Never Mind the Ballots

[rhythmaning]

Oh, and whilst I am thinking about politics, there has been more scandal about the ballots in the Scottish elections in May.

The BBC News (Scotland) website has the details. It turns out that a large numbers of votes were rejected without scrutiny. Apparently, this is possibly illegal.

On the other hand, the error I thought most heinous wasn't acted on: the Scotsman must have got it wrong. (I know this since the Scotsman had said that a rejected vote on one part of the paper would cause the whole paper to be rejected; whilst what the BBC says happened is that a rejected vote on one part of the paper lead to the paper being placed in the "OK" pile if the other vote was valid - and hence not examined. I don't think I can have it both ways!)

And many thanks to white_hart for prompting my headline after she used something very similar recently!

Comments

[matgb]

On the one hand, good that the previous story wasn't true, because that really did annoy me.

On the other hand, that's just wrong.

I also wonder—if they rejected votes for one but counted them for the other, does that mean they counted a rejection if either side was invalid but they counted the other?

That might mean the number of rejected ballots is inflated horribly, as they could be rejected for X, Y or X&Y.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

BBC Scotland ran a special early evening edition of their Newsnight Scotland programme (this usually kicks in over Newsnight at 11pm north of the border) this evening covering their story in more detail, but I am afraid I was too busy listening to the Archers and then the Prom to watch it.

But generally, the whole thing sounds like automating the elections was a bit of a shambles.

I sincerely hope that lessons are learned. It is a shame that Labour administrations have been experimenting on Scotland, just like Conservative ones did in the past, though.

Oh, and a great icon!