Conservative' papers: bundle after bundle of Toms (Labour) votes were plucked out and held aloft triumphantly, to shrieks of amazement from the audience. It wasn't a case of the top paper being 'wrong', these were 100% Labour bundles!

As time went on and the discrepancies mounted, a football crowd-like chant went up: "Recount! Recount! Recount!", a demand for a full recount of all the ballot papers, not just the bundle check that was going on. This was eventually denied, despite the lack of confidence in the mechanics of the count.  Bethell's declared majority was exactly 7,400, down just 22 from 1984, a swing to Labour of 0.25% which made the result more credible with what was going on elsewhere. There had been a reduction in Bethell's lead of approximately 3,600 votes. I think that each of the 'wrong' bundles held 100 votes, meaning about 18 bundles of Labour papers had been placed on the Conservative table.

I am not a particular lover of Lib Dem politicians at any level, but I have always admired Chris Noyce for his actions that day in preventing a distorted election result being declared. He seemed to be the only person alert enough to realise that all was not well. Although the count was held at Harrow Leisure Centre, it was organised by Brent. At that time Brent had a bit of a reputation as a basket-case borough, giving rise to much shaking of heads, wry smiles and comments along the lines of: "It wouldn't have happened if Harrow had run the count."

[greenchristian]

Mar 2, 2017 12:44:35 GMT Arthur Figgis said:

Mar 2, 2017 11:58:03 GMT carlton43 said:

I used to drill and school counting agents in their duties and responsibilities and purpose. They are scrutineers in the interest of a candidate and probably a political party. They are not officials nor charged with fairness and due process or legality. They are there solely to protect the interests of the candidate. It is their task to gain intelligence about distribution and proportionality of respective votes box by box where possible. But mainly to maximize 'our' vote and diminish the opponent/runner up vote. So the important key element in the actual count process are

1) Watch the enemy bundles not our own. We don't care what is in our bundles.
2) Challenge anything that might possibly be rejected in their bundles.
3) Be diligent to ensure every vote that is not one of theirs (not just our votes) is removed so as to diminish their vote.
4) Attend to the other lesser party bundles SOLELY searching for our votes.
5) Challenge nothing in our bundles.
6) Do NOT point out ballots wrongly in our bundles. 
7) Do NOT point out their ballots wrongly in other party bundles.

This, especially. The number of counting agents I have seen that have diligently kept a hawk-eye out on ballots going into their own pile. Who cares!

At last year's count, somebody from another party told me that they'd spotted somebody consistently putting the wrong number of ballots in one particular party's bundle (it was either always one extra or always one under, I can't remember). If somebody was overstacking your party's bundles, that could affect the result, especially in a higher turnout election. So whilst it's better to focus on everybody else's bundles, there is a risk involved in completely ignoring your own party's bundles.

[carlton43]

Mar 2, 2017 18:05:02 GMT greenchristian said:

Mar 2, 2017 12:44:35 GMT Arthur Figgis said:

This, especially. The number of counting agents I have seen that have diligently kept a hawk-eye out on ballots going into their own pile. Who cares!

At last year's count, somebody from another party told me that they'd spotted somebody consistently putting the wrong number of ballots in one particular party's bundle (it was either always one extra or always one under, I can't remember). If somebody was overstacking your party's bundles, that could affect the result, especially in a higher turnout election. So whilst it's better to focus on everybody else's bundles, there is a risk involved in completely ignoring your own party's bundles.

Valid point GC. watching brief to ensure that a rogue partisan counter is not distorting the result by shorting or stuffing.  Shorting bundles was a way for bank staff fraudsters to cover minor theft. It would work in a tight result and would only be noticed by weighing or a RO who insisted on swopping bundles on a check near the end of a count. Difficult for the average polling agent to notice unless they are skilled counters and can second count from behind a poll clerk.

[Andrew_S]

Mar 2, 2017 17:17:30 GMT ColinJ said:

An odd experience stands out from my time attending election counts and is perhaps worth sharing.

At the 1989 European Parliament election for London North-West, the Conservative incumbent, Lord Bethell, seemed to have increased his majority from 7,422 in 1984 to 11,000. This was very much against the voting trends filtering through from other constituencies.

At the end of the count, the bundles of votes were piled on separate tables at the front of the hall allowing watchers from the sidelines to come up with the estimation of an 11,000 majority and this tallied with the numbers shared by the RO with the candidates and agents. The Lib Dem candidate, Chris Noyce, who was running a poor fourth, smelt a rat and instigated a bundle check. What followed was amazing, as the Labour and Lib Dem candidates and agents rifled through the bundles of 'Conservative' papers: bundle after bundle of Toms (Labour) votes were plucked out and held aloft triumphantly, to shrieks of amazement from the audience. It wasn't a case of the top paper being 'wrong', these were 100% Labour bundles!

