Wednesday, May 04, 2005

The BBC are ahead of the game with election results...

I offered to help out at the Morley Election count last week as it seemed unlikely that I'd get on Robert Finnigan's shortlist of scrutineers.

I got home this afternoon to find out that I have been appointed as a counting assistant, but for the Elmet Count. It takes place in Leeds Civic Hall tomorrow night and it could be a long night if there are recounts. However, I do get £40 for the pleasure of taking part, or to be more precise, £31.20 after Gordon gets his slice.

I was a bit curious to find out who was standing in Elmet (a Ward I had not even heard of before today) so I went onto the BBC Election 2005 Website to find out. I was a bit puzzled, however, to find that the 2001 results were still up. My puzzlement turned to incredulity, however, when I realised that the results were actually for the 2005 Candidates, a Labour Hold, 2.5% swing from Labour to Conservative.

What was going on? Did the BBC already have all of the results? was our election process a sham? Are we living in Zimbabwe? More importantly, was I going to get swindled out of my £40 (before tax)?

When I checked again slightly later, the page had reverted to the more predictable no votes yet scenario which if it is pre-10pm on the 5th, can be found here.

Fortunately, I had the forethought to do a save webpage, complete, which I have put up on my own website for your enjoyment.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

There used to be a joke about the Russian burglar who broke into the Kremlin and stole next year's election results.......

Shades said...

I used to have a Boss who used to book sick leave in the holiday diary...

Anonymous said...

Quite incredible really. Will be interesting to compare against actual result tomorrow (Friday am even)Shame it wasn't the M&R projected result!

Anonymous said...

The BBC website ran loads of rehearsals using test data in the weeks and months before polling day, to make sure all the systems were working OK. Unfortunately a slight cock-up meant a batch of them got published on the live site by mistake at the time indicated by the date stamp on the screen grab. In this case the real result actually wasn't that far out (except for the BNP vote total and overall swing).

Anonymous said...

yep, their editor talks about it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4521855.stm

anyway, i thought their on the night stuff was great, faster than tv when i was watching!