Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

There's been huge fuss in recent weeks because a lot more results at this General Election won't be declared until the next day, Friday.

The website has a . There's a cross-party effort on , and in the Commons last week the Conservative MP Peter Bone attacked what he called "tin-pot, upstart little town clerks" for deciding to count the following day, Friday, rather than overnight.

Even the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, has weighed in, and last week told Prime Minister Gordon Brown to sort the problem out, saying:

"Frankly, it should not be beyond the wit and sagacity of humankind - or indeed of local authorities - to ensure that that happens. I politely suggest to the House that what is required is not a passive acceptance of the particular views of individual local authority chief executives, but rather an assertion of leadership nationally and politically, at a local level, to achieve what I sense the House is uniting in wishing to see."

Let me upset a few Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ colleagues - and many political anorak friends - by saying I back the tin-pot town clerks.

First, the statistics are hardly revolutionary. The Electoral Commission told me today that:

• 586 returning officers have so far replied to their survey.
• Of these, 330 plan to start their count on polling day - ie declare overnight.
• And another 17 will do that if the election ISN'T 6 May.
• Just 52 so far have said they will start on the Friday morning, and 187 are still undecided.
• So most seats will be counted overnight, with maybe 100-200 on the Friday.

That will string out the drama, surely. In all probability we'll still know the outcome of the election before midnight, simply by analysing the swing.

It's possible, though, that like February 1974, we won't know who has won until Friday afternoon. I doubt whether civilisation as we know it will collapse as a result.

Anyway, overnight counts aren't really that traditional. The veteran psephologist David Butler tells me that up until 1950 most counts were held the next day.

I love election night, but I also believe in stretching out the pleasures in life. If you're enjoying a good meal, you don't wolf it down in a few minutes.

And having a lot more declarations on the Friday will make it easier to digest all the results, instead of having to cope with a huge rush between midnight and 3am.

But there's a more serious argument for delay.

I've done a lot of stories on election fraud in recent years, and the government's introduced new rules since 2005 so that election administrators have to check all postal votes to see that voters' signatures and dates of birth comply with those on the application form. By law they have to check 20% of the postal votes, but the guidelines suggest ALL postal votes should be checked. Quite right too.

And this is a skilled job, that requires special training, and can't be done by any old bank clerk or unemployed youth recruited off the street.

True, a lot of this work can be done in advance, as most postal votes arrive before polling day, but not all of them. Another new law allows voters to bring their postal ballots along to a polling station at any time on election day. So substantial numbers of postal ballots may have to be checked overnight.

And you cannot expect them to made sensible decisions about accuracy in the early hours of the morning, having been up since 5am the previous day.

Sue Reid, the secretary of the , works for South Leicestershire Council where they're planning to count on the Friday. She tells me that in 2001, when the General Election and council polls were held on the same day, she herself started work at 5am, and the result for the Parliamentary seat of Blaby wasn't announced until 6am the next day - a 25-hour shift. She got home at 8am, but then had to back at the count for 11am for the local election results. It's a mad way to run things, which is why South Leicestershire has chosen to postpone matters until the counting staff are properly refreshed.

It's ridiculous for journalists and politicians people to berate returning officers for allowing fraud, and then berate them for being too slow.

So roll on the next day counts. Let's have more of them.

And with a bit of luck the overall result may come throught after 10.30pm on the Friday evening, just in time for the nation to hear the outcome on Newsnight.