EXCLUSIVE: A three-day election count, and a pause between the polls closing tonight and ballot verification tomorrow morning, has raised serious questions over arrangements for the count, which is taking place at the Fairfield Halls.
By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor
All the votes cast in today’s local elections across Croydon will be left unverified somewhere in the Fairfield Halls for at least 10 hours after the polls close.
Sources from different political parties have raised serious concerns over a lack of security in a public building for such a prolonged period.
Elaine Jackson, the council’s interim chief executive and the Returning Officer for the elections of Croydon’s Mayor and 70 councillors across the borough’s 28 wards, refused to comment when Inside Croydon asked her to explain how she intended to ensure that the votes will be tamper-proof.
When the polls close at 10pm, the ballot boxes from Croydon’s 153 polling stations, from Crystal Palace in the north to Coulsdon in the south, will be taken to the count venue, which this year is the Fairfield Halls arts complex on Park Lane. At most local authorities, the ballot boxes, once delivered and unloaded, would immediately be verified by election officials while observed by the various parties’ election agents, prior to the count beginning as soon as possible, and with results being declared through the night.
Returning officer: Elaine Jackson
But not in Croydon in 2026.
Jackson has decided to extend the vote count over two days, with voting in the mayoral election not being counted until tomorrow, Friday May 8, while votes in the local election count will only begin at 9am on Saturday – 35 hours after the polls closed.
“Verification for both counts will begin at 8am on Friday May 8, ” a statement from the council says.
That’s a 10-hour gap between the ballot boxes being secure in the polling stations and the votes being verified
“You have to say it will be a matter of serious concern that people’s votes will remain unverified for such a long time, under uncertain security arrangements,” one experienced Croydon politico told Inside Croydon.
“Ballot boxes could go missing, and no one would be any the wiser.”
Croydon’s arrangements this year reflect the experience from 2022, when an overnight count at Trinity School starting just before midnight on Thursday dragged on until tea time on the Sunday, in what was an omnishambles of disorganiation, making Croydon a laughing stock across the country. Jackson, who was then the council’s assistant chief executive, will have been a leading figure in the organisation of the 2022 count.
That count began badly, when some election agents and observers were denied access to monitor the verification. “It is an essential part of the process, to ensure all is done correctly, for election agents to be able to oversee the verification of the votes.”
According to the Electoral Commission, “The verification of the used, unused and spoilt ballot papers is a legal requirement, and is central to the declaration of accurate results.”
Verification is the tallying up process when the number of ballot papers issued is checked against the number of votes cast. “This is a record of the number of ballot papers expected and the number of ballot papers counted, along with an explanation for any variances.
“Any agent may make a copy of this,” says the Electoral Commission’s advice to Returning Officers and election officials. “You should make copies available for the agents present once verification has been completed.
“The verification statement is a key communication tool that will help to ensure that candidates and agents are confident that the processes at the verification and count are transparent and that they will produce an accurate result.
“As with all aspects of the verification and count process, transparency is key and the process followed should be clear to all present.”
According to Croydon Council, “Once we have verified the ballot papers for both the Mayoral and council elections, the ballot papers for the council elections will be placed back in the ballot boxes and sealed.
“Those boxes will remain in the count areas in locked cages until Saturday morning, when we will begin counting the votes for the council elections.”
And the council also said: “Security staff will remain on duty all night with the ballot boxes containing the council ballot papers.”
The council says that candidates will have the option to place their own seals on ballot boxes following the completion of the verification.
Count base: the Fairfield Halls have been booked for three days for Croydon’s election count, the first time the counil-owned arts venue has been used for elections in 20 years
“What remains a concern,” according to one source who has been an observer at election counts for many years, “is that unaccountable period between the ballot boxes arriving and the verification process starting the next day.
“It presents candidates and agents with a long, additional period before they can begin to do their jobs at the count, and a period where security at the Fairfield Halls will need to be perfect.”
Polling stations across the borough opened at 7am. They will close at 10pm, after which you will not be allowed to cast your votes – in the mayoral and local council elections – unless you have managed to make it into any queue at the polling station before the 10pm deadline.
All registered voters have been allocated to a specific polling station and can only vote at that station. All voters were sent a poll card at the beginning of April, with information about where your polling station is located. You can also use a polling station finder to find your polling station using your home postcode.
Following a review of Croydon’s polling districts and polling stations in 2024, some new polling stations will be used at these elections. You may have a different polling station today from previous elections, “so please check your poll card carefully before you go to vote”, the council says.
You do not need your polling card to vote (though it speeds up the check-in process with staff).
But everyone must produce approved photo ID before they are provided with their ballot papers. Visit the Electoral Commission website by clicking here to check what forms of ID are accepted at polling stations.
Some votes have already been verified, even before the polls opened today – postal votes.
