Comments on: Glasgow North East

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:07:30 +0000

I see Ruth Davidson has been reselected as Conservative candidate here – should at least hold her deposit again

By: Anthony Wells

Anthony Wells — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:35:59 +0000

It goes by what they put on the nomination paper – he was nominated as a Jury Party candidate, not an Independent.

http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/YourCouncil/Elections_Voting/GlasgowNorthEast_ByElection_2009/Candidates/

By: Houdini

Houdini — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:47:54 +0000

John Smeaton was not a Jury Team candidate. He was an independent with the financial support of the Jury Team

By: Kieran W

Kieran W — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:41:39 +0000

The article is here: http://politicalbetting.blogspot.com/2009/09/spoilt-ballots-friday-count-debate.html

By: Kieran W

Kieran W — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:39:04 +0000

Thank’s for posting that Blake; interesting. It was an article on pb.com including comments from the Norwich Returning Officer that first made me aware that postal votes handed in on the day were an important part of the driving force behind the move to Friday counting. Clearly that doesn’t seem to have been much of a problem here.

By: Blake Reynolds

Blake Reynolds — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:13:23 +0000

I think the bit you need to look at is on page 19 of the report:-
” … Postal votes at the count
8.3 Postal votes can be handed in to any polling station in the constituency
on polling day between 7am and 10pm and be included in the count. Most
Returning Officers (ROs) will arrange for postal votes returned in this way to
be collected during the day so that the personal identifiers can be verified and
fewer postal votes have to be processed at the count.
8.4 Due to a problem at a previous local government by-election, the postal
vote opening team at the count had decided not to begin processing the
postal votes received after the close of poll until they had been given the
envelopes from all 72 polling stations. This meant they did not begin opening
the 79 postal votes they received until after 11pm.
8.5 The verification of votes cast at polling stations was completed by
11.50pm but the postal vote opening and verification was not completed until
12.15am. The count was therefore delayed by 25 minutes. If the postal vote
opening had begun earlier, this delay may have been avoided.
8.6 We have spoken to the RO’s staff and they will review this practice so
that future election counts are not affected in this way. … ”

So only 79 postal votes on polling day.

By: Andy Stidwill

Andy Stidwill — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:08:46 +0000

I don’t think it mentions that unfortunately.

More information from the report:

“9.7% of electors (a total of 6,065 people) were registered to vote by post.
67.4% of postal ballot packs issued (4,085) were completed and
returned to the Returning Officer (RO) prior to the close of poll.

1,780 postal vote applications were received in the three days before
the deadline.”

So despite having 1,780 postal vote applications only 3 days before the deadline, they still managed to process all of them before 10pm on polling day.

As far as I can see, the only problem would be if a huge number of postal votes are handed in between 9:30pm and 10pm on polling day.

Most postal votes will be received before polling day, and as far as those that are handed in on the day itself are concerned, some will be handed in during the morning, some during the afternoon, evening, etc.

The idea that returning officers will be faced with a huge pile of postal votes at the very last minute doesn’t seem to make any sense.

By: Kieran W

Kieran W — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:48:41 +0000

Does it say how many of those postal votes were handed in actually on polling day? That is after all the crux of the problem; not postal vote verification itself but verficattion of postal votes returned on polling day. Postal votes returned before polling day can be verified before polling day. On the actual day of the election there simply isn’t time to collect and verify those postal votes handed in at polling stations before the close of poll.

I’ve said before that the solution to thus whole problem appears to be to stop allowing people to hand in postal votes on polling day.

By: Andy Stidwill

Andy Stidwill — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:23:41 +0000

A quote from the Electoral Commission’s report on the Glasgow NE by-election:

“The RO verified the personal identifiers on all postal voting statements
that were received by the close of poll. In total, 217 postal votes were
rejected by the RO, representing 5.3% of those returned by the close of
poll.”

In other words, they didn’t have to delay the count because they were still checking postal votes.

This, of course, is the main reason being given by returning officers to delay counting in a lot of constituencies in the forthcoming general election.

Although this was a by-election with a very low turnout, it does perhaps indicate that in many seats there shouldn’t be a problem dealing with postal vote. Even in seats with a large number of postal votes, most of them should be able to be dealt with before close of poll.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 18:42:34 +0000

The SNP have reselected David Kerr and the Lib Dems have reselected Eileen Baxendale