26 October 2007
Former Scottish secretary Douglas Alexander apologised this week after an independent report delivered a damning verdict on the conduct of the Scottish elections, claiming that voters were treated as an 'afterthought'.
Alexander – now international development secretary – is not named in the report by Canadian election expert Ron Gould. But the Scotland Office held the main responsibility for decisions on the running of the May 3 elections, which resulted in 140,000 ballot papers being rejected because of voter confusion.
Gould, who was appointed by the Electoral Commission to conduct the inquiry, said both the Scotland Office and Scottish Executive were frequently focused on 'partisan political interests'. Voters' interests and operational realities were 'overlooked', he stated. 'Almost without exception, the voter was treated as an afterthought by virtually all the other stakeholders.'
In advance of a clash over the issue at Prime Minister's Questions between Gordon Brown and Conservative leader David Cameron on October 24, Alexander defended the consultation process over the single ballot paper, which combined parliamentary first-past-the-post and proportional representation votes.
'That consultation produced an overwhelming consensus amongst Scotland's political parties for a single ballot paper. I therefore reject any interpretation of the Gould report that seeks to imply any other motivation,' he said. 'I, of course, apologise for any actions or omissions on my part which contributed to the problems.'
Current Scottish Secretary Des Browne accepted the report's recommendations and said lessons had to be learned. But Scottish National Party politicians described the findings as a 'scandal'.
First Minister Alex Salmond said the report raised 'extremely serious issues'. He has written to Gordon Brown demanding that control over all Scottish elections should be transferred from Westminster to the Scottish government.
Among a series of recommendations, Gould suggested that the Parliament and local government elections should be 'decoupled' and that the Scottish government should be put in charge of both.
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PFoct2007
