Wednesday 4 May 2011

An Apology

I am sorry to say that due to personal reasons I will not be doing live coverage of the count in Sheffield this year.

The information I have had from the Electoral Services of Sheffield City Council on count timings is as follows:

Firstly, the count(s) will take place at the English Institute Of Sport (EIS), Coleridge Road, Sheffield, S9 5DA.

The count will commence at 10pm (close of poll) on Thurs 5th May. All ballot boxes (local, parish & referendum) will be received at EIS and the contents verified.

Once the referendum ballot papers have been verified they will be locked away securely.

The local and parish counts will continue overnight and results declared as and when (predicting 12.45 am - 3.00am)

The national referendum count will commence at 4pm on Friday 6th May and we will therefore be getting the referendum ballot papers back out at that point to count up the Yes and No votes. We then report our Sheffield result to the Regional Counting Officer (Wakefield) but will not be in a position to make any kind of Sheffield declaration until we are given approval to do so by the Regional Counting Officer. We have no information on what time a national result of the referendum will be declared.