Dear Editor,
One may recall that the post independence method of counting votes was done at the Divisional (now Regional) level. All ballot boxes from every polling station were escorted to a central place at the Divisional (now Regional) levels. Counting was usually done at the Commissioner’s (now Governor’s) offices in one big hall where all political party senior representatives were present with their agents and other observers.
Results were then announced accordingly after counting the marbles from every polling station and then aggregated for the entire constituency. That is to say, the results announced were those that were counted at the central place (which was more or less on the spot of the Commissioner’s (Governor’s) office.
In the same vein with a new and more decentralised system of vote counting being done on the spot at each polling station, the results to be announced should be from each of the polling stations rather than adopting the old system of announcement by aggregated results per constituency as if counting was done at a central place of the Division or Region.
In other words, the constituency announcements of all on the spot counts should be disaggregated by polling station since that is the new system of counting. Putting it another way, announcements of results should be done according to where the votes have been counted. They were previously counted and announced at the Divisions (Regions). Thus, they should or could now be announced according to where they were counted on the spot for each polling station.
This approach may also be useful for voter pattern analysis by future political parties to have the disaggregated figures of the votes by polling station. Statistics is a useful tool for planning. Just thinking aloud.
