Scottish Election Recounts?

by caligula - nasty Caesar retired by the Praetorians - - his name meant "little boots" but he wasn't a Zapatista. Wed May 09, 2007 12:45

Electorates are reported in results as moving from smaller left and right parties and choosing 2 clear options. In the Northern Irish context this meant the logical adoption of either a SF or DUP weighted assembly but no-one really would say that the northern Irish women's network disappeared off the radar "for ever : in perpetua"- would they? The smaller parties in Scotland have to argue their case now more than before but ought not lose heart - they haven't disappeared forever - they're just on the benches, off the pitch, sucking oranges or sipping isotonic drinks or giving each other physiotherapeutic relief in the dressing rooms.

by Calgary Tue May 08, 2007 20:31

The sectarian fanatic continues with triumphalist guff. No point trying to reason with an automaton like this. The Scottish election results were terrible for the radical left, but that doesn' t matter to our friend, getting 1.5% of the vote is so much better than getting 0.5%. To say this is the sort of thing that gives the Left a bad name would be a bit of an understatement.

Neither Solidarity nor the SSP are on the radar anymore so far as electoral politics is concerned. Neither party has a support base worth talking about. If either of them is going to carry on as a credible force, they have to prove themselves through campaigning, and it remains to be seen whether either group can stay the course there. But I suppose "Calgacus" will continue cutting and pasting triumphalist statements that are completely out of touch with reality. As I said, it's hilarious that these are the people who dubbed the SSP the "Stop Sheridan Party".

by Calgacus Tue May 08, 2007 20:20

The result has decisively shown which party of the radical left will act as a focus for electoral resistance. Solidarity, which has been in existence for eight months.

The SSP, which has been in existence for nine years and, if nothing else, had the benefit of name recognition, polled fewer than the Socialist Labour Party , which has virtually no members and carries out no activity.

This is a tribute to the work of Solidarity members over the past months and vindicates their decision to split from the SSP.

Electoral representation remains important. But now that the elections are over, the left in Scotland will continue its activities on the streets, in communities and trade unions.

by Calgary Tue May 08, 2007 19:24

"Solidarity out-polled the SSP everywhere in Scotland winning 31,066 (1.6% of the national vote) votes to the SSP’s 12,831 (0.6%). "

God help us, this is the only measure of success for this lot - and these are the people who accuse the SSP of being fixated on stopping Tommy Sheridan. "Scotland's sixth party"? Both Solidarity and the SSP had lousy elections, this kind of daft triumphalism just suggests that you're completely out of touch with reality.

by Serge Tue May 08, 2007 18:09

The SSP held one of its two council seats, losing its Glasgow seat but holding its seat in Dunbarton. In terms of public reps its one-all.

Certainly Solidarity weathered the storm in better shape, probably as a result of the residual recognition of Tommy Sheridan's name, but overall it was a shattering defeat for the two left parties. The SSP came out worst with a disastrous result but Its far too early to say how things will pan out and I would not write off the SSP yet.

by Calgacus Tue May 08, 2007 17:26

Solidarity out-polled the SSP everywhere in Scotland winning 31,066 (1.6% of the national vote) votes to the SSP’s 12,831 (0.6%). In Glasgow, where Tommy Sheridan, was standing to be elected, Solidarity polled 8,525 votes which was 4.15% of the Glasgow wide vote compared to 2,579 - 1.25% for the SSP. Tommy Sheridan missed out on winning a seat by just over 2,000 votes – but it was clear that Solidarity suffered disproportionally from the thousands of rejected ballot papers in Glasgow, many of which showed that people had voted for Solidarity.

Alan McCombes, the SSP’s policy spokesperson, described the outcome for the SSP as a "massacre."

Solidarity are Scotland's 6th Party. The SSP finished 12th behind the BNP.

Solidarity Emerge as Scotland's Largest Left Party
Friday, 04 May 2007
Solidarity, Scotland's Socialist Movement emerged as Scotland's leading party of the left in yesterday's Scottish elections. After only a few short months in existence the Solidarity vote totalled twice as many as the other left parties combined and came close to electing an MSP, despite small parties being squeezed across the country.

In Glasgow Tommy Sheridan lost out by less than one percent and Scotland's first Solidarity councillor, Ruth Black was elected in the Craigton Ward of the city.

