大象传媒

Indeed having seen the DRS electronic counting DVD and attended a demonstration of the counting process. There are a number of issues that need addressing before we can be confident in the system.

At present the ballots are going to just run through the scanners and be counted with questionable papers adjudicated.

Question 1 : How do we know that the papers the computer deemed not open to question were counted accurately. There is no audit or sample in place to verify this.

Solution : Randomly select ballot papers from completed batches enter the barcode from the paper and view the scanned image to see what the computer decided the vote was. Do this with a sufficient sample as an independent audit.

The system is based around re-scanning if there is a question but all the verification systems in place check for accuracy of the number of votes being cast matching the number of votes counted. None of the verification systems check that the "passed" ballots are accurate.

With the ballot papers being scanned at 2-3 papers per second, all that the press and public at the count will see is papers moving around in boxes with no idea of how things are going. Then a few hours later a button will be pushed and out will pop a piece of paper with a result.

Question 2 : How likely is it that things will get difficult/heated at counts where political careers come to an abrupt halt after 5-6 hours of waiting in the very early hours of 4th May.

Solution : The software has the ability to display the percentage vote cast for each batch scanned as a bar chart. Thus candidates & agents will have a feel for how things are going and the suddenness of the bit of paper at the end will be removed and thus a lot of the tension.

The introduction of an electronic count was done in a panic to try to speed things up. To couple it with the introduction of STV is a mistake as I have no doubt that opponents of STV will use any problems with electronic counting as an argument that STV itself is flawed.

It would have been so much better to have the introduction of STV counted manually so that the press & candidates could understand the process rather than it being a secretive black box style computer result that many simply won't trust.

I can see arguments, heated tempers and bitter disputes in the tired early hours of Friday morning. I feel pity for the returning officers, not a happy job this time round.

Wales is single tier as well, not just Scotland. But using postcodes to find addresses is awful, Post Office use post codes for delivering the mail, not for actually locating properties on the ground

Two polling cards - that will work well with uncheckable electronic voting! With details beginning to emerge of Labour threatening the 大象传媒 in a meeting in Glagow, how safe is our democracy really?

Perhaps this isn't quite as relevant to Scotland where a sense of place isn't defined as strongly by county as in other parts of the UK. Although that loyalty does exist.

If Government, the 大象传媒 and many other organisations accepted the proper difference between the unchanging and eternal counties and the ever changing and confusing local government areas georgraphy would be so much easier. Use the county to describe where you are.
Many people at the 大象传媒 don't seem to understand the difference so over the years a town that has always been in, for example, Yorkshire will be described over the last 30 years on the 大象传媒 as
1............in Yorkshire
2............in Cleveland
3............on Teeside

No wonder the public get confused!

Ooooooooooh Bearsden, how dare they place you in the Clydebank and Milngavie constituency and you with a G61 postcode, the 7th richest postcode in the United Kingdom; they鈥檝e even programmed the computers to support their crusade against G61鈥檚.

I鈥檓 almost positive that at very least one bruised ego will demand a manual count to permitting them to remain in denial and delay the ultimate moment of embarrassment. I only hope the two voting cards cannot be linked to a conspiracy that we as party to such information could be linked as co-conspirators by that infernal computer or one of its relatives.

Hmm..have some sympathy, but I don't think it is to do with Post Codes being geared around 'urban' dwellers. It is because these politicians keep mucking about with counties !!

In Wales, Carmarthen, Pembroke and Cardigan were amalgamated into 'Dyfed' then some 25 years later changed back.

That's okay if the borders stay the same, but now their 'assembly' boundaries don't correspond with either the old or new county boundaries. I think the Westminster constituencies will follow the lines of the counties, but split in half where the population is large.

And don't start about 'counties' like Monmouth which weren't even Welsh until 1974..

p.s. scorching braces, by the way..

Oh well! Perhaps they just trusted Brian's judgement and thought he deserved two votes!

If I had two votes, i would vote Labour and then maybe Green or SSP. Though, I do actually have two votes, and I think i'll stick to Labour twice. It would take a lot of council blunders to give me enough polling cards to ever vote SNP...

JS

As we know from past experience the dead have been known to vote in large numbers when selecting prospective Labour party candidates in Scotland.

