Is the UK the only country that does it that way? I wonder why it never caught on (or if it did, why it was eventually replaced) in Canada and Australia, for instance. It definitely makes for great viewing seeing all the candidates stand together, but it can also make watching the results kind of anti-climactic.
Ireland and, I think, Malta do it in the same way.
In Ireland there are unofficial (but highly accurate) voting figures tallied by voting precinct, by means of party election workers standing beside the votes for each ballot box as the number of votes cast in each is verified; each box has a pair of workers, one calling out the first preference on each ballot and the other marking it on a preformatted tally sheet. (This is a co-operative enterprise involving tallyers from all parties; my impression is that inter-party relations in the UK wouldn't be conducive to this.) The aggregate results are released to the media, and in many constituencies the ballot box-by-ballot box figures are released to the local media.
