Editing Hyouka:Volume 6 1 (section)

=== 3. ===



The path following the river ran up against the wooden fence surrounding a residential house and turned at sharp right angle. We continued to follow it and eventually arrived at a small three-way intersection. The road that stretched to the left and right had a traffic line running down the middle, unlike the one we'd been walking along up until that point, and the entire stretch was brightly illuminated by streetlights. I didn't normally come around this area, but if my memory served me right, if you went right and continued through the residential district, you'd find my old Kaburaya Middle School. If you went left and continued in that direction, you'd eventually reach the downtown area.

We stopped walking and Satoshi looked at me as if asking which way we should go. I was a little worried that someone might start  asking questions if we ended up wandering all the way over to the downtown area, but part of me was hesitant to go near Kaburaya for some reason as well. It'd probably be a good idea to go left and then turn onto a different street before hitting the main area. I started to walk and Satoshi silently followed next to me.

"So," I said, restarting the conversation once more, "as far as you know, there were no possible opportunities for anyone to mix in the illegitimate ballots?"

Satoshi suddenly grinned and muttered a barely audible <i>"I really am sorry"</i> before exclaiming in his usual, unaffected voice, "That's right! I really have given it a lot of thought, but in the end, I can't find any real holes in the system, especially considering it's been the same for so long. If I had to say for certain... it's not that I don't consider it a possibility, but I get the feeling that chasing that line of thought will only lead to a dead end."

I wanted to ask him why he thought that in detail, but considering I didn't even know how the student council president election process worked in the first place, I probably wouldn't understand his reasoning. It'd probably be best to get him to explain everything from the start.

"From the beginning, please."

"Okay. Where's a good place..." Satoshi said, his arms crossed and head tilted deliberately in contemplation. "That sounds about right. To start with, it's important to remember that the ballot boxes have locks on them. Also, like I told you earlier, a third party has to confirm that the boxes are empty first before students cast their ballots and then again before the committee counts them."

"You can cast a ballot even while the box is locked, right?"

"Of course. It should've been locked when you voted as well."

I figured that was the case, but I just wanted to make sure.

"The election administration committee took the ballot boxes out of storage and brought them to the council room yesterday after school. The storage room was the one on the first floor of the special wing, so I'm sure you know which one I'm talking about. It also has mops, wax, and the like. Anyways, by yesterday, the paper ballots had already been bundled into a stack for each class with a rubber band holding them together. After school ended for the day, the entire election committee and the overseers gathered in the council room, and the member in charge of distributing everything handed the boxes and ballots to each classes' representatives. I'm sure you're already aware of this, but there are two election committee members—one boy and one girl—in each and every class. That meant that in the council room, there were two members times eight classes times three grades—forty-eight students—plus the two overseers for a total of fifty students, all packed in there like a can of sardines."

"Sounds cramped."

"Pretty much. After getting the ballot boxes, they had us confirm that each one was empty, and then the committee member in charge of the key locked them. After each box was locked, the members waited with them on standby. Once that had finished for all the boxes, the committee president gave the call for each of them to return to their classrooms."

I had seen the boxes and ballot slips, of course. The box was made of worn, amber-colored wood and looked sturdily put together at first glance. The word "ballot box" was written in bold characters along the side. The paper ballots seemed to be cut from simple printer paper. The one I used earlier today didn't even have straight edges. I did remember there being the election administration committee's stamp, but I don't think there was anything like an identification number to tell it apart from the rest.

"You know what the election committee members did in the classrooms, right?" asked Satoshi.

"Yeah."

Once in the classrooms, the members placed their ballot box on the teacher's podium and wrote the candidates' names in chalk on the blackboard before handing out the paper ballots. As each of the students finished writing their choice—be it one of the candidates' names or nothing at all—they walked up to the front of the room and individually dropped their slip into the box. Each time this happened, the election committee members drew a tally mark on the paper in their hands to record the total number of votes.

I didn't really want to interrupt Satoshi's story, but I needed to ask him something just in case.

"Do the election administration committee members also have to take into account the number of absent students?"

Satoshi shook his head and said, "From what I've heard, they don't. Apparently, only the total student body count and the total number of votes are important."

I see. I guess some students not showing up to school wouldn't really impact their job, now that I think about it.

