Yes, an increasing number of special votes are being cast on election day, and special votes do take additional time to be checked. Reportedly, just over 600,000 of the votes cast in 2023 were special votes, which is roughly one fifth of all the votes cast. Plainly, this surge in special voting should be being welcomed, and treated as an expansion of democracy. Instead, the rise in special voting has been treated as an intolerable problem, and access to special voting has been restricted accordingly. Surely, it speaks volumes that invariably after the special votes have been counted, the votes cast for the centre-left will increase.