Saving General Election night

Jonathan Isaby of ConservativeHome has (along with Tom Harris and Mark Pack) been running a campaign on an issue close to every political anorak's heart - making sure general election votes are counted overnight when the polls close, ensuring our traditional election night coverage, complete with Dimbleby,

I now have an excuse to blog about it, since ComRes have run a poll question on it for the Local Government Association which found 50% of respondents wanted the votes to be counted overnight, with 22% preferring them to be counted the following day. 27% didn't much care either way.

I've slight reservations over the question, which framed next day counting as purely a cost-cutting measure when the reason councils often quote is the need to check the signatures and dates of birth on large numbers of postal votes, but all the same, it suggests the balance of public opinion is in favour of our traditional election night.