Scottish elections disgrace

[matgb]

Not got time to do a proper write up from Yorkshire, but this is disgraceful:

The Scotsman also explains the kind of "errors" on ballot sheets that caused them to be rejected. One of these was to only cast a vote for the regional list. Both the constituency and the regional votes were on the same ballot paper. Many of the small parties only put candidates up for the regional vote. If you wanted to support, say, the Green Party - or more or less any of the smaller parties - and couldn't bring yourself to vote for one of the larger parties in the constituency, then your vote would be declared void.

The whole point of an MMS system is to allow smaller parties to run a list to get top up MPs/AMs when they know they're not going to win a constituency. To penalise their voters completely because they only wanted to vote for 'their' party? Utterly, completely, wrong. Legal challenges are in the pipeline, if this is true, and I've no reason to doubt it's not, then the parties that lost out (Solidarity, the Greens and the SSP for the most part) should be screaming blue murder. Go read rhythmaning's post, then spread the link. This is Great fucking Britain, we don't do hanging chads, we don't disenfranchise people, every damn vote should be counted damnit!

Comments

[poifaerie.livejournal.com]

It's terrible that votes for regional parties are not going to be counted. Seriously, did they not consider the possibility that some folk do not find any of the major parties to their liking? Pfft. Welcome to the United States Of Britain.

[matgb]

It appears to be inconsistently applied anyway, some areas they counted them, others they didn't, which makes it even worse. I'm not a happy bunny, but need to do some more digging. Besides, not Scottish, so can't get directly involved...

[poifaerie.livejournal.com]

I believe the phrase you are looking for contains the words "piss-up," "brewery" and "organise."

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine says ... "Have heard this as well, but also heard that other places accepted it at the discretion of the returning officer. Appears to be a lack of consistency."

Surely this can't be right that these ballots are rejected ... I think I'm right in saying in previous SP elections there were two separate sheets for constituency and regional list? If so, I'm guessing they would have been counted separately so it would have been perfectly possible to use one sheet but not the other.

[miss-s-b.livejournal.com]

This is Great fucking Britain, we don't do hanging chads, we don't disenfranchise people, every damn vote should be counted damnit!

Indeed.

[pickwick.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I'm not sure about this, I haven't read or heard about it anywhere else. I think those votes would have been rejected by the machines, but they would have been counted by the people checking the papers, because the intention is obvious. Unless they were worried about people flling in in the first list when they meant to fill in the second.

It would explain the complete collapse of the small parties. But I can't shake the feeling that if it was true we'd have heard a lot more about it, from people like Tommy Sheridan.

[matgb]

Aye; there's a chance, of course, that it's bank holiday weekend and they're waiting until all the facts are known, but that doesn't seem like Sheridan's character. Regardless, it'd be interesting to read more about why the Scotsman has said that one.

[freddiefraggles.livejournal.com]

[iamthe-sky.livejournal.com]

Hi, met you on friday at Tate Late, hope it's ok to add you?

[matgb]

Was going to ask pinkshifter when I got back to the office anyway, completely forgot to do the sensible thing of asking usernames.

Film and Leicester good?

[iamthe-sky.livejournal.com]

Yes and yes :) :) Leicester awesome, going back asap :)

[staceyuk.livejournal.com]

Word. And they wonder why people don't vote....

[pmoodie.livejournal.com]

Yup, it's a catastrophic fuckup and yet another embarrasment for Scottish politics.

I can only hope that it was just a stupid blunder, and that steps will be taken to resolve the matter sharpish. If this doesn't happen, and bloody soon, the shit will hit the fan in a spectacular fashion, and those responsible will be impaled on very large spikes.

[doctorvee.livejournal.com]

Very sceptical about this. That just looks to me like a list of things that were making the machines confused, rather than anything that was deemed by the returning officer to be 'spoiled'.

For instance, ticks instead of crosses were accepted, and I would have thought that Ys instead of Xs were as well. From what I've heard, even ones where there was a number which was scored out then had a cross put next to it were counted. As long as the intention is clear and all that.

I think a lot of people have got hung up about the counting machines. But all of these instances will have been checked in the normal old-fashioned manner by a human being, with people from the parties watching over their shoulder.

I suppose there is always the chance that there will be some inconsistency, but if the parties didn't raise an objection at the count then they must have thought that everything was above board.

As a few other people have said, if this really was true, we probably would have heard more about it by now.

[matgb]

I'm actually glad that you've said all that, because you're a lot closer to the ground on it than I am, and I am surprised if it is true that more of a fuss hasn't been mde; the parties themselves should be kicking up a massive stink.

OTOH, maybe it's early days, and some of them are still fact finding or not doing anything while offices are shut, etc. Either way, the Scottish elections are still headline news today on the London media; that makes a change.

[doctorvee.livejournal.com]

I've not got any insider info or anything like that you understand. But I've followed the situation eagerly, and everything I have read up until now has suggested that "as long as the intention was clear", the vote was counted.

A lot of votes have still been lost though. From what I understand, people who listed numbers in the Scottish Parliament vote had their votes discounted (unless they put a 1 and nothing else). Likewise people who put two crosses in one column.

But the small parties have been noticeably quiet about the situation. The Greens have expressed concern, but do not contest the result -- much like the other parties then. Tommy Sheridan and John Swinburne were both interviewed on the night and had no problem with the legitimacy of the result. Etc, etc.

A Govan law firm has decided to try and take action "on behalf of voters". But as I have said on my blog, they are probably ambulance chasers and nothing more.

The only other legal challenge has come from a Labour politician who narrowly lost the election. But his concern was about ballot papers that travelled by boat from Arran. The boat broke down and another boat had to come and rescue the lot and apparently some of the ballot papers were soggy. But most suspect he is just a sore loser.

[doctorvee.livejournal.com]

By the way, I think you might have overestimated how well the SSP did. They came 12th over all in terms of national share of the vote, behind such great parties as the Scottish Christian Party, the Christian People's Alliance, the Socialist Labour Party and even the BNP.

[matgb]

That badly? Ouch. Guess they really were a one-loon-band then.

[doctorvee.livejournal.com]

Full table at Wikipedia if you're interested. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliamentary_Election%2C_2007#Election_results

The last of the parties to reach five figures. I guess beating UKIP is little solace.

[matgb]

Really nice to see UKIP that low; yes, they're trying to rebrand as a Libertarian party, but the core message remains batshit.

Thanks for all the good coverage over the night and Friday BTW, better than trying to follow the BBC radio news version half the time.