Do you agree that the SNP should do what the Electoral Commission says?

See what I did there?

That headline is a bit of a leading question. It certainly isn't, in my view at least, neutral. It invites the reader  to answer "Yes." Had I said "Should the SNP do what the Electoral Commission says?" that would be a little more neutral.

We'll find out later what the Electoral Commission thinks about that when it rules on the SNP's chosen question for the Independence Referendum. They want to ask "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?"

The Electoral Commission view is actually the only one that matters. If the Referendum is going to have any semblance of fairness, then it has to be overseen by this completely neutral body. This is what the Edinburgh Agreement between the two Governments has to say on the Electoral Commission's role:


The Electoral Commission is responsible for overseeing referendums held under PPERA. PPERA gives the Electoral Commission responsibility for:
• commenting on the wording of the referendum question;
• registration of campaigners;
• designating lead campaign organisations;
• regulating campaign spending and donations;
• giving grants to lead campaign organisations;
• publishing guidance for permitted participants;
• reporting on the referendum process;
• the conduct of the poll; and
• the announcement of the result.
13. The Electoral Commission was also given responsibility for promoting
public awareness for voters in the 2011 Welsh and UK referendums.
14. Both governments agree that the Electoral Commission should fulfil all
these functions in respect of the independence referendum

Nicola Sturgeon has been less certain than I would have liked about the Commission's role, merely saying that any government which didn't take their advice would have to explain why to Parliament, where they have a majority.

Whatever the Commission says today, I think we need a very quick commitment from the SNP Government to do what it says. Willie Rennie said yesterday that it would shatter confidence if they didn't:

Rejecting the considered word of the expert electoral commission would shatter confidence amongst those who seek a fair process in the independence referendum. Alex Salmond should keep the words of his nationalist colleague Blair Jenkins in mind and accept the guidance of the Electoral Commission on matters such as the wording of the referendum question and campaign spending levels.

My guess is that Nicola Sturgeon will do what the Electoral Commission says. The last thing the Scottish Government needs is 18 months of accusations that they are trying to rig the referendum on top of all the ducking and diving from them over the EU question. It would be very dangerous for them to disregard neutral advice from the body overseeing the referendum and to push their own alternative through the Parliament they control. My guess is that she's too sensible to let that happen, even if some of her colleagues might prefer a different route.

Havering Council havers over voter registration

I thought I'd just quickly slip in a "bureaucracy gone mad" story before sloping off to bed cos I'm about to collapse in a heap.

The deadline for voter registration passed yesterday so now it's too late to get a vote. In an attempt to encourage people to sign up, the Electoral Commission set up the About my Vote website to make the process very easy. All a would be voter had to do was download a form, print it off, fill it in and send it off to their council. Simples...

Or at least it was until the bureaucrats at Havering Council decided that they wouldn't accept the Electoral Commission's form. They decided that their form was better and the one produced by the people who run elections in this country just wasn't good enough, and open to fraud. Excuse me, but how on earth does the same information being filled in on an Electoral Commission, rather than a local, form make the information any more true?

They had a slight change of heart this week but still require voters to complete a second form within 5 days. I do hope that nobody has lost the right to vote as a result of their over zealousness.

I've come across this sort of jobsworth approach before. In 2007 I was in charge of sorting out the nominating process and I had to soothe one candidate who almost produced a litter of kittens after their nomination was turned down because it wasn't on that Council's form. They had downloaded the Electoral Commission form which had a tiny technical error in the small print, referring to the wrong paragraph in the legislation. The RO in question was the only one in Scotland to turn that form down.

Liberal Democrat Voice have more information here.

Just as a matter of interest, the best Council I have ever known for professional, fair, clear election prep and support is West Lothian. They have pre-election briefings for all candidates and agents where they take you through all the forms and the processes and are always willing to help out with questions. I wonder if Havering want to send some people north for a bit of training from Alex Linkston and his excellent staff. It sounds like they need it.

Labour slammed on Glasgow North East by-election delay and postal vote shambles

The Electoral Commission has criticised the Labour Government for leaving it almost 5 months to hold the by-election to replace former Speaker Michael Martin, who was forced to resign over the MPs' expenses scandal.

Labour's excuse, that the parliamentary Summer recess got in the way is not even half way to being plausible. For a start, they had several weeks' notice that Michael Martin was going to resign. They could have moved the writ on 22 June and had the by-election in mid July.

It's not as if the recess itself is a barrier to holding a by-election - the Livingston by-election was held in recess in 2005. Ok, there are some funny rules about advertising in the London Gazette, but it's not beyond the wit of anyone to do it.

We all know the real reason Labour delyed the by-election - there had just been the Euro election meltdown where James Purnell, Hazel Blears and Caroline Flint had resigned, the Euro and local elections had been a disaster for Labour and they knew fine that the almost certain loss of one of their safest seats in a by-election would mean the end for Gordon Brown.

The reason this was shameful was because, if you hadn't noticed, there's a recession on. People are losing their jobs. Pressure is put on Government departments like JobCentrePlus and the people who work there with a vastly increased workload. Mistakes are bound to be made. The intervention of an MP can literally make the difference between someone being able to eat that day or not. The people of Glasgow North East didn't have an MP to turn to in order to help them with benefits, CSA, immigration issues for more than a third of a year.

When it's suited them politically (ie when they were trying to stop our campaign gaining momentum in Dunfermline in 2006, they can call an election when the previous MP has barely been buried). Obviously that didn't work!

It's high time for those sorts of electoral timing decisions, and that of the General Election for that matter to be taken out of the hands of those with a direct interest in it - it should be done independently and within an agreed time frame, like it is in the Scottish Parliament.

Lib Dem Shadow Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael said:

“By-elections should be called for the convenience of the public, and not for the political advantage of the party holding the seat.

“Reform of this is long overdue. Frankly, however, I doubt we will see any commitment from Labour to act on this. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas.”

Just as an aside, we shouldn't forget the SNP's incompetence in all of this. Their attempt to move the writ just before the recess might have amounted to a bit more than showboating if they'd tipped off the other opposition parties about what they were going to do, as I wrote at the time.


It's also worth noting that Labour were also criticised for their failure to promptly deliver voters' postal vote applications to the Council in Glasgow. They held on to some of them for a whole MONTH and then handed them in just before the deadline. Political parties are supposed to hand forms in within 2 days. What if a form had been completed incorrectly? People might have been denied a vote if they were, for example, working or away on the day of the election. That's an absolute disgrace.

I'm sure the Liberal Democrats would be only too happy to support the necessary changes to the law to make by-election procedure quicker and more efficient and they could I think be rushed through Parliament before it's dissolved for the General Election. What's the betting that Labour won't bother to do it?