Electoral Commission Report on Scottish Elections 2007
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A Statutory Summary of the Administrative Areas Not Covered by the Gould Report.
The report looks at issues arising from the Scottish Parliamentary elections. It makes a number of recommendations including
- Allowing people to register to vote after an elections has been called, and up to 11 days before polling day.
- Requiring Electoral Officers and Returning Officers to actively encourage participation in elections, as well as some funding for these activities.
- Reducing the minimum age for Parliamentary candidacy from 21 to 18.
- Introducing a procedure for the cancellation and replacement of postal vote ballots.
Significantly, in section 3, 'Electoral Integrity', the report states that "the reported volume and scale of alleged offences is negligible", "alleged offences" in this case meaning malpractice or corruption. This suggests that while there was considerable concern over the conduct of some aspects of the election, most of which are covered in the Gould report, the incidence of malpractice or corruption was generally low.
Another important change was the decision to move the deadline for registering to vote to 11 days before polling day. There had been a problem previously with people registering to vote only to find that the dealine had passed. By making this change, the Electoral Administration Act 2006 (EAA) has "improved registration levels and added to the completeness of the electoral register and (sic) assisted in the administration of the election."(pp.15)
In terms of accessibility, more than half of respondants to the Commission's Returnign Officer and Electoral Registration surveys said they has provided election documents in alternative languages, the most popular being Polish, Chinese and Urdu, mirroring the ethinic breakdown in the Scottish population.
For the first time, observers were employed by the EAA to attend postal vote issuing and opening, polling places and the count.
This is a report intended mainly for professionals within the election process. Most of the areas where substantial irregularities occurred, and which may be of interest to the general reader, fall under the remit of the Gould report.
