As I’ve said on Twitter, this is becoming a strange election — more about the non-results than the results themselves.
It started off with bad weather thwarting helicopters in the Western Isles and a boat from Arran breaking down. Not to mention a madman with a golf club in Edinburgh, breaking open the ballot boxes and ripping up some ballot papers, which have subsequently been put back together with sellotape.
Now the electronic counting systems themselves are breaking down under the sheer weight of data being processed, including right here in Fife.
Then there were the masses of spoilt ballot papers. In some cases the number of spoilt ballots is in the thousands, and bigger than the majority.
I’m in two minds on this. On the one hand, if you are too stupid to understand how to use two different voting systems, do I really want you to have the vote? It’s not that difficult.
On the other hand, it is a little bit difficult. More than one person has suggested that the local government elections should have been held on a separate day to minimise the confusion, particularly with STV being a new voting system to Scottish voters.
Before going into the polling booth I knew exactly how both voting systems worked. But even I found it a bit overwhelming. Particularly with the size of the ballot papers, it was a bit off-putting trying to find the party I wanted to vote for on that huge regional section.
Questions will be asked about the number of spoiled ballot papers. Four different voting systems are now used in Scotland — a different one for each level of government. It was always bound to be confusing to some voters, and it has proved to be so.
It is way too much, and it has to be changed. At least holding different elections on different days would minimise the confusion. It might lower turnout. But at this rate, the number of vaild votes might increase.
Alan
4 May 2007 02:17
#1
Bloody Fife computers…not that anything will change…
akatsuki
4 May 2007 03:07
#2
Of the thousands of spoiled ballots, how many are (silent) protests?
Having one big election day is probably logistically easier, and you don’t have to convince folk to get off their comfy seats more than once. Perhaps they could have different ballots for the Parliament and local elections. That way, voters could make a mistake on one but not affect the other. (I speak from not having seen the ballot paper…)
doctorvee
4 May 2007 03:16
#3
The ballot papers were separate. I think that was part of the confusion (which one do I put numbers on, which one do I put crosses on, etc).
Spoilt ballots usually number in the low hundreds or less, not the thousands.
fitaloon
4 May 2007 10:10
#4
My take on this here.
In brief
Right now we have become a third world country in terms of Electoral Competence, we will be a laughing stock to many countries whom we have looked down on in the past years. This is yet another in the long line of incompetent decisions made by the Scottish Executive and will live on to embarrass them for many years.
Vicky
4 May 2007 17:40
#5
The nutjob with the golf club (so very Scottish – anywhere else in the UK and it would have been a sledgehammer), the technology fuckup and the bad weather on the islands have been quite refreshing. Adds a human touch to the whole proceedings.