The X Factor

Scotland awakes this morning to find itself like an elderly oriental gentleman who has run out of viagra - yes, sadly, we are just unable to hold a decent election!

The decision to hold two elections, one for the Scottish parliament and one for local authorities, each with different voting systems, X in one box versus 1,2,3, etc in order of preference, seems to have confused the general populace. The number of spoilt ballot papers, estimated to be in excess of 100,000, would be enough to guarantee the "Cannae fill a wee form in properly" party a parliamentary seat. According to the BBC the returning officer for Glasgow Shettleston said there had been 2,035 spoilt papers in that count alone - however geographical factors cannot be discounted in this case, one resident reputedly complained about having to sign his name so many times...

The new technology, brought in to replace the tried and tested manual vote counting of old, has also encountered problems. Papers have been jamming in the counting scanners and there are reports of some being chewed up and spat back out by the machinery. Those votes that have made it through into the system have been counted, compiled and sent to the central computer. The only problem now is that the central computer is refusing to send back the results.

Other problems have been weather related: a helicopter grounded by fog held up deliberations in the highlands, and further problems were encountered with a boat delivering votes from Arran.

To add to all this fun and hilarity it appears that it all got a but much for one gentleman in Edinburgh who having cast his vote returned to the polling station with a golf club, destroyed a few ballot boxes and proceeded to rip up the ballot papers contained within them... Cue a long night of "ballot paper jigsaw puzzles" and a few rolls of sellotape for the election staff!

The repercussions from this farce will rumble on for a long, long time....