Ruth is a well know socialist and campaigner who is currently manager of Glasgow's LGBT Centre. She said:

"I am proud to be carrying Solidarity's banner into the council chambers and, although we are disappointed to not be returning MSPs as well we are already the established party of the left in Scotland and will grow from here."

Solidarity Co-Convenor Tommy Sheridan was delighted at Ruth's election:

"Ruth Black is a perfect representative for Solidarity, she is a committed campaigner with a track record in fighting for equality. We are all very proud of her and priviledged to have such respected individuals representing Solidarity."

Ruth was elected in the Craigton ward where she had twice as many first votes as the Greens and SSP combined.

http://www.solidarityscotland.org/

by macavity the mysterie cat among thon dark braes. - "that was fun - our culture of governance is safe" Fri May 04, 2007 21:46

That was a question I forgot to add to the last comment.

I forget to add things all the time. Sorry. I lose ballot papers, files, bits of history. I apologise to any reader whose understanding of either Indymedia or Scotland has been negatively served by this article and its comments. Worst of all I have done this day must surely be the list of questions, usual suspects and allusions to the past week in another European Celtic nation, our former imperial sister & future economic and cultural competitor. It was a waste of Irish cyberspace as the Scottish people considered just like the Irish and Welsh and English and French and Basque and Catalan : the value of their participatory privilege in this month of elections.

Salmond and the SNP must now deal in the Holyrood parliament (which designed by a Catalan architect came in many billions over budget because of its very special requirements and extra details) with the referendum they proposed on the future self-determination of Scotland - by the Scottish people.

They'll also have to deal with a big budget which has many difficult and shady areas which put the humble Irish mid 40 trillion budget in quite rude yet surprisingly "clean" perspective. But this "thursday election" which with usual and typical obfuscation saw usual suspects jump to empty accusation & insubstantial frothiness & insinuation has as expected demonstrated the Scottish commitment to collective social organisation, democratic decision making & naturally letting the apolitical public in whose name our states are rule - "have a go at scratching an X now and again".

Much has been written on Scotland and the Scottish, and not all by Scots - as much as a homeland and mythological focus of "super-regional identity" as a its models of law, education, fraternal organisation & deep fat foods.
Scotland has never ceased to be a nation, and as one of the oldest "states" or unitary kingdoms which combined feudal titles with clan claims has been both pitied and envied by the other European peoples. Yet it has never properly and maturely come to terms with its own imperialist past, ambitions and responsibilities.

I'm not going to abuse the comments anymore with personal opinions - rather in the next few hours I'll leave stuff for those who might be interested on the blog space "gach áit eile" http://iosaf.allotherplaces.org

Though that much said - there were other "home rule" elections put in the UK this last Thursday. As usual the English elections are simply devalidated by the scope of franchise and the extent of abstention. But those in Cymru might usefully be compared to other similar areas of Europe where nationhood was re-invented on a primarily linguistic basis.

Only if more than 100,000 of the votes in the 30th Dail elections go missing or are spoilt will the Irish beat the Scottish in their latest Guinness Book of Records achievement - which with typical pragmatism the Caledonians will probably forget their record quicker than us - since it is us who bear the memory grudge.

There are a few more "loose ends" of the 21st century process which though still called "democracy" is nothing but meritocracy meets securocracy dosed with as of yet - too much liberal capitalist consideration & manipulation. It is the reality which many not see to their chagrin and weakness. But in that "meritocracy" are counted the fine minds who can explain the myths of nationalism to you, those who dare deny your cherished totems and fly forgotten flags of hitler or stalin and of course the puppets who don't die of heart attacks and do the telly shite. The securocracy is "just that". More scottish would die if a british nuke was taken out by Al Qaeda trying to throw a referendum and blaming it on the SRA (oghlaigh n'alba). Fortuanately the Scottish suffer less what I have termed "mafiaocracy" than other economies of similar size having dealt with the endemic corruption of a permenent Labour majority under squeeky clean Scottish born Tony Blair's creation of "new Labour" and his mid 1990's constitutional reform of the UK plan ( I was involved with that - great biscuits they gave us too). Of course the Scottish still have lingering graft issues from the Campbell days and the clan politics which saw Darien follow Bruce and still manage to get a decent enough whisky recipe of the Stuart before sending him to France. Where I'm going now as it happens. The French are being asked to play a part in an even bigger world stage direction "decision". I hope they choose the pretty one.

