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One of those spoilt papers was mine .... and I did not vote for pauline !!
I zoomed in and quickly marked my papers not realising I was to mark 1 ,2 and 3rd choice .

This election is turning into a joke .....already with only a couple of results in THOUSANDS OF SCOTTISH VOTES HAVE BEEN DISCOUNTED DUE TO A MISLEADING VOTING SYSTEM

PAUL

Given the slim majority, all of the spoiled papers should be checked and if the 1,2,3 was used, the 1 should be counted as the vote. Given that it is the first time this system has been used, there needs to be some flexibility used.

I agree with you Brian, it's absolutely absurd.

We really need to sort out this electoral process.

I completely agreed with what Tommy said earlier about local government issues - despite how much I disagree with his political policies.

Glad to hear that your braces are also politically neutral! :D

This wiki article is pretty relevant - if the Scottish people already struggle to understand the system to elect MSPs, it's simply crazy to bring in council elections (especially with a new system) on the same day.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but isn't that VERY close to the winning margin for the Labour candidate?

This new system is a farce. I call shenanigans!

What does it take to spoil a paper?

The number of spoiled papers was predictable. It was too complicated.
I think it will make people wonder who really won in very close results. Its a scandal.

Don't jump to conclusions, more and more people are spoiling their papers as a protest against politics and politicians. With this number of papers rejected an inquiry will take place and this will wake up the politicians that no-one trusts them.

Spoilt papers is THE story of the night.Does a paper put in the box the wrong way up count as a spoilt paper?

I wonder as well, if some of these ballots were spoiled on purpose. Is it time we had a "none of the above" box on our papers?

I wouldn't think so Ian, I'm sure the machine should be able to read them either way round. If it didn't and I'm sure the spoilt votes figures would be much higher.

i voted in west dunbartonshire this evening and only chose 1 candidate in my constituancy as i did not have a 2nd or 3rd choice , i was told by the officer this was ok , is my vote spoiled?

The Scottish Parliament elections use X to mark your vote not the 1,2,3 numbers,that was for the local council. I would of thought there would be far more people with spoiled papers for the council election. i.e where people voted with an X as per normal by mistake.
It will be interesting to find out if there has been even larger numbers of spoilt papers in the council elections when they are counted.

If people are too stupid to follow the instructions on how to vote then they don't deserve to vote. I mean, how complicated is 1 2 3?

Unless one particular party only attracts people of a lower intelligence then the 1000 "spoilt" papers should be divided between the different candidates in proportion to the valid papers. Is a certain party complaining that it's voters are dumber than average?

I would like to know how if any human scrutiny of these supposed 'spoiled' ballots is being done, or if the substantially higher level of rejections this time is being caused by errors made by the newly-introduced counting machines...

If people can not read or listen to the many broadcasts explaining the new voting system do they deserve to make decisions of such a magnitude.
the papers are self explanitory and many polling stations had officers available to guide you through the protocol

Its really not that complicated and it was clearly explained on each ballot paper.

But obviously it's caused problems...

Was it too complicated? Where I voted there was someone at a separate table ready to help anyone who needed help, and there was a pictorial diagram thing in the booth to help too.

A paper put in the box the wong way will still be counted!
A paper is only judged spoilt when there is no clear selection of a candidate or candidates.

the instructions were on the cards sent in the post, they were told by the greeters in polling stations, and they were on the top of each paper. how much more info can you get unless you do require additional help? it isnt complicated at all.

It's clear that the three seperate votes at one time was too much for many people. I saw 5 people come into the poling station while I voted and all had questions about how to vote.

It seems there are thousands of Brain Dead Scots alive and well in Glasgow.

My 82 year old Mother had no difficulty whatsoever voting down in the Borders.

Why so many in Strathclyde with issues ?

The voting system used is not the problem, it is very simple and produces more proportional results. If the voting system is responsible for the amount of spoiled ballots then this is the fault of those organising the election for not explaining how the system works properly. You cannot criticise the system for the inadequacies of those charged with informing the public about it. If we had never used the simple majoritarian system we use in elections before and nobody explained how it was done don't you think there would be a similarly high amount of spoilt ballot papers? We need to get away from this idea that a new system is inferior to the older system simply because people have failed to grasp how it works. It is not complicated in the slightest and any individual given 5 minutes can get to grips with it.

