"If dimpled ballots don't count," the strategist said, "it's over."

A valid ballot should count wherever it is filed.

If the ballots had counted, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives would have shrunk to 52.9 percent.

The high turnout indicated that voters had confidence that their ballots would count, and the election went forward without incident.

In effect, each ballot counts toward the election of only one candidate and that candidate may not necessarily be the voter's first choice.

The ballot boxes are then taken to counting centres to be opened and the ballots counted.

This caused a controversy, and the law was changed so that blank ballots would not count towards the total.

The miners' ballot counted as a matter of national public concern, a mini-general election.

William Shambora, 53, is the kind of diligent voter who once assumed that his ballot always counted.

But absentee ballots cast before that day will still count.