scottish parliament elections

Pal of Porty · Post by **Pal of Porty** » 02 May 2007, 14:06

What are You reading right now

Our local Lib-Dem election manifesto leaflet. Best story for years!

mr magnolia · Post by **mr magnolia** » 02 May 2007, 22:29

Pal of Porty wrote:Our local Lib-Dem election manifesto leaflet. Best story for years!

I think it's quite amusing that they still hammer away at the old story of 'only a Lib Dem candidate can beat labour in this ward'

Have they not quite realised that they won the argument for proportional representation?

Post by **wangi** » 02 May 2007, 22:48

mr magnolia wrote:I think it's quite amusing that they still hammer away at the old story of 'only a Lib Dem candidate can beat labour in this ward'

Yeah, SNP have been second on both previous elections... With LD finished behind the Tories in 4th

Sorry, not ward... Scottish Parliament constituency...

But never mind, their candidate for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh is currently the 7th "hottest" at http://sexymsp.com/ -- http://sexymsp.com/v2/index.php?id=178

(some choice comments)

Poppy · Post by **Poppy** » 03 May 2007, 07:25

At time of typing, now she's 5th!

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 03 May 2007, 08:05

wangi, that's one of the best links I've ever clicked on from here

hat's off to you sir

"Houston, we have pants off!"

Post by **wangi** » 04 May 2007, 15:40

Well that's a bit of a surprise, and big, swing from Labour to SNP for our constituency:

Name Party Votes % +/- %
Kenny MacAskill SNP 11,209 37.4 +14.2
Norman Murray LAB 9,827 32.8 -12.3
Gillian Cole-Hamilton LD 5,473 18.3 +9.1
Christine Wright CON 3,458 11.5 -2.3
Majority 1,382 4.6
Turnout 29,967 52.9 +4.3

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 04 May 2007, 15:43

You just beat me to it Wangi. I believe that the number of spoilt ballot papers came to 2,521.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 04 May 2007, 16:03

That's a whole lot of spoilt papers.

Can/will Labour question the result?

If the percentages for SNP and Labour reflect the national swing, I guess that would mean that even if you did turn the spoilage into votage, everyone would get their respective percentages of extra votes and you'd have the same result.

There's 4.6% between the top two.

SoupDragon · Post by **SoupDragon** » 04 May 2007, 17:22

eeny meeny miny mo....

I always go to the polls on principal, many women fought long and hard so I could have a vote.
But is this really democracy if so many people cant have their votes counted either through not understanding or being confused by the forms.?

Post by **wangi** » 04 May 2007, 17:34

Dadaist wrote:Can/will Labour question the result?

http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/At ... sults/East

Of a 1382 majority, I'd doubt it - it's fairly large compared to many!

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 04 May 2007, 17:51

snp 47

lab 46

ld 16

con 15

other 3

............................

does this mean a lib/lab pact can't win any votes?

Post by **wangi** » 04 May 2007, 17:53

Dadaist wrote:does this mean a lib/lab pact can't win any votes?

SNP, with most votes have the first stab at forming a government. Obviously to have a majority they need both the Liberals and the Independents on board.

What it probably means is another election later in the year when it all breaks down!

EDIT: Of course they could go with the Tories instead

EDIT2: Or just a minority government

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 04 May 2007, 18:05

I hope Lib Dem HQ has more than one phone line.

SoupDragon · Post by **SoupDragon** » 04 May 2007, 18:14

I'm wondering about all those spoilt ballot papers.
I remember being at The Count years ( and years ) ago , the returning officer would get together with the election agents and go through the spoilt papers, the obvious ones with ticks instead of crosses were easy but the ones with" Marxism rules", "Anarchy" or" F*** the Pope "were a bit harder. ( Dad did try to claim one though)
Do they not do that anymore?

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 04 May 2007, 18:26

wangi wrote:Or just a minority government

Strewth. This means the NHS in Scotland would be run by Eck and Shona (Robison).