It doesn't need to be misunderstanding or conspiracy. Just people choosing NOT to vote in the constituency vote BUT voting in the regional list because only there is there a candidate they want to vote for.
Only with the regional list spoiled paper counts can this sort of claim be made.

Can't comment on where anyone else voted, but at my polling station they had a big poster about the new system, a bloke in the foyer asking if you needed the changes explained, and the two ladies handing out the ballot papers went through them in detail, very s l o w l y and in small words before they handed the blank ballots over. It didn't seem like rocket science to me.

I did postal vote and had to sit and read all the instructions carefully to make sure I was getting it right in the comfort of my own home.

In a rush in a polling booth, I can see how people are making mistakes. So sad...

Is this our Hanging Chads story?

I'd like 'none of the above' to be on every ballot paper - and perhaps when NOTA starts to 'win' a few seats the politicians will take notice! Of course, we couldn't really expect the turkeys to vote for Xmas, so they'd never actually let the rules be changed...

"You can never underestimate the stupidity of the general public."

To be fair, people who are posting just now are probably people who have an above average interest in politics and therefore are probably people who are well aware of the voting changes. Other people are may not so interested...

If a correctly made vote is registered on the constituency side of the paper, but an error is made on the regional side (or vice versa) does this mean the whole paper is rejected?

Surely this just goes to show that a large part of the nation, don't bother to read anything before putting pencil to paper. It was well established in the media that the new system for coucil votes would be used in this election. I believe that this is just another form of apathy or as I put it the " I can't be bothered " attitude that seems to be prevelant in the country at the moment.

Im sorry but all the people complaining they made a mistake on their ballot papers for the local elections have no-one to blame but themselves. My pooling card arrived over a week before polling day. If you had actually taken the time to read it then you would have noticed it clearly stated it would be by voting 1,2,3,4... and not by marking a cross.

Robert - yes, all the papers that the machines flag up as unreadable are gone through by election officers, and if it's clear who they meant to vote for, the vote is counted manually. I'm not sure what counts as "clear", though.

Im in no way surprised at loads of people mucking up their papers. The country is full to bursting with idiots. Go to your nearest high street at 1am on a Friday night or pop up to your local a&e and you'll see only to clearly how stupid people are.

I accidentally put a cross in my council sheet. I was told this was okay if I didn't want to put down any more choices, but I did (basically wanted to vote every single party except Labour). So I was given a replacement, and I did it right the second time.

I don't know if this would happen in reverse, though - I was basically getting into the swing of drawing crosses. However, I can imagine a lot of people doing the same but not noticing like I did.

Electronic voting: radio buttons would stop accidental multiple choices, and people wouldn't have to leave their homes, which is apparently a really hard thing to do.

Just make sure the Government don't handle the project!

We're looking at potentially tens of thousands of people being effectively disenfranchised as a result of the voting slips being rejected. That is completely unacceptable and something must be done. Those votes could have made a considerable difference.

Would be good to hear from a returning officer about the spoiled ballot papers and what seems to be the issue. Any chance, Brian?

Paul wrote
"I zoomed in and quickly marked my papers not realising I was to mark 1 ,2 and 3rd choice"

He shouldn't have done that for the parliamentary election, and if he did it's his mistake. There was no change to that system, so it's a bit rich for him suddenly to describe it as "misleading".

We don't yet know what the local election results are, but it doesn't look good. Let's have a return to the hustings, when voters declared their preference vocally. No room for error there!

This is really getting quite ridiculous, the number of rejected votes becoming more than the majority on the majority of occasions now. I specifically didn't vote as I don't agree with the scottish parliament, but even if I did, it probably wouldn't have counted anyway!

If we get a seat with a really small margin this might become a bigger problem.

I reckon we should wait untill the regional votes are counted and see if the number of spoilt votes remains the same.... it is possible that SSP, and the likes, voters for example are spoiling this vote