No High Tech Voting for North Warwickshire

Voters in North Warwickshire will contiue to have their cards counted in the traditional way – by hand – when they go to the polls in May.

HI-TECH vote-counting machines will however be brought in for the first time in this year’s council elections in Leamington, Warwick and Stratford.

The government has chosen Warwick and Stratford district councils to jointly pilot an electronic scheme, aimed at drastically cutting the time needed to count votes on election night.

Voters in these areas will receive new ballot papers with passport-style barcodes. Once voters have put a cross in the box, staff will feed the papers into high-speed scanners and all the election results will be automatically shown on big screens within three hours.

In other parts of the country, there are plans to increase voter participation by using internet and telephone voting or putting extra polling stations in certain areas.