Numbers junkie still twitchy

As noted previously, the final poll-by-poll results of last spring's Quebec election, in which over four million ballots were cast, were available for download 85 days later. That's an average of 47,185 ballots finalized per day.

In the last federal election, 14,817,159 votes were cast. Final official results were released 49 days later, for an average of 302,391 votes made official per day.

The official, detailed, results of the 2007 Ontario election, in which 4,423,898, ballots were cast, are available for download at Elections Ontario.

The Ontario election was held one day after the last Newfoundland and Labrador provincial election, in which, unofficially, 278,328 ballots were cast.

Today marks 205 days since the last ballot was dropped in a box, for an average pace for the preparation of the Chief Electoral Officer's final report of 1358 ballots per day... a figure which gets slower with every passing day.

Again, just because the legislation, for some reason, gives the CEO nine months to prepare the official count, doesn't mean he's got to take nine months. Even in democracy-challenged Zimbabwe, it only took 34 days.