As time went on and the discrepancies mounted, a football crowd-like chant went up: "Recount! Recount! Recount!", a demand for a full recount of all the ballot papers, not just the bundle check that was going on. This was eventually denied, despite the lack of confidence in the mechanics of the count.  Bethell's declared majority was exactly 7,400, down just 22 from 1984, a swing to Labour of 0.25% which made the result more credible with what was going on elsewhere. There had been a reduction in Bethell's lead of approximately 3,600 votes. I think that each of the 'wrong' bundles held 100 votes, meaning about 18 bundles of Labour papers had been placed on the Conservative table.

I am not a particular lover of Lib Dem politicians at any level, but I have always admired Chris Noyce for his actions that day in preventing a distorted election result being declared. He seemed to be the only person alert enough to realise that all was not well. Although the count was held at Harrow Leisure Centre, it was organised by Brent. At that time Brent had a bit of a reputation as a basket-case borough, giving rise to much shaking of heads, wry smiles and comments along the lines of: "It wouldn't have happened if Harrow had run the count."

Very interesting indeed. Off topic but possibly to do with bundles being placed in the wrong pile, there are two parliamentary elections where it's strongly suspected by many people that large numbers of votes were wrongly allocated: Chertsey & Walton in 1979 (where the suspicion is that a lot of Tory votes ended up being allocated to the Liberals), and SE Staffs in 1987 (Labour and/or Tory votes allocated to the SDP). Because both seats were won with large majorities, it seems that no-one noticed anything strange at the time.

[Davıd Boothroyd]

Going back, there was definitely a mistake in 1923 in Wandsworth Central, which was recounted in National Archives file LCO 2/2584. The result as declared was:

Sir John Norton-Griffiths, Bt. (Conservative) 8,774
George Pearce Blizard (Labour) 5,294
Edward Maynard Coningsby Denney (Liberal) 4,357

However the total was well under the number of ballot papers verified, and the Labour candidate and agent pursued the issue after the election. It could not have affected the result so no election petition was lodged, but the Lord Chancellors' Department investigated and discovered that a batch of 1,000 Norton-Griffiths votes had incorrectly been counted as 100. So Norton-Griffiths actually polled 9,674.

[piperdave]

I worked in electoral administration for ten years and we were trying to educate candidates and agents to focus on the process and proper tallying of votes rather than the raw number. You should be able to get a recount for a majority of 1 if it is clear that a ballot paper or two have not been counted and tallied properly. But, at a constituency election, a majority of over 400-500 is unlikely to get a full recount unless a bundle count or flick check shows a problem.

I have somewhere in my archives a recount sheet from a local election in Inverclyde in the 80s (I forget off-hand if it was a district or regional election) and there were 7 recounts before the final results were declared. There have been a lot of good posts on how ROs assess the situation and I would agree with all of them. I have been counting agent before and the RO initiated the first recount (a majority of 5 against us in a local council election) which then turned into a majority for us of 25 by the end of the second recount.

I also can't bring myself to agree that electronic counting can't be trusted, although I understand the reasons for saying it and London does seem to have considerable trouble in counting quickly and correctly. We had e-counting for the Scottish local elections in 2012. All counts, including full rescan/recounts, were completed by 6pm. The last declaration was Cromarty Firth ward of Highland Council. The recount produced exactly the same result, and the last seat was decided by, if memory serves, 0.01388 of a vote. No deck of cards required!

Unlike South Ayrshire where in one election (2003 I think), a cut of the cards was required to break the tie in the last seat. Which meant there were 15 Conservatives and 15 Labour members and another tie to break.

One thing I would like to see in relation to recounts is an indication on the declaration of results is that the one-vote majority was as a result of a tie break. You won't necessarily know that unless you were there or have read the local news, which for those of us who are interested in results all across the country, won't always be the case.

[greenchristian]

Mar 2, 2017 23:12:38 GMT piperdave said:

I also can't bring myself to agree that electronic counting can't be trusted, although I understand the reasons for saying it and London does seem to have considerable trouble in counting quickly and correctly. We had e-counting for the Scottish local elections in 2012. All counts, including full rescan/recounts, were completed by 6pm. The last declaration was Cromarty Firth ward of Highland Council. The recount produced exactly the same result, and the last seat was decided by, if memory serves, 0.01388 of a vote. No deck of cards required!

