Spoiled Ballot Papers

[Ship called Dignity]

Well, when I went in to the polling station and saw the instructions, first thought was WTF !!!

But once I was given the 2 ballot papers and read them it was fairly simple.

Malky

I suppose I had a postal vote so had two weeks to understand it

[1001]

Did anyone vote for the 'Smoking Room in Pubs' Party?

Had to chuckle when I saw that one listed.

[Hadrians hiring!]

Did anyone vote for the 'Smoking Room in Pubs' Party?

Had to chuckle when I saw that one listed.

Actually yes

it is good to vote for a ''1 party - 1 policy'' thing once in a while.

Interesting to see how many they got.

ps What the heck are the bnp doing up North? wonder how many votes they got off old folk with poor eyesight trying to vote nats?

[bill]

Actually yes

it is good to vote for a ''1 party - 1 policy'' thing once in a while.

1party - 1 policy can be very effective when a local issue has the support of the public, as demonstrated in Boston Lincs. on Thursday.In this case it was the need for a by-pass, which has been on the agenda for ever.

"The Boston Bypass Independents Party has taken control of Boston Borough Council at the elections this week.

A total of 25 seats have gone to the Boston Bypass Independents, the Conservatives have five seats, the Independents have two seats and Labour has no seats. "

Gives pause for thought.

[deirdreh]

Just wanted to draw your attention to a petition to get the people in charge of the election process to be sacked and an independent international enquiry in to the process. http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Scot ... andal2007/

I got this message from a friend of mine :

"Some interesting points about the recent election fiasco:

Electoral commission apparently top heavy with Labour party people.

Counting machines used in election caused many problems. In other countries, which manage to vote using complex systems, their machines record votes immediately and can tell a voter immediately if there is a problem with their vote so it can be rectified. The machines used in this case did not register problems until late at night - far too late for anything to be done.

The company that provided the machines, chosen by the Labour administration lists Neil Kinnock (yes, that one!) as a company director.

Postal votes often not received on time - why? No explanation forthcoming.

The right to participate in elections is enshrined under human rights legislation yet v few people are calling for a rerun or at least a recount (for those with allegedly spoiled ballot papers to be contacted to find out who they were attempting to vote for)."

From watching the Council election papers in South Kintyre I can say that not many were were discounted as it was mostly straightforward to work out from the markings what the intention of someone was to vote.

The Scottish Parliament elections were a different matter. I saw so many 'over voted' papers where voters put two crosses on the left hand side. I noticed a lot who voted for Solidarity and the SNP but it is thought that people may have thought that they were voting for individuals as these parties had personal names attached to them. I also noticed a lot of George Lyon's voters voting for the BNP. I think this was because they were on the same row rather than there being any policy connection.

I think that the 150,000 voters of the incorrect, rather than spoiled, papers should be contacted and allowed to vote. I spent a lot of time talking to new or disillusioned voters who I hope I persuaded to vote. If this situation is not rectified I think turnout will drop next time again, as people who lost out will be too disillusioned to vote again. Maybe in the future the ballot papers will be separated so that it is easier to understand. I think it may be helpful to have a DVD playing in polling stations showing people how to vote as not everyone is good at reading either because of eyesight or literacy problems.

I would like to thank people for their time to talk to me on the campaign and promise to pass on the issues and suggestions given to me to the new Councillors. I would also like to thank those people who supported and voted for me. Hopefully you will support me again in the future.

I look forward to seeing how the shake up in Argyll and Holyrood affects us all.

Cheers :)

[general jack o'niell]

having read the letter in the courier, it says it all about the poster, despite pointing out that yo didn't think there was a link between those that voted for george lyons and the BNP, by mentioning it, something you were in a unique position to witness, the implication was made, you can't unmake an omelette. mentioning it had the effect you were looking for, that libdem supporters in argyll are fascists, personally i think they're too weakminded and by dint of being what they name says on the tin, liberal, to make up their minds about anything, but thats just my opinion. it is however disturbing that anyone in argyll voted BNP, even by mistake. i'm trying not to be too critical of anyone who spoilt their ballot, i had the benefit of a postal vote so had time to sit and read thru all the instructions.

that brings me to your idea of contacting all the spoilt ballots and giving them another vote? do you mean to tell us that your vote is not secret? that somewhere in the whole scheme of things theres a list of who voted for who, ok i know the ballots are numbered and that they strike your name off a list when you go to vote but do you mean to tell us that after its all over some government office compiles a list of how each individual voted? or is that more in keeping with your socialist leanings and says more about you and your party than it does about us?

