Glenrothes - It Stinks

Via Guido and Political Betting comes news of a quite staggering data loss north of that border which isn't really a border even though I wish it was.

The record of people who voted in the Glenrothes by election in November has gone missing.

Here's how things are supposed to happen in elections. In the beginning the authorities are supposed to hold a list of who is eligible to vote. And then when people do vote, the authorities are supposed to cross their names off. To make sure that no one votes who isn't entitled to do so, to stop people voting twice...that kind of thing; you know, to stop this country being compared to Zimbabwe and the like. And, at the end of the process, the list of everyone who has voted should be kept. In a safe place. Not difficult, you'd have thought.

After the election, candidates and their agents are entitled to see the list. They have to pay a fee of some sort, but many political parties ask for a copy so that they can find out which of their supporters turned out. Whether it should be like this is a matter for debate - personally I regard whether I vote or not as no one else's business, but the law doesn't see it like that, so I guess I just have to live with it.

Except in Glenrothes, it really is no one else's business. That is, if the list really has gone missing, and hasn't been nicked, hidden or destroyed by somebody or somebodies with something to hide. All this in a by-election where the stakes were massive, the result a big surprise and the increase in the number of postal votes was colossal.

As far as I know, the list of voters has never "gone missing" after a Parliamentary election. Yet after this one, one of the most significant for years, it has done just that.

Sniff, sniff...I smell ZaNu Labour.