How to Read a Form 34A, Line by Line

Most people who have argued about a Form 34A have never held one. It is a single sheet, and it does four jobs in a fixed order.

It says which station it belongs to. It records what each presidential candidate got there. It accounts for every ballot paper. And it carries the signatures that turn a set of figures into a document somebody is answerable for.

The heading identifies one station and nothing else

The top of the form names the county, the constituency, the ward, the polling centre and the polling station or stream it belongs to.

That sounds clerical. It is the most important part of the page.

A results form with no station identity is not a results form. It is a set of numbers with nowhere to check them against. Every later argument about whether a figure is real begins by finding the station it came from and comparing it with the other copies of the same form, so an agent who accepts a blank or half-filled heading has accepted a document that cannot be verified.

Read it first. Read it against the station you are actually sitting in.

Below the heading the form records the number of registered voters for that station, and the number of votes cast in it.

Those two numbers have a relationship that never changes: votes cast can never exceed registered voters. If they do, something has gone wrong that no explanation offered in the room can fix, and it needs to be recorded in writing before anybody signs.

The candidate block

Then the substance. Each presidential candidate appears with the votes recorded for them at that station.

Two checks here, and an agent who does only these two has done most of the job.

Every candidate on the ballot appears on the form. A missing name is not a formatting choice.

Each figure matches the tally you kept during the count. This is why agents are told to keep their own running tally rather than watch. A number you cannot compare with anything is a number you can only accept.

The form also records ballots the presiding officer ruled invalid, and ballots that were rejected where an agent objected to the rejection.

That line is small and it is not minor. It is the number that decides outcomes in tight seats and the number that almost nobody photographs.

Related: what a rejected ballot actually is.

The arithmetic that has to work

A completed Form 34A should add up on its own terms. The votes recorded for all candidates plus the rejected ballots should equal the votes cast, and the votes cast should not exceed the registered voters for that station.

Do that addition in the room, on paper, before you sign anything. It takes a minute and it is the only check available to you that does not depend on trusting anybody.

The signature panel

At the bottom the presiding officer signs and dates the form, and the agents present are invited to sign.

An agent's signature says the agent was there and saw the figures entered. It is not a waiver of any right to complain later. An agent who declines to sign should say why and have the reason recorded on the form, because a refusal with no recorded reason is worth very little afterwards.

Then take the copy. A signed copy handed to you in the station is the authority for what happened there. The exact layout of the form is prescribed in the Elections (General) Regulations, and that copy is the version of it that matters to you.

The same reading works for all six forms

Nothing on this page is specific to the presidential form.

Form 35A for the member of the National Assembly, 36A for the member of the county assembly, 37A for the governor, 38A for the senator and 39A for the county woman representative all carry a heading, a voter and turnout block, a candidate block, a rejected ballots line and a signature panel. The names in the middle change. The structure does not.

That is deliberate, and it is useful for a campaign, because an agent trained to read one form can read all six. A party fielding candidates for several seats does not need six briefings. It needs one briefing and six blank forms to practise on.

What to practise before 10 August 2027

Print a blank of the form for your seat, sit your agents down, and walk the page top to bottom until every one of them can name the six things on it without looking.

Then run the addition once, out loud, as a group. Agents who have done the arithmetic before polling day do it in a minute on the night. Agents who have not will sign whatever is in front of them at three in the morning, because everyone else is signing and the room wants to go home.

Related: the checks to run before signing.