[Sweltered]

The only comment I have about spoiled papers, is that the parents are to blame..

[general jack o'niell]

just in case you went too far thought i'd bwetter remind you that you live in florida, how is jeb?

[deirdreh]

having read the letter in the courier, it says it all about the poster, despite pointing out that yo didn't think there was a link between those that voted for george lyons and the BNP, by mentioning it, something you were in a unique position to witness, the implication was made, you can't unmake an omelette. mentioning it had the effect you were looking for, that libdem supporters in argyll are fascists, personally i think they're too weakminded and by dint of being what they name says on the tin, liberal, to make up their minds about anything, but thats just my opinion. it is however disturbing that anyone in argyll voted BNP, even by mistake. i'm trying not to be too critical of anyone who spoilt their ballot, i had the benefit of a postal vote so had time to sit and read thru all the instructions.?

Yes I think that having a postal vote made it easier to think about the instructions. I was not trying to link the BNP and the Liberals as I honestly don't see one. I just wanted to highlight that I think that some people may have voted incorrectly benefitting a party that they may profoundly disagree with because of the way that the ballot paper was structured.

that brings me to your idea of contacting all the spoilt ballots and giving them nother vote? do you mean to tell us that your vote is not secret? that somewhere in the whole scheme of things theres a list of who voted for who, ok i know the ballots are numbered and that they strike your name off a list when you go to vote but do you mean to tell us that after its all over some government office compiles a list of how each individual voted? or is that more in keeping with your socialist leanings and says more about you and your party than it does about us?

All the ballot papers were bar coded so I cannot see why incorrectly filled in papers, rather than spoilt papers, could not be chased up. We know that ballot papers were traced in Birmingham at the last election when so many postal votes of dead people were filled in for Labour. This time the postal voting in Birmingham was down dramatically I believe.

[general jack o'niell]

you should have maybe worded your letter differently, i wasn't implying your were making a link, other than for the reasons you've stated.

the tracking of ballots would be possible, we know they can, its just that most like to maintain the belief, wrongly of course, that they're vote is secret, in this PC society we live in it should be possible to track all BNP voters and charge them with some race hate crime or other, seeing as freedom of speech and will is not allowed anymore, no matter how misguided or twisted and evil they may be. i'd like to think an independent scotland would ban them from even standing for office, and i'd go further and remove them from all positions in the public sector, but then we'd need to start on the religious bigots too, so that would make a couple of hundred thousand jobs available in central and west scotland

[Rumpole]

do you mean to tell us that your vote is not secret? that somewhere in the whole scheme of things theres a list of who voted for who, ok i know the ballots are numbered and that they strike your name off a list when you go to vote but do you mean to tell us that after its all over some government office compiles a list of how each individual voted?

That's exactly it, old luvvie. Your voting slip number is noted alongside your name on the electoral roll and while no-one actually compiles a list of who voted for who if someone really wanted to they could trace your ballot paper and see how you voted. Ther're supposed to be kept for a year and a day, and then destroyed, just in case there is any question or dispute over the results.

[general jack o'niell]

interesting, sort of knew some of that, suspected some more but not surprised to find out the rest.

now i don't get to accuse you of being at the wrong sort of baileys, a good gag wasted

[bill]

Here is an extract from the Kelvin Mackenzie column in Thursday's edition of The Sun,which was no doubt missing from the Scottish edition.....

"I suspect we will not be hearing too much more about the superior Scottish education system now that 100,000 of the tartan tosspots failed to fill in their ballot forms correctly. How hard is it to vote" .

And him with a good Scottish name.

[general jack o'niell]

shame on you for even reading the sun, i thought you were above that kind of rag?

he's always been a waste of space anyway, so he'll not be too happy with another scottish PM and a cabinet full of jocks, he's just the sort we need a wall to keep out, or if we played it right england could build one to keep us in!!

[Sweltered]

just in case you went too far thought i'd bwetter remind you that you live in florida, how is jeb?

Not sure, he's been out of office a few months now......