What would you question about it?

There are normally multiple observers from all parties, plus election officials, that scrutinize the counting process in real-time. Disputes are raised and resolved on the spot where possible, and it not are normally escalated. This is why elections can have provisional results on the same day/night, and the official results are a few days later.

I thought it was obvious the speed is essentially irrelevant to the democratic process in the context of minutes to count.

The extent of the competition over seconds and minutes here is bound to lead to some mistkaes, and I would question whether the checks are sufficient (the checks themselves may also be susceptible to mistkaes). The word "childish" comes to mind. We are talking about the future of the country and it's treated like a TV reality/quiz show.

Ballots are split in batches. Each ballot in a batch is counted twice, by two different people, and results are then compared. If the counts don't match, the batch is recounted.

You can start counting during the election. So, counting the last hundred or so ballets in ~1hour gives plenty of time for accuracy.

> You can start counting during the election.

That seems very odd. Can you actually do that? Around here the polling location must first ensure that the number of votes cast matches the number of votes recorded during voting, only after that can they open the urns and start tallying.

The UK throws body's at the problem. But, in theory you can have say 2 hour windows keeping track of the voters and start counting that.

Not in the UK you can't. All boxes are sealed until "the count" which only starts after the election has ended.

Sure, not in the UK, but the US for example starts early. There is also little reason to wait to count absentee ballots.

PS: Saying you need to change the law when that must happen with any significant change anyway is kind of a minor hurdle.