Some agents and candidates will have been present at the council offices earlier this week for the initial checks on the thousands of votes submitted by post. Indications from this highly confidential process confirmed that voting in the mayoral elections will be very close.
Because of Jackson’s decision to extend the election count over three days, this year, for the first time since 2010, there will be no Inside Croydon overnight rolling election report.
We will be providing a live reporting service from the count throughout Friday and Saturday, until the final councillor is elected, as well as offering in-depth and informed analysis of the outcome, with a special Croydon Insider podcast, exclusive content for our paying subscribers, to be recorded on Sunday.
Provided, of course, the election count has finished by then, that is…
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“Ballot boxes could go missing, and no one would be any the wiser.””
Well that particular politico can’t be very experienced in elections.
Every ballot box and its associated paperwork is logged when it arrives at the count centre and any missing box(es) would soon be identified because it’s paper work would be missing and immediate enquiries made of the presiding officers as they are responsible for that particular box as well.
Electoral administration staff will be the ones receiving the boxes from presiding officers as they deliver them on Thursday night after the polls close and doing the logging in. These processes have been in place for years whether the count is held the same night or delayed until the next day (or indeed the day after).
And ballot boxes went missing in Croydon as recently as 2024, when the count was held at Fisher’s Folly, Chris. The error was discovered and the boxes recovered only because the verification process was done very early on – and not after a delay of 10 hours or more.
It is that real experience which has raised concerns this time round.
Maybe there should be a webcam watching the ballot boxes. Seriously.
My confidence in our electoral system was rocked when living in a flat in a major UK city centre and polling cards weren’t even delivered to us. I only knew there was a local election taking place when I heard it mentioned on Radio 4. I went down and cast my vote and I was listed. I wrote to the Electoral Commission about not receiving a poll card but they never replied.
Maybe more to do with the post. Some posties had a scattergun approach to the letterboxes in a block I lived in, things could go anywhere including the block over the road.
Well I did mention the problem when I went to vote and they didn’t seem bothered in the slightest. Plus the Electoral Commission didn’t write back to me. Sorry state of affairs. I wouldn’t like to suggest something more sinister was happening like whole swathes of people living in fairly transient accommodation were not being given their right to vote by unscrupulous people arranging for voting literature not to be delivered. That would be a very serious offence.
Why are they dragging the count out over two days anyway? Turnout is usually very low at local elections (circa 30%, and may be lower in Croydon with little enthusiasm for voting for any candidates in an incompetent borough).
It shouldn’t take long at all to count a handful of voting papers in the bottom of each “huge” ballot box ! Cynical? Moi ?!
In 2022 there were 97k ballots cast for Mayor a 35% turnout.
Tomorrows Mayoral count will take place after the verification process takes place in the morning.
That in itself is a huge undertaking – and has to be done box by box separating the Mayor and Councillor papers and reconciling them against the number of papers issued.
Once verification has been completed the count can then start but takes time to sort the papers in to candidate piles and then count those piles. The more candidates there are the longer it takes.
The council count will take place on Saturday after the counters have had a good nights rest.
Councillor counts are more complicated because it takes even longer to sort the ballot papers in to candidates (or combinations of) and then actually count the votes. In some wards there are over a dozen candidates. There are 28 wards so 28 separate counts to complete.
Croydon isn’t the only council counting on Friday (for Mayor) and Saturday (for Councillors)
Not quite correct, Chris.
The mayoral and council election ballots are already sorted at source: voters have yellow and white voting papers, and they cast their votes into separate ballot boxes.
The council got its counts in a twist in 2022 because (a) they couldn’t cope with the transferable vote malarkey (far too complicated for Katherine Kerswell); and (b) no one had thought to book Trinity School for the Sunday for the never-ending count of the ward votes.
Can you say which other London councils have extended their election count into Saturday?
The suggestion that we have heard is that the council has made so many of its more experienced staff redundant that they have been forced to extend the counting period.
“The suggestion that we have heard is that the council has made so many of its more experienced staff redundant that they have been forced to extend the counting period.”
Can inexperienced council staff not count? Perhaps council stsff need 20 years of experience to be able to count ?!
Experience counts for a lot – as was demonstrated at the 2022 count.
But you cannot count ballot papers with staff you don’t any longer have.
Even if that is the case the separate boxes will still be verified Friday morning because people can’t follow basic instructions and will still put their papers in the wrong box and the ‘wrong’ papers extracted and swapped.
Tower Hamlets is also counting Mayor on Friday and councillors on Saturday.
Council election boxes are to be verified on Saturday, says Croydon Council.
Which goes against electoral commission guidance which states
“If electors have been asked to place their ballot papers in separate ballot boxes for each poll, the different ballot boxes should be verified at the same time, either at adjacent tables simultaneously or one after the other at the same table and any ballot paper placed in the ‘wrong’ box should be moved to the correct ballot box.”
Croydon not following the rules or law? Well I never…