Wish me luck with the grass skirts!

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On Friday this week I shall be making grass skirts, but not the type you are probably thinking of! There are local elections taking place this Thursday, and in Leicester the votes will be counted the following day, both for the City Council and the Mayor. I shall be one of 500 people who will spend the day counting the votes, which is something I have done during elections for several years past. My particular job will be dealing with the ballot papers on which the voters have made a "split decision". In all the council wards they elect more than one councillor - either two or three - so voters can place their X in as many boxes on the ballot paper as there are councillors being elected. If they vote for a single party - which puts up as many candidates are there are seats available - then it is easy to count their votes, but if they do not - they don't use all their votes or they vote for candidates from different parties or for independents - it is a bit more tricky. That is where the grass skirts come into play. What one has to do is stick the ballot papers (20 at a time) on to a paper grid so that they overlap, with the voting boxes visible along the right-hand edge. The paper on the extreme left will still have the candidates' names visible. It is then possible to see how votes there are for each candidate across the 20 papers and to write this figure in a summary box on the right-hand edge of the form. The forms will then be gathered together and the totals transferred to a master form and then included in the totals for all the candidates. When you pick up one of these forms, with its 20 overlapping ballot papers attached, you have something that looks vaguely like a grass skirt!