Martin Bartos, !MP

He kept his deposit, which is something of a landmark for the Scottish Green Party. At one point it was looking dicey, but somehow about six bundles of a hundred votes each must have escaped our notice, since he was well over the required 5% of the poll. Only 1% behind the Conservatives, too.

The count, meanwhile, was quite an experience. Glasgow turns out to be rather more modern in the way it presents itself than Leeds was -- heck, they use sans-serif type, which I don't think had even been invented when Leeds last updated its presses. Also, the count is held in the bland modernity of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, so the result is disappointingly more professional than I'd expected. But it still consists of table after table of three nameless workers sifting through ballot papers and flattening them into piles. Later, they sort the piles by vote cast, at which point some triads reveal astonishing incompetence while others flow like choreographed dancers, their hands flashing across the table with nary a collision. Finally, the piles are counted, recounted, and checked.

...which all takes about four hours. If I omit to recall the lengthy 'standing around waiting for something to happen' parts, however, it was quite exciting. I'm glad, however, that I thought to take the long lens for my camera, since I got to snipe pictures of people with clipboards and interestingly earnest faces. Pictures to follow, since I'm still living in a world where polling stations are staffed by grannies, type has block serifs, and cameras shoot on real film.