It’s 10pm on the 23rd June 2016, and every household in the UK is settling down in their living rooms to watch a rollercoaster ride of EU referendum results from David Dimbleby et al.
Something else that you can file under “political pipe dreams” may be knowing the result of the referendum at a reasonable time after the polls close. In the only other UK-wide referendums, the 1975 vote on then European Economic Community membership and the adoption of the Alternative Vote, counting votes started a day after the polls closed in the former, while in the latter a number of other elections were taking place on the same day.
This makes predicting the timing of the result difficult, especially as recounts may be required if some of the recent polling is any indication of how the electorate will vote. If we take the AV referendum as the closest example, even though the notion was rejected by a clear margin the result was not known until 28 hours after the polls closed.
Great Britain will make up a total of 380 counting areas on the night, while Northern Ireland and Gibraltar will have their own counting areas, bringing the total to 382. There will also be 11 Regional Counting Officers acting as the night’s stars, deciding whether to sanction recounts for close calls.
After the counts are totalled it will be off to Manchester, powerhouse of the government’s devolution agenda, for the final announcement. Whether the Electoral Commission’s choice of location will smack of irony remains to be seen, with a leave vote potentially spurring on devolution of a more permanent sort for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
When all is said and done, an interesting nuance is that the vote itself isn’t legally binding. Cue a legal challenge from Vote Leave in the event of a vote to Remain?