Here we go! Tower Hamlets starts to count

TOWER HAMLETS IS counting. The candidates, their supporters, the press (seven of us so far), Council staff, venue staff and the police are spread out in a cavern in the Excel Centre in Newham. And the ballot boxes are in.

The polls have closed after a long day of voting for the Directly Elected Mayor of Tower Hamlets – to whom virtually all power has been delegated from the Council – and 45 councillors, who have virtually no power as they have delegated it all to the mayor.

The first stage of the count is verification: opening each ballot box to check that it contains the same number of ballots as were issued in respect of that box. Then the votes cast for councillors will be put aside and the votes for the mayoral election will be counted.

If the count of mayoral votes is straightforward, there may be a result by 4am. There is little speculation about the mayoral result at the moment – though the close of poll news was that Labour was confident that the two independent challengers would be wiped out.

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