The counting of votes immediately follows the closure of the ballot. The scrutineers are appointed by the polling station from among the voters present. The number of envelopes is checked. If there are more or fewer envelopes than votes cast, this is noted in the minutes. The chairman distributes the envelopes to be checked between the various tables.
At each table, one of the scrutineers extracts the ballot paper from each envelope and passes it unfolded to another scrutineer; the latter reads it aloud. The answers are noted by at least two scrutineers on the sheets prepared for the purpose.
If an envelope contains several ballot papers, the vote is invalid when the ballot papers bear contradictory answers. Multiple ballot papers count as only one when they bear the same answer.