Enough said. Ná bac!
I'll now blog about this on the "all other places" blog.

You know what to do & when. Don't go at all or Bring it home
with you. Every assistance in this horribly sly international didactic deed will help. Ireland is too important to be left to the Irish alone. Always has been. Read the right honourable Dr A. antediluvian Flood if you can't understand how I explain it. http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82328 [ we are not connected in any way except having being registered as students at the same miserable rump of a polytechnic long long ago. ]

Closing Data -
if it appears with a green line under it - it is a link to another site or the urine proof based evidence you're pregnant.
Click the green lines above & you'll reach data on the Scottish 2007 election - it won't help you choose. Only a healthy society will do that. Take all this on board - & do your best to ignore any spin put on it by your local professional politicians or their volunteer agents. If they pressure you into telling them what you think of Scotland & its election- send them here or to any sister indymedia site or if they're good with factoids - wikipedia. We've a revolution to win. & doing it within 200 years would tie in perfectly with planetary ecosystem destruction or the Mayan calender whichever floats your boat.

just never forget Nemo or the pirates can sink your boat.

by mac diarmada (iosaf not a nemo) - "Bring it on! There can only be one!" Fri May 04, 2007 19:33

You need an assortment of links which are each trustworthy in a certain context :-
Wikipedia is loaded up to the eyeballs with Christians & minority belief fans and it has never really got past its scientific community roots or American registered charity status catchment area. As such it is Aristotlean to the point of abstraction which is why it may be credited with difusing the word "disambiguation". But for some subjects such as electoral factoids in the AngloSaxon world it's quite trustworthy and we (me & my mates) keep an eye (just like you can) on its edits, deletes and disputes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_%28disambiguation%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_sports_te...tland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotland_%28European_Parli...cy%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Parliament_electi..._2007

BBC - aunty beeb belongs in the same info-category as uncle ivan's Tass. For very specific reasons it's worth a bit of attention at the moment being quite splendidly and independently one of the first news related groups that called for an inquiry and communicated the extent of the mysterie....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/default.stm

You need several crises forecast options (which I prepared for you fadó fadó)
(I'm going to bring you through them in a later comment which will just about the time a lot of mediocre people who get paid for forming opinion will get their first lines of coke in).

You need several key constituencies and sample areas of study & appraisal which are distinct from those others chose.
Again - I'm not showing my cards. Wiping my Walter Mitty bleedin eye me.

You need usual suspects :-

Let's go through them gently without having to waste too much time and the dullards amongst us who don't get the immediate Agatha Christie nature of all this.

*Anyone who asked you to spoil thousands of votes for a home rule election in the last week.
*the British security services.
*the UVF & its intelligence shell in the British armed forces.
*the retired MBE league of the Orkneys and Shetland.
*Helen Mirren.
*Sean Garland.
*Dick Cheney.
*Uachtaran in Cream and Pink Chanel Mary McAleese, Bartholemew Ahern, 9mm Willy and the Tanaiste.
*a Dublin based criminal family.
*Anarchists and their intelligence shell in the global judeo-masonic conspiracy.
*the Rossport camp.
*Osama bin Laden and his ever overlooked intelligence shell in the New Labour party.
*the SNP and their ever overlooked intelligence shell in St. Pierre et Miquelon.
*Random Chance or God Almighty
*the NEMO squad.
*Carlos the Jackal.


Let's whittle down our suspects.

Carlos the Jackal is in a maximum security prison in France. Random Chance is just that, not a uniform system wide phenomena & God doesn't get that jammy. It wasn't Sean and Rossport are staying quiet till the time is right. All the Dublin based criminal families are under shoot-to-kill orders under operation Anvil and big swinging Mickey mc Dowellwould have made a press release by now. It's not really Mary McAleese's style, no matter what you have against her. Besides she's not really a "mac". This leaves us with only a few usual suspects we can start nailing this on.

Who do we start nailing this on? & Why?

