First reflections......

I posted the following comment on Stuart's blog about the Scottish elections but I want to reiterate the fact here.

Readers of this blog from outwith Scotland may not be aware that we still don't know which party has gained the majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament and its now 1pm. There have been problems with the electonic counting and with the number of spoiled ballot papers. This term in itself is misleading; it has now been revealed that the papers are not spoiled as such - but the voter's intention is not clear; they have not used numbers on the council elections (Single Transferable Vote System) and used crosses instead, or on the list paper (Additional Member System - one cross required), they have used numbers. Confusing, eh? Specially when the straightforward First Past The Post constituency vote and the proportional representation list vote are on the same paper....

I don't intend to comment on the data reader system, because I don't think that's the main issue. For me the number of rejected ballot papers has been of great concern. You'll have noticed that in some cases the number of rejected papers is greater than the majority (in my own constituency, for example)

I think Margaret will agree with me; the level of literacy and on-paper spacial awareness required to take in the instructions AND the choices on the ballot paper was very great. I thought Alex Salmond was very smart to have himself listed alphabetically first on the list paper as studies on research methods show that the eye is drawn to the top and the bottom of long lists; so if there is too much information to take in, there's more chance of you plonking your cross at the top or bottom of the list. Read more about it here

And for the non-reader or poor reader; the party logo pictures were too small. I met someone I know on the way out from the polling station and they said they got their 8 year old son to choose for them............