The devolved NHS has only ever been run by Labour!

bellybabe · Post by **bellybabe** » 04 May 2007, 20:11

SoupDragon wrote:I'm wondering about all those spoilt ballot papers.
I remember being at The Count years ( and years ) ago , the returning officer would get together with the election agents and go through the spoilt papers, the obvious ones with ticks instead of crosses were easy but the ones with" Marxism rules", "Anarchy" or" F*** the Pope "were a bit harder. ( Dad did try to claim one though)
Do they not do that anymore?

They do indeed - I spoke to someone who spent most of the night doing exactly that, since the computer counts the "unspoilt" ones, and most of them were "spoilt"! I was told they did the best they could, especially when the computer refused ones because they'd been folded, for example. Not a good night to have been doing that job.

Jamesie · Post by **Jamesie** » 04 May 2007, 22:51

I wonder if Alex is regretting his earlier proclamation that he'd never do a deal with the Tories?

Sandra · Post by **Sandra** » 04 May 2007, 23:04

What a week its been. Leafletting and getting sunburn in the earlier part of the week

Polling station duty yesterday, finished at 6.00am this morning at SECC. It was some night, amazing the number of spoilt ballot papers, with squiggles, signatures, blobs, you name it.

It was touch and go but my boss got back on the list, so Parly lunches can still continue...

Interesting times ahead...

Sandra · Post by **Sandra** » 04 May 2007, 23:07

Dadaist wrote: con 15

17 actually, with 4 first past post.

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 05 May 2007, 00:01

Sandra wrote:What a week its been. Leafletting and getting sunburn in the earlier part of the week Polling station duty yesterday, finished at 6.00am this morning at SECC. It was some night, amazing the number of spoilt ballot papers, with squiggles, signatures, blobs, you name it.

It was touch and go but my boss got back on the list, so Parly lunches can still continue...

Interesting times ahead...

I spent a fair bit of time watching the adjudication of the papers that the scanners couldn't decipher. The candidates and their agents are all gathered round the terminals, each trying to influence the decisions their way. The SNP were particularly aggressive, not giving an inch. On one paper the only mark made was 14 for the SNP candidate and they had the cheek to claim it.

My wife's sister, Lindsay the Book was one of the decision makers and they did an excellent job under difficult circumstances.

Sandra · Post by **Sandra** » 05 May 2007, 00:06

Bob Jefferson wrote: I spent a fair bit of time watching the adjudication of the papers that the scanners couldn't decipher. The candidates and their agents are all gathered round the terminals, each trying to influence the decisions their way. The SNP were particularly aggressive, not giving an inch. On one paper the only mark made was 14 for the SNP candidate and they had the cheek to claim it.

My wife's sister, Lindsay the Book was one of the decision makers and they did an excellent job under difficult circumstances.

The SNP activists were very aggressive at Glasgow count, high police presence helped though.

I agree, the adjudicators were very fair and were very approachable if you questioned a result. It was painful to watch at times though the spoilt papers.

Maria · Post by **Maria** » 05 May 2007, 00:32

Sandra wrote:It was touch and go but my boss got back on the list, so Parly lunches can still continue...

Sandra, good to hear you are still in a job!

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 05 May 2007, 00:36

There is no way it will ever be done this way again. Lawrence's suggestion is an electronic keypad that would only accept a valid vote. It would also produce a hard copy that could be deposited and used as a back-up if the computer system failed or the vote was challenged.

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 05 May 2007, 08:48

The first time I became aware of the ballot format was in the polling booth, did I completely miss a wide ranging and effective public information campaign?

THE Scottish Executive and its associated agencies have an estimated advertising budget of up to £68m a year. Tesco spends around £67m.

Considering they spend this much telling teenagers that necking too many bacardi breezers, taking drugs and having unprotected sex is a bad idea, its no wonder they didn't have any money left to show people how to fill in the form.

Post by **wangi** » 05 May 2007, 08:54

xxxx, have you had your eyes closed for the last month or so? There were many ads drawning attention to the changes on TV, in papers and I think even online.

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 05 May 2007, 09:00

I guess I must have, maybe I don't watch enough colour television, but then that's why I was asking.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 05 May 2007, 09:40

xxxx wrote:they didn't have any money left to show people how to fill in the form.