The real problem with electronic counting is fact that it's incredibly difficult to scrutinise the result, so my personal inclination is to not trust it, even though most of the time it will be correct.

I agree with the rest of your post, though.

[justin124]

Mar 2, 2017 11:58:03 GMT carlton43 said:

Mar 2, 2017 9:55:29 GMT yellowperil said:

Thank you everybody for any number of enlightening posts. I would assume that the most likely cause of a major upset at recount,as against just the odd vote, is a discovery of bundles incorrectly ascribed. That was what happened in my own election referred to in my preamble, when at the fourth count(!) a bundle of 50 ascribed to the LibDems was actually 1 LD vote atop 49 Con ones.Fairly crital when the 3 previous counts had been within a few votes one way or the other. One question is what on earth were the counting agents doing? Which reminds me of another similar case when our counting agent pointed out a similar though smaller error in our favour, which the opposition counting agents had failed to spot. Our candidate was somewhat miffed by our counting agent costing him the election, and took the view that if the opposition counting agents were that dozy they deserved to lose. Our main agent took the moral high ground and backed our counting agent, saying all she was interested in was a result that was correct. I took the pragmatic view that had it gone through unchecked it would almost certainly have come out in the ensuing recount. How say you?

I used to drill and school counting agents in their duties and responsibilities and purpose. They are scrutineers in the interest of a candidate and probably a political party. They are not officials nor charged with fairness and due process or legality. They are there solely to protect the interests of the candidate. It is their task to gain intelligence about distribution and proportionality of respective votes box by box where possible. But mainly to maximize 'our' vote and diminish the opponent/runner up vote. So the important key element in the actual count process are

1) Watch the enemy bundles not our own. We don't care what is in our bundles.
2) Challenge anything that might possibly be rejected in their bundles.
3) Be diligent to ensure every vote that is not one of theirs (not just our votes) is removed so as to diminish their vote.
4) Attend to the other lesser party bundles SOLELY searching for our votes.
5) Challenge nothing in our bundles.
6) Do NOT point out ballots wrongly in our bundles. 
7) Do NOT point out their ballots wrongly in other party bundles.

That implies that your commitment to democracy is strictly limited - ie that you have no objection to your candidate being declared elected by foul means if necessary..

[justin124]

Surely pressure can be applied to Returning Officers to grant a recount in practice. If a candidate denied a recount makes it clear that he will criticise in public the way the count has been conducted the Returning Officer would be likely to give way. Similarly the threat of court action would be likely to be sufficient in that a few extra hours of counting is far less of a burden than being dragged through the courts in full public view.

[carlton43]

Apr 6, 2017 9:07:02 GMT justin124 said:

Mar 2, 2017 11:58:03 GMT carlton43 said:

I used to drill and school counting agents in their duties and responsibilities and purpose. They are scrutineers in the interest of a candidate and probably a political party. They are not officials nor charged with fairness and due process or legality. They are there solely to protect the interests of the candidate. It is their task to gain intelligence about distribution and proportionality of respective votes box by box where possible. But mainly to maximize 'our' vote and diminish the opponent/runner up vote. So the important key element in the actual count process are

1) Watch the enemy bundles not our own. We don't care what is in our bundles.
2) Challenge anything that might possibly be rejected in their bundles.
3) Be diligent to ensure every vote that is not one of theirs (not just our votes) is removed so as to diminish their vote.
4) Attend to the other lesser party bundles SOLELY searching for our votes.
5) Challenge nothing in our bundles.
6) Do NOT point out ballots wrongly in our bundles. 
7) Do NOT point out their ballots wrongly in other party bundles.

That implies that your commitment to democracy is strictly limited - ie that you have no objection to your candidate being declared elected by foul means if necessary..

It implies no such thing. It is not my duty as candidate, agent or counting agent to police, control or worry about the process. We are not officers of the count in the manner that lawyers are officers of the court. We are there to look after an interest. We are part of the political 'interest' business. The election is a process for us and run by quite different people who are charged with democracy, fairness and integrity. If 'our man' were to win by a handful of votes because of my perfectly legal precise attention to our interests that maximized our legitimate vote and legitimately removed many votes falsely in the bundles of our opponent, we have done a good job and may have pride in function and purpose. If I also happen to know of a considerable number of votes in our bundles that were wrongly so placed or looked capable of challenge and over which I remained correctly silent and that were not spotted by less assiduous opposition counting agents and less than competent officials under the control of the returning officer, that is of no moment to me or to my side. I am not there as 'part of' the process, but to witness the process and to watch points for my side.....No more and no less.  

