Glenrothes By-Election Neatly Tidied Up

For those of you who missed the comment by Stuart Dickson on my EU post yesterday, I will copy it here.

Interesting motion on the Commons order paper for the end of business tonight (last night*):

RULE 56 (1) OF THE PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION RULES
[No debate]
Secretary Jim Murphy

That, in accordance with rule 56 (1) of the Parliamentary Election Rules contained in Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983, the sealed packets containing the completed corresponding number lists forwarded to the sheriff clerk at Kirkcaldy following the Glenrothes by-election on 6 November 2008 (1) shall not be destroyed by the sheriff clerk other than as provided for in the protocol agreed among the Secretary of State for Scotland, the electoral registration officer for Fife, the returning officer for the Glenrothes parliamentary constituency and the sheriff clerk for the Kirkcaldy sheriff court district and dated 16 and 19 October 2009 (Cm 7729); (2) may be delivered by that sheriff clerk to that returning officer; and (3) may be opened by that returning officer in order that a substitute marked copy of the register of electors may be made available for public inspection, all in accordance with and subject to the conditions specified in that protocol.
To be decided without debate (Standing Order No. 118(6) and Order of 20 October).

* my insert

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Labour Takes Glasgow Council Seat

The SNP lost out to Labour in a by-election for a seat on Glasgow City Council's Drumchapel/Anniesland ward.

Scottish Labour's Anne McTaggart won 2,584 votes, while SNP candidate Martin Docherty came in second with 1,509 votes of the total of 20,138 cast.  Percentage turnout was 26.9%.

The by-election was called after SNP councillor Bill Kidd resigned from the council earlier this year.

Thanks to MekQuarrie on Twitter

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UPDATE on New Postal Voting System

UPDATE

One of my readers left a comment on this post and I think it's worthy of a post of its own.

'Opt2vote is a partner company of Northgate, which hosts Labour sites such as www.davethechameleon.com and www.labour.org.uk

The Open Rights Group had this to say about Opt2vote 

ORG was unable to examine or verify the servers or systems they used in any meaningful sense. While ORG considers that the physical security for the ES&S and Tata locations was reasonable—and very good for the OPT2VOTE location observed —ORG is unable to comment further on the servers. Without more information on the specifications of the systems and clear rules on the access observers could request in pilot situations, ORG was restricted to what the suppliers were willing to offer or what their clients were willing to support. No matter what access was provided, fundamentally the servers are opaque to the human eye. No observer would be able to examine what the server was doing, what data it was sending and receiving or whether problems were occurring, without detailed technical access to the software and its operating system, yet it would be inappropriate and is clearly against guidelines for observers to handle anything to do with the running of the election. Hence ORG must conclude that the servers and their operations were—and will remain in future elections—unobservable.

The same report says of the Electoral Commission:

How does DCA or the Electoral Commission know about the extent of electoral fraud when neither of them have kept any statistics nor have undertaken any research on the issue? Is it that, in their obsession with increasing participation at all costs, they have turned a blind eye to the risks of electoral fraud and its consequences on the integrity of our democratic system?'

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New System Used for Glenrothes By-Election Postal Voting

There has been much talk about the postal votes in the Glenrothes by-election which took place last year.  I'm not sure how many of you are aware that a Northern Ireland based company Opt2Vote was used for their expertise in postal voting. It's the first time this system has been used in Scotland but it has been used in England and the company boasts Shrewsbury & Atcham Council, Lewisham Council, Birmingham City Council, Halton Borough Council and Thanet District Council amongst their satisfied customers.

In their Newsletter No 6 the Glenrothes by-election is described as follows (please note the use of Scotland Region):

The Parliamentary By-Election for the Glenrothes Constituency for Fife

Council was one of the most hotly contested and publicised by -elections in recent

years with an 80% turnout of postal voters. It was delivered by OPT2VOTE’s team of

election management specialists on 6th November and was the first election in Fife

since the introduction of Personal Identifiers (PIs).

OPT2VOTE successfully delivered its Postal Vote Management Solution which

works with all EMS systems and included the provision of a postal vote management

team (including the staff to process returned postal votes) and all equipment.

OPT2VOTE also provided a full print service delivering poll cards, ballot papers and

postal packs.

Iain Grant, Fife Council commented,

“OPT2VOTE provided an excellent and timely service. The system used to prepare,

proof and sign off documentation was simple and easy to use. This was the first

election in Scotland where the Returning Officer was required to verify personal

identifiers on postal vote statements and with the help of OPT2VOTE and its Postal

Vote Management System we achieved 100% verification The staff of OPT2VOTE

were helpful and responded well to questions or issues raised by the Election

Team.”

The Election was attended by representatives from 10 other constituencies. The

event was a great success and OPT2VOTE is looking forward to running more

elections in the Scotland Region.

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MISSING BY-ELECTION DOCUMENTS

Councillor John Beare, convener of the SNP Central Fife constituency, applied to the Sheriff Court to obtain a copy of the marked electoral register used during the Glenrothes by-election, the Dundee Courier reports today.  Candidates and their agents are permitted to see the register, which records only who voted and not how they voted.

Mr Beare has made several requests for the document and has now been told it 'has gone missing.' He was informed renovation work has been carried out at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court and that some documentation had been removed for confidential waste disposal.

Tricia Marwick, when asked if she suspected foul play, remarked, "No I do not.  Nor do I believe it was a fair election.  All I can say for sure is that the crucial information that proves it one way or another has gone missing."

Quelle surprise.  My suggestion is we build a secure, fire-proofed, central archive for such documents; a perfect project for labour's new apprentices.  Could the loss of such an important document make the result null and void?

Update:  Guido Fawkes and others have blogged on this matter.  It needs to be given as much publicity as possible.

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