The campaign to Save General Election Night gets a big boost today. After no fewer than 220 MPs signed the Early Day Motion on the matter in the last parliamentary session (making it the 20th most signed motion out of 2421), today I have news of polls of MPs and PPCs conducted by ComRes on the subject.
The latest ComRes parliamentary panel of 151 MPs found 90% in favour of counting as soon as possible after voting, with 91% of both Conservative and Labour MPs, and 82% of Lib Dems all taking that view. Click here to download the full table.
Meanwhile, a separate ComRes survey of Conservative MPs and PPCs in target seats found a total of 95% in favour of counting on the night. Click here to download that table in full.
The matter was also raised on the floor of the Commons again today at the parliamentary backwater that is questions to the MP representing the Electoral Commission, who is Conservative MP, Gary Streeter. The Deputy Conservative Chief Whip, Andrew Robathan, was keen to discover the latest position of the Electoral Commission and the various local authorities around the country which are charged with running the counts.
The exchange is as below and Gary Streeter's defence of the Commission's refusal to take a view on the matter is less than impressive. He repeats the mantra being used to defend the switching of counts to Friday, ie that we need to be sure that the count is accurate and that voters have confidence in the result. Is anyone suggesting that overnight counts held at elections for decades have been inaccurate?! And will there not in fact be a number of voters who have less confidence in a result where the ballot papers have been snaffled away and stored overnight somewhere pending a Friday count?
Here's the exchange from this morning:
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