However, I don't think the departed souls of Labour's past would come over to vote for this New Labour shower of charlatans, spivs and snake-oil sale merchants.

Nae luck Brian! Just the one vote like the rest of us, although as a fellow Arab I'm pretty sure you're good judgement would merit two votes!

Certainly even if I had 1 million votes I wouldn't cast a single one for Labour with their appaling legacy of dawn raids, the Iraq war, trident nuclear weapons and economic underachievment.

I'll be using my one visit to the polling station to (hopefully) help elect an SNP government.

Hmmmm - lots of pre-polling hesitancy afoot. Not going to let it trip me up though, or remove the beat hundreds of thousands of Scots are dancing to.

I of course mean with regards boundary changes, previously criticised electronic vote counters etc...

...not with the vote itself, where all is quite, quite clear.

Scottish Parliament? Scottish vote.

SNP for me [a one, two, three!!]

On the subject of the reliability of the electronic counting system, does anyone know how the machines are supposed to pick out numbers in the council elections conducted by Single Transferable Vote? I can see how optical scanners could pick out a single cross on a ballot paper, but surely there's every danger that they would misread numbers messily scrawled in pencil.

Janet, I know you posted at 1am but you really need to wake up. You don't have 2 votes: with the Council STV format you actually have several votes in this combined Election.

This illustrates the confusion which may arise on Election Day. The STV system has not been well explained at all and we can only hope that voters actually take time to read the instructions on the ballot papers.

It's all right for those of us with all our faculties but I really fear for the feeble-minded - they may not get back to Holyrood!

Sack Jack!

Alexander Bisset - this latest post of yours is your most interesting yet!

Care to tell the rest of us just HOW you came to be watching a demonstration of the Vote counting system?

Do you want to declare an interest?

I think we should be told!

'PS: When I鈥檓 buying stuff in a shop and I enter my G61 postcode, why oh why does the blasted computer insist on placing my home in 鈥淟anarkshire鈥�?'

Absolutely! Presumably because of the assumption that G=Glasgow, Glasgow was once in Lanarkshire, therefore anything with a Glasgow postal address is in Lanarkshire. It's not just Bearsden, incidentally; places like Balfron and Helensburgh get absorbed into Lanarkshire for this purpose too.

I seem to recall that the postmark for the outer Hebrides is PA (Paisley), on the grounds that a good deal of mail is flown there from Glasgow airport. Has anyone from Stornoway received mail marked 'Stornoway, Renfrewshire'?!?

You urbanites make me laugh. I can almost fit some constituencies into the length of my driveway. Constituency boundaries are not fixed by politicians, they are fixed by an independent boundary commission, usually after the politicians have spent a couple of years at local level to explain why this street or that village should be excluded. Counties are important, especially where I live. You can fit Glasgow, Lanarkshire, Dunbartonshire and the Lothians all into Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, but Scotland's oldest Royal Burgh, Tain was separated from the county it administered for almost a millenium 15 years ago and now shares an MP and MSP with communities more than 100 miles away.
I too worry about this automatic vote check by machine. Which machine can differentiate between the feint tick of my 90 year old grandmother on her ballot paper and the smudges of the uncertain voter who changes his or her mind. I wait up and watch the results every time. I suspect we could be facing a night of demands for manual recounts.

Euan MacInnes of Adam Lyal's Witchery Tour Party has a distinct advantage over the rest of us. Being a ghost, it is possible he can be in two polling stations at the same time. I'd suggest keeping an eye out for him, but then again, will you be able to see him!?

I think the scare tactics used by the Witchery Tour party are just not on! However, they're no as scary as Brian Taylor's tartan braces!!!

BOO

Dear Mr AJ. Scare tactics indeed! Have you seen Adam Lyal's election videos on MYSPACE? They are really good for a deceased highway robber. It's a frightening prospect but what happens if the Witchery Tour Party is elected? Will the ghost only attend the parliament at night?

I can't help but feel, Adam Lyall is related to Michael Howard in some way! There seems to be a similarity, but I can't put my finger on it!

I think Mr Lyall will do just fine, whether he operates night or during the day, but who will he back - Wee Eck or wee jack?

Dear Mr AJ

I understand that Mr Lyal (deceased) will happily go into any sort of coalition. I must say, this shows his true colours. . . white.