IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Beauchamps Gardens, BOURNEMOUTH, BH7 7JE

Beauchamps Gardens forms part of a modern housing development in Littledown, in the north-eastern suburbs of Bournemouth.

This is a sports centre offering all the usual facilities.

Hazelton Close forms part of a modern housing development in Littledown, in the north-eastern suburbs of Bournemouth.

Cowell Drive comprises three sides of the squareish main road around this 80s housing estate. It does not actually have any properties itself but joins all the culs-de-sac which do have numbered properties. The modern postbox is emptied finally at 5:30pm on weekdays and at 12:30pm on Saturdays.

Hares Green forms part of a modern housing development in Littledown, in the north-eastern suburbs of Bournemouth.

Looking down from the café area of Image into the main sports hall, which is the venue for Bournemouth's election counts. It is 9:20pm so there are 40 minutes until polls close, whereupon ballot boxes will be brought here. The room is split down the middle, as seen from here, for the two constituencies, Bournemouth East (right-hand side) and Bournemouth West. This is a more straightforward count than the general election in 2015, which was combined with the local elections - meaning that the various counting teams had to be carefully split into individual wards. This time, the teams on each side of the room did not need such differentiation and any ballot box could be given to any team. For the same view well into the process a few hours from now, see Image For more information on the actual process of counting the votes, see Image For the first of the two declarations, see Image

Looking down into the main hall of Image onto the count for the 2017 general election. (The view is unfortunately slightly marred by the wires through the glass.) The scene is far less frenetic than the last general election, in 2015, because that one included the local elections and was therefore more complex (see Image). It is 2:19am and the declarations of the winning candidates for the two constituencies are just over an hour away. The count staff occupy the area behind the tables as we look. The actual counting staff, working in teams of 6, are seen seated at the tables - those on the right-hand half of the room for the Bournemouth East constituency and those on the left for Bournemouth West. Each side has ten teams of counters, the three facing each other that we see below and seven facing the two side walls, backing onto the three that we see. Towards the rear of the room are the various other staff - those controlling the incoming ballot boxes to be counted, those collating the ballots once counted, the adjudicators, Returning Officer, and back-office staff such as IT, security and whatnot. The candidates and their agents may - and do - observe proceedings and can walk freely around to watch whatever table they wish. They are restricted to the far-left, far-right and central aisle, linked directly below us. They may not touch the tables, nor may they interrupt the work of the count staff, but they can observe that the count is conducted properly, and can also get an idea of how the voting is going as each ballot paper is turned face up and later sorted by candidate. For more discussion on the process for counting, see Image For the first of the two declarations, see Image

It is 10:10pm on the day of the general election, and the first ballot boxes to arrive from polling stations will soon be here at Image ready for the count. In front of us are the tools we will need. An overview of the hall is here: Image It is a two-stage process - firstly the Verification, then the Count. As each ballot box arrives at the venue, it is checked in along with the various unused stationery, voter lists etc. The ballot accounts give the total number of votes contained within each box. Once everything is satisfactorily checked off, the process can begin. The VERIFICATION involves the ballot box being emptied onto a count staff team's table (the count staff work in teams of 6), and each ballot is turned up the right way and put into piles to be counted. At this stage, they are NOT sorted by candidate; the purpose is to establish that the number of ballots present matches the number supposed to be in the box. Each count staff will count the papers into 20, denoted by a paperclip; these are then swapped with the neighbouring person and double-checked. Each time five batches of 20 are reached, they are put into a rubber band to denote 100. Finally, a bulldog clip is attached to any residual batch of 1-19 and a Post-It note attached to signify the number. The six staff attending to each box will then pool their residual ballots to make up further 20s and be left with no more than one odd batch containing fewer. If the numbers do not tally, the entire boxful is re-counted from scratch. Once verified, these are taken to a central table. The ballots from each ballot box are combined here, and then collated into batches of 1000 votes ready for the second stage. The second stage, the COUNT, is where the votes are separated for each candidate. This election has five candidates, so we are aiming to have five piles of votes which total 1000. Any ballots with queries are set aside for adjudication and these are either put back into the pile if accepted as a valid vote, or sent for adjudication. The process is similar to the Verification in that paperclips denote 20 and rubber bands denote 100, but a piece of paper of the candidate's colour is wrapped around each set of 100 for that person. When the number of votes for each party are confirmed to total 1000 (less any sent for adjudication), the batch is signed off and taken to the collation point where they are displayed for candidates and their agents to view - eventually wrapped up further into 500s and 1000s. When every batch of 1000 votes has been counted (plus the inevitable final smaller batch), the results can be assimilated and the declaration made. See Image for the first declaration, made at 3:25am.