Some Postal Facts

Regular readers will know I`ve made a couple of posts on the, as yet unsubstantiated, comments/reports/posts that there had been a huge spike in the number of postal vote applications in days leading up to the cut-off point.

Well I have had it confirmed that in the final days that postal votes could be applied for that there were in fact around 1100 that were applied for.

Figures are Approx*

360 – 26/10/09

320 – 27/10/09

410 – 28/10/09

So of the 1800 total increase in the number of postal votes for this by-election 1100 were made in the dying days and that the overwhelming majority of that 1100 increase can be attributed by applications being handed in by Labour.

After a couple of days of postal ballot opening the rejection rates were running at 13%. I explored in a previous post the reason that postals get refused (have a wee look). There are 6000 postal votes in total...so at a 50% turnout there could be well over 300 postal ballots rejected if the rate of rejection was consistent across all the days the postals were being opened.

I think it could be time that the postal and proxy vote system was reassessed to ensure that a) people who may not be able to get the polls can still vote in a secure manner; and b) that people can have confidence that there is no scope for vote tampering in the electoral system.

One of the questions that would have to arise in such a reassessment is should political parties be permitted to being part of the delivery of recruitment of postal votes? I don`t have the answer as there may well be benefits to having politicos trying to drum up postals.

But if the system is flawed we must reform the system.

According to Jeff over at SNP Tactical Voting's live blog we can expect a 2am result.