I know you don't have time for all this and it distracts you from more important matters like grass roots activism and swinging the 30th Dail election which is why I truncated the question. Honest truth is, you could pin on several of them quite perfectly each has a motive & it is quite strategically possible there was "co-operation" on this terrible deed. Again - once the paid-for opinion people are into their weekend and non-banking days I'll come back to tell you a bit more about this last question's answer-

How is this going to influence the Irish Home Rule Question?


& You need on the spot reporting from the real people who make the real stories.
If you can't see Scotland from your nearest beach, you're doing the 30th Dail - ok? But many of us if not related to Scottish people have strong opinions about them - a lot of which are very false. Scotland has an indymedia and as is usual at times of developing crises like these and fears of coup d'etat conditions on Europe's fringes - I have fished out my little blue book of phone numbers and even switched on to Scottish time. For the next few days I will wake at their time and phone some of them and speak at least one of their official languages. This is my service to you which only a space ar oscailt could provide.

by Socialist Fri May 04, 2007 19:01

Solidarity and the SSP are now floundering - Let the blame game begin!

by mac smelly nemo Fri May 04, 2007 17:50

Bad weather is being blamed for the delay in bringing another SNP seat result from the Western Isles.
A chartered helicopter couldn't make it through the fog (I don't know if it was a chinook), so the great British democratic public don't know yet if the SNP are taking that seat (the way everyone expected them to).

The votes finally got delivered to Stornaway and count began at 12h00 & so far no result has been called. Which is of itself very smelly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Isles_%28Scottish_...cy%29
The constituency of the Western Isles was created for the Scottish Parliament by Mr Gerry Mander who was appointed by the first minister of Scotland who died conveniently of the same kind of heart attack which stopped you learning who put the dossier of crap on the internet which brought the British Isles into the War on Iraq. Keen analysts are awaiting the percentage of spoilt and lost votes from this relatively large constituency with quite a low population density. The swing (from SNP) which gave Scottish Labour the seat last time round was 4.3% Tippy toppy mathematicians and statisticians have already worked exactly how many missing and spoilt votes Hebrides would need to break (sorry) keep the Union intact.

This is the link of the Electoral Boundary commission :-
http://www.bcomm-scotland.gov.uk/

Don't go fretting. Irish independence is not an issue at your Dail Election. So you won't be going worrying yourselves about your election being stolen, faked, thrown or anything like that.

Nemo me impune lacessit =Cha togar m'fhearg gun dioladh=Wha daur meddle wi me? NEMO would.

by anon Fri May 04, 2007 13:52

This is fascinating but if we could excise ourselves from our own navel for a minute, the real issue is how the Scottish socialists performed.

The socialist movement there has just taken a real hit. Lessons to be learned? One surely is that Tommy Sheridan put himself before the movement and that personality politics will never be a positive for socialist groups. Respect and the pussy cat are in the same boat, and I don't see Respect surviving the next election either.

by hanky % panky Fri May 04, 2007 13:43

According to the Scotsman (an independently owned & maintained Scottish commercial newspaper - to the centre politically) Two major things went wrong:

* Counting machines operated by the firm DRS failed, resulting in counts being suspended in the early hours in Aberdeen, Argyll & Bute, some Edinburgh seats, Eastwood, Linlithgow, Livingtson, Perth and Tayside North and Strathkelvin & Bearsden until later today.

* Voters appeared confused about the new ballot papers, which carried on the left-hand side a list of those standing for list seats and on the right candidates for constituency seats. Instead of putting one cross in a box on each side, many voters put two crosses in separate boxes on the left, invalidating their ballot. There are estimates of at least 100,000 spoiled papers - which means 5 per cent of voters were disenfranchised.

In one seat, Airdrie and Shotts, 1,536 papers were rejected - more than Labour's margin of victory in the seat.

The Scotland Office, which was responsible for administering the election, ordered an investigation by the independent Electoral Commission. Alan Campbell, returning officer for Aberdeenshire, said ministers in the Scottish Executive had ignored advice to delay the count. "All the returning officers in Scotland did recommend to Scottish ministers that we, in fact, start this whole count process on Friday morning rather than on Thursday evening," Mr Campbell said.

read more at link:-
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=693382007

by mac democratic Fri May 04, 2007 13:21

The independent Electoral Commission has of 2 hours begun a full inquiry into teh Scottish Parliamentary election which has thus far seen over 100,000 votes annulled. This is the highest number of annulled votes in modern European History. Or put in normal type - "there are too many missing votes".

