Meeting of the Parliament 06 February 2020
I thank the committee’s members and convener and the clerks who have been helping us through the bill. We have had some very interesting evidence sessions. It is not the most exciting bill to come before Parliament—it is certainly not the most exciting thing that has happened today, which has been a very lively day in Parliament—but the bill is very important to our democracy. The way in which we organise elections is vital in order to ensure that the widest number of people can participate and that the elections are fair, people have confidence in them and they are seen to be fair.
If we look at how different electoral systems work and how different methods of voting deliver results—or sometimes do not—and all the nuts and bolts of elections, we see that it is an area of huge importance, with significant consequences for our country and our people. When elections go wrong, they can go badly wrong.
To see that, we need only look at the shambles of the Iowa primary or the chaos that the country that is supposed to be the leader of the free world and a beacon of democracy ended up in as a result of the hanging chads in Florida—an aged, creaking system was at the heart of the problem, although there was also a liberal sprinkling of corruption. Closer to home, we had the Scottish local government election shambles in 2007. Such situations can be painful to watch, but we should not just point the finger at others when they get it wrong.
We must keep our democracy match fit, and some of the provisions in the bill seek to do that. The bill also seeks to increase participation in our democracy, which is a key aim. All of us, regardless of our political views, want the maximum number of people to participate in our democracy.
There were mixed views on term lengths. Mr Tomkins made it clear that his view is different from that of others in his party. People in my party have different views, and I am sure that the same is true of the minister’s party. That situation reflects the research that was put before the committee, which showed that there is no firm view on the matter. However, on balance, the Labour Party supports five-year terms.
We also accept that, in some circumstances, two or five-member wards might be required for local government elections to enable local circumstances to be met. All members of the committee were clear that two or five-member wards should be used only in exceptional circumstances and should not be the norm.
As I said earlier, we do not accept the arguments for huge wards that some witnesses put forward. The pitch was made that there would be some sort of arrangement between the eight or 10 or however many members there were and that they would all get on well and would all produce the goods, but if we are honest, we know that it is more likely that they would fight like ferrets in a sack. I do not think that having such big wards simply to produce proportionality would work. We must ensure that local connections, geography and communities are respected and not dispensed with solely on the basis of an arithmetical formula.
Mr Tomkins said that he was aghast that he agreed with me, but I am sure that someone who was once a disciple of a Mr T Sheridan can find space in his heart to have some common linkage with a woolly liberal like me. It was good to hear Mr Tomkins agreeing with me.
The committee had a great deal of debate about, and showed great interest in, the list-order effect, whereby those candidates who are higher up the ballot paper because their name is nearer the start of the alphabet gain an advantage. We all know of people who have gone to great lengths—by changing their name to Andy Aardvark or whatever—to gain such an advantage. I recall the use of the phrase “Alex Salmond for First Minister” being mentioned during the committee’s deliberations. Who remembers that? That is an example of the exploitation of the list-order effect. I have to say that the SNP was quite right to do that, because it recognised that it would gain an advantage from it.
The list-order effect disadvantages people—there is an in-built advantage for candidates who are higher up the ballot paper. Therefore, I ask the minister whether he will commit to commissioning proper, decent-quality, in-depth research into how we can address that. I think that full randomisation must be the answer, but that is only my personal view.
On electronic voting, I am open minded. The committee was very cautious about it, and I am cautious about it, too. The only electronic voting system that I have looked at up close—Mr Tomkins will enjoy this—was the Venezuelan electronic voting system. I was in Venezuela as an election observer—in 2012, I think. It was a hotly disputed election in which there was less than 1 per cent between the candidates. The electoral system that we saw operating there was highly sophisticated—within it, there were 17 audits.
The Jimmy Carter foundation examined that system and said that it was the best voting system in the world, which is very interesting. A full manual recount of the vote was done because the result was so close, and it replicated almost exactly the electronic ballot. There are therefore countries across the world that we might want to learn from that we might not initially think would be the countries that we would want to learn from.
Finally, we should look much more closely at postal ballots for all elections because it is the most successful way of engaging as many people as possible.