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Returning Officers (Accountability)

That is a real concern. It is not one that I was going to cite, but I have seen it expressed elsewhere, and it should be addressed by those places that have opted for the Friday count. I return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Donohoe). Returning officers and the Electoral Commission—in its briefing for this debate—cite the new checking requirements for postal ballots as a possible reason to defer the count to the next day. The Interim Electoral Management Board for Scotland makes the entirely unsubstantiated claim that checking the signatures and dates of birth on the postal votes received on the day could add two to three hours to the count, and it offered not a shred of justification about why that should be.