At the 2009 Euros that is.

My point was more general rather than results from any specific seat – only quoted Sunderland as they have a track record in the race for early declarations.

Thanks for the tip about Wrexham. But then, as one of the smallest seats in the country, its obviously easier to count 30k votes than 50k or more…

On the other hand, they may find themselves in a recount situation (we may see a lot of those next time, not just due to close results, but as Labour incumbents refuse to believe they have not won) and this could delay the declaration. Wrexham was one of the many Welsh seats in which Cons beat Lab.

My misunderstanding did at least make me look at some Durham seats which may not have been receiving much attention recently on this site, but which currently look to be in the balance between Labour and Conservative.

I have particular objection to combining either Scotland or Wales with English regions for analysis purposes. Because of the presence of nationalist parties specific to Scotland and Wales, and constituting a substantial proportion of the vote there, these countries/regions cannot be legitimately combined with English regions as statisitcially the sample is not then being drawn from a homogeneous population. (And yes, this applies to the total GB figures too). And historically Scotland and Wales have often behaved differently from England in relation to voting intentions and indeed actual General Election voting.

I’m glad people have picked up the issue about election night. Could I point out that similar issues apply during and indeed before the election? The campaign will use different technology – websites, Twitter, Facebook etc – from any previous election. The availability of such information will affect who is involved in the election and how there voting intentions are formed. I think that when we comment on threads for individual seats, particularly, we tend to think of opinions being changed and, perhaps more, voters being got out to the polls, by traditional street campaigning etc., complemented by newspapers and local radio. It ain’t so. It is noticeable that the more clued up candidates are already maximising their use of means of making themsleves known on-line to their voters. I don’t think we have discussed the psephological implications of this nearly enough.

P.S. Paul H-J. I used to live in Cardiff and have pointed out that for a compact city they have in the past been perhaps surprisingly slow to declare their results. I don’t recollect Glasgow counting quickly either. Wrexham is traditionally the first Welsh seat to declare.

Well, the decision on when to hold the count lies with the returning officer – typically CEO of the relevant local authority. Factors to be taken into account include logistics, security and cost.

The bureaucrats who want to delay the count for cost reasons demonstrate a total lack of understanding of the emotional element of democracy. If it was possible to count the votes overnight in the 1950s, why on earth should it not be done in the 21st century.

If Cameron were to make clear to the CCA that councils should endeavour to count on Thursday except in those rural areas which have traditionally waited until Friday for practical reasons, then we could expect most Conservative run councils to count on Thursday night. As these far outnumber Labour councils, it would not matter what instructions or guidance the government issued.

Moreover, Labour run councils may then feel obliged to follow suit – after all, Gordon would not want the overnight figure to be Con 250 Lab 0 with 350 seats yet to declare would he ?

Finally, if, as seems likely, the GE should coincide with the May 2010 local elections (covers practically all of England bar a few unitaries) then it should be agreed that the two ballot papers should be separated, and the Westminster papers counted first (Thursday night) and the Council ballots counted on Friday.

Note – if GE is on same day as locals this will inevitably delay the results in those areas with both, even if counted on Thursday. We may thus find that the first results come in from Cardiff, Glasgow and Edinburgh rather than Sunderland or other English seats.