"The rules state that after thirty minutes, the members should cast their own votes and then take the ballot boxes back to the council room, but in reality, many of the classes finish much faster than that. After all, once everyone in the class has finished, there's nothing more they have to do, so they can pack up and leave. This part goes against the rules a bit, but there's nothing we can do about that considering it's pretty much a custom at this point."

I suppose if every ballot box was brought back to the council room at the same time, it'd slow down the process as well.

"As a result, the committee members trickle back into the room and check off their grade and class on a list to show who had returned. The person in charge of the key opens their box, and the member empties out its contents onto the table. There were several tables arranged into a cross shape, and we used that to tally the votes. We don't have to return them to storage until tomorrow, so there wasn't any rush. Once the overseers confirm that the box is indeed empty, they place them in the corner of the room. Once all the ballots from every class are on the table, they mix them around so that no one knows which one came from which class and then divide them among ten or so designated vote counters. The counters then place the votes into one of three trays—in this case, marked either "Haruto Obata," "Seiichirou Tsunemitsu," or "N/A." This part goes pretty quickly. The votes are clipped together in groups of twenty and then exchanged with another counter to confirm whether the counting was done correctly. Once both counters finish checking it, the overseers will verify it as well."

"It certainly is thorough."

"I know, right?"

I had no idea why he sounded so proud. We literally just finished talking about how he had nothing to do with the election administration committee.

"After doing that, we wrote down the total numbers on the whiteboard. From start to finish, the whole thing probably took about forty minutes. Just as we were about to record the victor, however, someone pointed out that the final numbers seemed off, and everything after that was pure chaos."

I thought I heard something like the low growl of an engine. All of a sudden, a sports car sped furiously past us on the small modest road. Satoshi glared at it as its tires screeched around the corner and then eventually let out a sigh.

"Everything I told you just now was exactly as it happened, but because there were so many people watching the ballots on the table at all times, I can't imagine it being possible to tamper with anything. That means that the illegitimate votes weren't added during the tallying... And that means the only possibility I can imagine is that they were added to the ballot box from the very start, right?"

"It does look that way, but—"

"But what? I already told you this, but there are about forty-three to forty-four students in each class in Kamiyama High School. There were forty illegitimate votes. If the culprit had only focused on adding them to one box, that'd nearly double the amount it had compared to the other classes. We weren't really focused on the amount of votes that came out from the boxes, but I'm pretty sure everyone would notice if there were twice as much."

I agree. What if it wasn't twice as much, however?

Considering he had been thinking about it ever since school got out today, Satoshi had already considered the possibility.

"It'd be impossible for all of the illegitimate votes to be in one class's box. Then how about if it were split between two classes? We'd still probably notice. Three classes also seem a bit dubious. If they were divided among ten classes, then each class's total would go up by a measly four votes. That'd probably be unnoticeable."

"That might be true, but that then raises the question of how someone would be able to find the chance to slip illegitimate votes into ten ballot boxes."

"Yeah," Satoshi said as he nodded. He then added with a disinterested expression, "Though, honestly speaking, I'm pretty sure the culprit is in the election administration committee."

"I thought you wanted to help out that Class E freshman."

"I don't think it's him. It's just that I can't imagine it happening any other way. Only the election committee dealt with the boxes."

It's true that the committee members move the boxes around, so it'd be simple for them to secretly drop in some votes, but...

"So according to your theory, Satoshi, several election administration committee members colluded with one another to add the illegitimate votes by each putting in a little bit at a time? Sure it's not outside the realm of possibility, but do you really believe that's what happened?"

"That's why I said that line of thought led to a dead end. One or two members is one thing, but I find it impossible to imagine nine or ten being involved in this."

After saying that, Satoshi clapped his hands together and continued.

"So basically, I have no idea where to continue from here. There's no guarantee that someone used a trick to pull it off, but if we assume there is one, I have no other choice but to figure it out, to confirm the shadowy existence lurking within the election committee. If we assume there is no shadowy entity, then we have no further way of figuring out where and how the votes became so skewed. We have until tomorrow morning, but tonight, I want to start from the ground up and flesh this situation out into a proper whodunit. After all, because I had no one else to turn to, I ended up calling you, Houtarou."