.The big dEE .

There is no uniform system of vote counting at general elections the electoral commission conceded on Tuesday, speaking before the public administration and constitutional affairs committee.

In the select committee’s review of the 2024 general election, the chief executive of the electoral commission Vijay Rangarajan told members of parliament that vote counting methods vary between constituencies. “We have seen significant variation in the way counts are done. Some is done on paper, some people are using excel spreadsheets some people are using electoral management software,” he said.

Rangarajan said that not all vote counting methods are born equal. “Several of those [methods] fill me with worry not least given the cyber threat, but given the possibility of error.”

Reassuringly, Rangarajan added the commission plans to bring “some of these systems … at least into the 20th century.”

The officials did not indicate any plan to unify vote counting systems for future elections.

Election legislation is almost incomprehensible, according to the electoral commission chairman John Pullinger. “The whole cannon of law and guidance and everything that sits underneath it has become so unwieldy it’s almost impossible to administer or follow … this was a huge piece of work just to understand the law we were expected to implement,” Pullinger said, talking about adapting to recent legislation.