[gwynthegriff]

Apr 6, 2017 9:07:02 GMT justin124 said:

Mar 2, 2017 11:58:03 GMT carlton43 said:

I used to drill and school counting agents in their duties and responsibilities and purpose. They are scrutineers in the interest of a candidate and probably a political party. They are not officials nor charged with fairness and due process or legality. They are there solely to protect the interests of the candidate. It is their task to gain intelligence about distribution and proportionality of respective votes box by box where possible. But mainly to maximize 'our' vote and diminish the opponent/runner up vote. So the important key element in the actual count process are

1) Watch the enemy bundles not our own. We don't care what is in our bundles.
2) Challenge anything that might possibly be rejected in their bundles.
3) Be diligent to ensure every vote that is not one of theirs (not just our votes) is removed so as to diminish their vote.
4) Attend to the other lesser party bundles SOLELY searching for our votes.
5) Challenge nothing in our bundles.
6) Do NOT point out ballots wrongly in our bundles. 
7) Do NOT point out their ballots wrongly in other party bundles.

That implies that your commitment to democracy is strictly limited - ie that you have no objection to your candidate being declared elected by foul means if necessary..

Other people get paid to fulfil that role.

[justin124]

Apr 6, 2017 11:52:12 GMT carlton43 said:

Apr 6, 2017 9:07:02 GMT justin124 said:

That implies that your commitment to democracy is strictly limited - ie that you have no objection to your candidate being declared elected by foul means if necessary..

It implies no such thing. It is not my duty as candidate, agent or counting agent to police, control or worry about the process. We are not officers of the count in the manner that lawyers are officers of the court. We are there to look after an interest. We are part of the political 'interest' business. The election is a process for us and run by quite different people who are charged with democracy, fairness and integrity. If 'our man' were to win by a handful of votes because of my perfectly legal precise attention to our interests that maximized our legitimate vote and legitimately removed many votes falsely in the bundles of our opponent, we have done a good job and may have pride in function and purpose. If I also happen to know of a considerable number of votes in our bundles that were wrongly so placed or looked capable of challenge and over which I remained correctly silent and that were not spotted by less assiduous opposition counting agents and less than competent officials under the control of the returning officer, that is of no moment to me or to my side. I am not there as 'part of' the process, but to witness the process and to watch points for my side.....No more and no less.  

But you would know deep down that the democratic will of the electorate had been frustrated - albeit due to the incompetence of the counting staff.

[carlton43]

Apr 6, 2017 13:50:29 GMT justin124 said:

Apr 6, 2017 11:52:12 GMT carlton43 said:

It implies no such thing. It is not my duty as candidate, agent or counting agent to police, control or worry about the process. We are not officers of the count in the manner that lawyers are officers of the court. We are there to look after an interest. We are part of the political 'interest' business. The election is a process for us and run by quite different people who are charged with democracy, fairness and integrity. If 'our man' were to win by a handful of votes because of my perfectly legal precise attention to our interests that maximized our legitimate vote and legitimately removed many votes falsely in the bundles of our opponent, we have done a good job and may have pride in function and purpose. If I also happen to know of a considerable number of votes in our bundles that were wrongly so placed or looked capable of challenge and over which I remained correctly silent and that were not spotted by less assiduous opposition counting agents and less than competent officials under the control of the returning officer, that is of no moment to me or to my side. I am not there as 'part of' the process, but to witness the process and to watch points for my side.....No more and no less.  

But you would know deep down that the democratic will of the electorate had been frustrated - albeit due to the incompetence of the counting staff.

I don't believe in the concept of God and the all-seeing and all knowing. I am not God.

I know no such thing. And I could not possibly know what any possible 'true' result might be unless I personally inspected, approved and counted all of the votes cast and followed back all marks and ballots to the original registers myself. Only then would I know the apparent true result. I would still know nothing of the suppressed and missing ballot box, the mislaid postal votes, the personation votes on election day, the intimidation votes in certain communities and many households, the block votes 'collected and collated' at old peoples homes and other such places.

Would I be concerned that I have caused a false result. No. I didn't cause it in any way. Would I grieve over not having done the due diligence for the officials and made up for their lack of competence? No, none of my business. If I had not been there position would have been the same. Would I think that we might have been damn lucky to benefit by my skill and assiduity? Yes I would. Would I grieve and lament over it on the long winter nights? What do you think? of course I wouldn't. I did my job and I did it very well. Because of it we won. If everyone had worked as hard and diligently we might well have lost. I agree. But we shall never know shall we? My job was to get a result and I accomplished it. I am very pleased with myself. I can easily live with your disapproval.

Has such an event ever taken place in the Carlton world? Twice.