That's an artifact of it not using A-Z as it's alphabet. What you type gets translated before the AI sees it. The seventeen word the AI sees does only contain three 'e' s.

But is it smart enough to know it needs to write some Python to count for it?

That ability to create ad hoc tools makes up for a lot of shortfalls.

Just tried on Astra low and it gave 4.

Citation needed.