I picked up one of these informative postcards from a cafe in the centre of town :

Not only did it inform me that it was "strengthened democracy" that was going to return the candidates in Portobello by explaining that voters were being given "more power", it explained to me - and I would presume anyone who cared to pick up one of its brothers or sisters too - how to do so.

xxxx · Post by **xxxx** » 05 May 2007, 10:25

Well luckily for me, I managed to work things out unaided, but obviously a lot of people who took the trouble to vote didn't get the information they needed.

Jamesie · Post by **Jamesie** » 05 May 2007, 10:50

Kevin Williamson has an interesting theory as to what went wrong with the ballot papers:

http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blo ... 7862478633

If the link doesn't work:

"I think I've spotted what may have caused the chaos and confusion with the 100,000 spoiled ballot papers. People coped fine with the STV system for the council election ballot papers, and there was a low percentage of spoiled papers using the STV system. That means the problem was with the first ballot paper for the Scottish Parliament.

I took a photo of my ballot papers in the voting booth with my mobile. At the top of it has the words: YOU HAVE TWO VOTES. My guess is that these four words confused people. If I am correct then the bulk of spoiled ballot papers will have two votes in the List column instead of one, thereby making it spoiled.

If this turns out to be the case then does that mean we should have a re-run of the whole election? Wow. What a mess. You heard the mystery solved here first."

seanie · Post by **seanie** » 05 May 2007, 11:06

Bob Jefferson wrote:There is no way it will ever be done this way again. Lawrence's suggestion is an electronic keypad that would only accept a valid vote. It would also produce a hard copy that could be deposited and used as a back-up if the computer system failed or the vote was challenged.

Instead of changing things yet again there may be some merit in just sticking with the same format. I can understand that people could've been thrown by an unfamiliar situation but, with the best will in the world, it wasn't really all that complicated. Surely people could work out how to fill in the forms correctly in time for next election.

Bob Jefferson · Post by **Bob Jefferson** » 05 May 2007, 11:17

From what I observed a lot of people treated the SP candidates and the Regional candidates as one continuous list and they used their two votes from the first column.

seanie · Post by **seanie** » 05 May 2007, 11:32

I've spoken to a number of people who made mistakes filling out the ballot but I think that's just because it was unfamiliar. I don't see the actually ballot itself as being terribly complicated. People would get used to it. Change the system yet again and you could well end up with another shambles.

seanie · Post by **seanie** » 05 May 2007, 11:45

I'm a bit suprised at the Holyrood results. I thought Labour would do worse than only dropping 4 seats. I wasn't impressed by their negative campaigning but maybe it helped them.

Dadaist · Post by **Dadaist** » 05 May 2007, 11:52

I'm really glad I acted the way I did in the polling station - the 3 people that were on at St John's were really nice and helpful too.

My mind was a complete blank, including any idea of who to vote for (although some rather good ideas on who to *not* vote for) - I simply followed instructions to the letter, pausing out for the bit where I had to make a choice. I had no assumptions whatsoever on what to do, and even had to be shunted between the person who ticked off my name on the list for my street, and the one with the 2 forms.

Once I had the forms, before I went to the booth, I read the instructions at the top and checked with the person who gave me them exactly what was the right way to fill them in without spoiling them - mainly because on the Holyrood form I had no intention of voting for any of the four on the right and wanted to make sure I could leave that bit blank.

The officers at the polling station were great, so once I knew for sure I toddled off to my booth. By the time I had read the instructions on the wall I knew what to do and on which form.

I was also chuffed that I knew everyone I was voting for - it was like knowing someone famous!

I then went back into do-as-told mode, expecting a slot but being surprised that I didn't even have to fold - just slide - but again the 3rd person on the table, the one in charge of the boxes, was there to help and I put them in the right boxes, unfolded.

She told me I looked confused - I said I felt old and that this was the most confusing election I'd ever voted in.

Two of the people I voted for didn't get in.

Epykat · Post by **Epykat** » 05 May 2007, 18:10

I didn't think it was confusing. They even had a picture up right in front of your nose in the booth to show you where to put your crosses and where to put your numbers. They even made the papers different colours. Nobody was rushing people out of the booths so there was plenty of time to read the instructions carefully and people to help if you did get a bit lost. What more could they have done?