Voting in European Elections on 4th June 2009 was poor. Only 28.6 per cent of the 278,380 people eligible to do so, cast their vote in Fife. Of which there were 322 papers spoilt in Fife, compared to 154 in Perth and Kinross and an amazing 4490 across Scotland. Interestingly Labour just beat SNP to first place in Fife while elsewhere the result was second to the SNP.

You will all know that two SNP, two Labour, one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat where elected to the European Parliament. But what you night not be aware of is the lengthy procedure is, during the count. There are no machines but everything is counted by hand there being about 400 counting staff in all.

The first step is to count all the ballot papers just to find out how many there are. The second is to share the ballot papers amongst the tables on the count floor. On each of the tables 6 to 8 members of staff sort the ballot papers into baskets according to whom the voter selected that is by Political Party.

Once a basket is full the papers are then transferred to the boxes on stage, in bundles of 50. The bundles are site checked to ensure all the votes are in the correct box. Then from the number of full bundles the result is then counted.

Once all papers have been sorted and put in the appropriate boxes, the returning officer for the area announces the result. This was then transmitted to Edinburgh from each area and in this case, we reported from Fife Council in Glenrothes.

(Article by Charles Litster)