There is growing pressure for the election to be devalidated & re-run. (only if Labour win of course)
The UVF have not said if they will recruit a new generation at this weekend's QPR match. The people of Panama see no immediate threat of a Scottish attempt to recolonise Darien (their colonial history which brought them into union with Engurland because it cost so much and they ran out of cream http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_Scheme).

Thankfully Home Rule supporters in the Eire State who might have shared their premier's shame at not having electronic voting machines will not have to deal with such a thrown election later in May.

Of course many Irish people will see no connection or relevance between Scottish affairs and those of Erin. Scotland has a reforestation program which doesn't kill fish, cheap rambling paths, decent income from Oil and Gas, huge Whisky sales in Europe, protestants, good education, Braveheart, kilts & deep fried Mars Bars. The Irish have none of that & don't particularly feel the need for it either knowing they are closed to Boston than London or Berlin.

The people based in Milton Keynes England who supplied the electronic voting system (which is failing) are the "Electoral Reform Society" whose long time president (the persistent and often abusive pamphleteer Enid Lakeman) is credited with stopping Fianna Fail abolish "single transferable voting" in 1959 and 1968 (the year vote rigging almost kept Nixon out of power).
This was very good news for Irish people back then who mostly surviving on high protein grubs were capable of thinking more than the current generation. They knew that "first past the post" voting would have ensured a FF regime for another century. & so erected statues to Enid Lakeman for ensuring the PD's had to be invented to keep the Eire regime intact. But at least the day of saying "aye" or "nay" in the town square as your absentee landlord's agent tapped his cudgel on his palm was gone and that within a mere ten years they would re-unite the country with the missing north and implement a power sharing agreement with Stormont and sideline the noisy and radical young firebrand preacher Ian Paisley. Sure the rest is history. You don't need to worry about it.

http://www.erbs.co.uk/

by home rule! Fri May 04, 2007 12:38

"A man smashed ballot boxes with a golf club at a polling station in Edinburgh. About 100 ballots were damaged. He was arrested on the scene. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_a...5.stm

The number of spoiled ballot papers has increased dramatically. Possible reasons for this increase include the design of the ballot papers, confusion due to the new STV voting system introduced for council elections, or ballot papers being rejected by the new electronic vote counting machines.

The new machine voting has not gone smoothly, with many counts abandoned during the early hours of Friday morning before all results had been counted. There have been calls for an independent enquiry into the implementation of the new voting system. The BBC Scotland political editor has described the situation as "a disgrace".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6622379.stm

by observer Fri May 04, 2007 12:29

A recount won't make any difference to the socialist vote in Scotland which has completely collapsed. The two Solidarity MSP (including Tommy Sheridan) failed to get re-elected and the party got about 2% of the vote - less than the BNP. The Scottish Socialist Party fared even worse and lost all its seats gaining 0.8%. Now that's what I call a collapse! Down from over 12% the last time.

by mac womble Fri May 04, 2007 08:21

But thankfully less of us will be buried in shallowed graves before hand. However, tippy toppy democracies like the USA, Italy and so on have shown us the importance of making sure every single little vote be counted and recounted just to make sure there be no hanky panky. Hanky Panky comes in many guises - some finely fair and elfin others as shy of the daylight as financial disclosure.

It only takes one missing box of votes to discredit democracy. Amazingly people used to think low turn-out would work. They were very innocent back then. Scotland is a celtic nation on the fringe of Europe which within twenty years could market the whole "celtic thing" better than Ireland under a FF/PD or FG/Labour coalition. An independent Scotland would be a celtic dragon and torch your tiger quicker than you can pronounce St.John Synge and Percival Magdalene Ffrench properly.

Scotland is thus our enemy. Unfortuanately we share an other enemy. Scotland is thus our friend.

It's all very complicated you see. We can't deal with a free Scotland to we sort out Ireland. Thus disputing the Holyrood elections till after you've changed the regime in Kildare Henge is exactly where shadowy influence and power ought be exercised.

If any of you are thinking of voting this week - going to the casino of democracy was a flutter -
vote Royal and save the Republic.