Electronic vote counting machines go through major stress test

NEW machines to count votes in next year's local government elections have been put through their paces in a large-scale test.

They were used to electronically count 160,000 ballot papers in a "stress test" in Perth. The machines will replace those which caused delays and led to votes going uncounted in the joint council and Holyrood elections of 2007.

The test was carried out by the Scottish Government and Logica, the company responsible for implementing the machines.

Logica's Scottish managing director Martin Ewart said: "This is an exciting and challenging project. Come the local government elections next year, the new system will need the capacity to scan millions of ballot papers in 32 count centres around Scotland, electronically count the votes and deliver the results to the returning officers.

"Compared to a manual count which would take at least two to three days, e-counting will be much faster and more transparent."

Local government minister Aileen Campbell who watched the start of the test said: "This is the third stage of the rigorous testing of the e-counting system ahead of the 2012 elections."