May 4th: The 100,000 Spoiled Ballot Papers: Mystery Solved?
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.
posted by Kevin Williamson at
1:37 PM
6 Comments:
See You Scotlands response to the shambles here:
http://www.youscotland.com
1:51 PM
you could be right
2:00 PM
I spolied mine first time round cos I started writing numbers in order of preference in the regional list vote...
Had to go and ask for a new ballot paper.
(was half seven in the morning.....).
wonder how many folk did that and never realised before dropping their ballots in that they'd made a mistake. Or would the number one on that one have been taken as the 'X'?
I wonder if all the officials accross the country are deciding about spoiled or not spolied papers on the same rules? Or if its just up to the discretion of the officials at the count?
2:42 PM
Hmmm
I think most of this is down to crass stupidity of about 15% of the electorate. There have been repeated instructions over the last few weeks as to what and how to do this vote.
If you are too stupid to know how to cast your vote properly, then you don't deserve a vote. Simple as that.
3:56 PM
If you are too stupid to know how to cast your vote properly, then you don't deserve a vote.
I just knew somebody would say this. It's crap. Plenty of people are quite intelligent enough to vote but can still get their wires crossed by something like this. Where there is the slightest room for confusion in the design of a ballot, that design should be scrapped.
4:52 PM
The ballot paper was a real problem. The electorate were taken for granted by the people who designed it and who were supposed to educate folk on how it worked.
4:55 PM
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