Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson <ken_nicolson@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I noticed that within half an hour of the polls closing there seemed
>to be results from single-seat constituencies coming in. How do they
>get them done so fast, considering they have to read each voting slip
>to check the name, versus just an X in the right box in other
>countries.

Were the results announcing the final tally for each seat?

Don't know about Japan, but here (in Canada), each seat is elected by an
electorate of approximately 100,000 citizens, and those citizens may use as
many as fifty different polling places for each seat (ie, I would go to a
different polling place to elect the same person as someone who lives a couple
miles away).  The news typically start announcing who has "won" a particular
seat after only a few polling places have repoted, since even by that time it
is usually pretty obvious that a partcular candidate is going to win that 
seat.

In our last provincial election a month ago, the winners were all reported
by about 8:45 (polls closed at 8) with almost complete accuracy.

 - awh