Published: Tuesday, 8th May, 2007 10:34
FURY AT VOTING SHAMBLES
By Emma Quigley
Print Article
THE number of 'spoiled' ballot papers more than quadrupled as Thursday's election turned into a shambles.
The introduction of the Single Transferable Vote (STV), coupled with a new electronic counting system led to delays and confusion.
In the Scottish Parliamentary elections, David McMillan, constituency returning officer, revealed that 974 votes were declared 'void' after the count, compared to 207 in 2003.
A further 36 papers were thrown out for having more than one mark and four ballots were rejected as having been written on.
Jackie Baillie, who was victorious for the Labour party, said afterwards: `Across Scotland there has been a number of spoiled ballots and I echo some of the comments made.
`The matter does need to be looked at quite carefully because despite all the campaigns it is clear that a lot of people were not aware of how to fill out their ballot papers.`
She added: `This is not good for democracy.`
The pattern of spoiled ballot papers continued into Friday's West Dunbartonshire Council election count.
Across Dumbarton and the Vale, where people were asked to return 11 councillors in three multi-members wards, there were 479 ballots discounted.
Craig McLaughlin, SNP leader, blasted the decision to hold the two elections — using two different voting systems — on the same day. He said: `Scotland is now officially a Banana Republic. The number of people who have spoiled their papers is shocking.
`We are trying to encourage people to come out and vote, and when they do the vote doesn't count.
`The situation must be addressed immediately.`
There were 10 Labour councillors, 9 SNP, one SSP and two Independents members elected to WDC.
Del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Reddit
Stumbleupon
Christmas songs played to sharks