Labour to challenge poll result

THE Labour party is planning to snatch electoral victory from the Nationalists by preparing a legal challenge over a Holyrood seat which the SNP won by a handful of votes.

Labour party lawyers are planning to contest the result in Cunninghame North, which the Nationalists won by just 48 votes, giving them a one-seat victory.

But with an estimated 1,000 spoiled ballot papers having been declared at the count, and amid allegations of missing ballot papers, the party has begun moves to have the entire election reviewed and, if necessary, taken to an Electoral Court.

Labour party managers in the constituency have also written to the count's returning officer to demand that all the spoiled ballot papers be made publicly available and re-examined.

They believe the errors disproportionately affected the party in the count, and led to their loss.

Any review of the result would throw last Thursday's dramatic election into chaos. If Labour managed to overturn the result in their favour, they would overtake the SNP as the biggest party, handing them four more years as the leading party at Holyrood.

The SNP branded Labour "sore losers" over the attempts last night, and insisted that there was no way that any legal challenge would be accepted.

But a senior Labour party source insisted: "Our lawyers are poring over this and aren't ruling out legal action. Last year, the Respect party took the results in three local government elections to the Electoral Court. There is established law in this area and we will look into it."

The action was confirmed by the agent of Allan Wilson, the defeated Labour candidate in the constituency.

Pat McGlynn said: "I have written to the returning officer asking that we can manually inspect the ballot papers. I expect to see that the vast number of them show that people made the mistake of voting for Labour but then not voting for the candidate." "There was total confusion about this," he added.

The Cunninghame North count is now mired in claim and counter-claim about further problems. It is said that 100 votes cast on Arran were not accounted for.

Independent candidate Campbell Martin said: "There were discrepancies of around 100 votes between those that were counted in Arran and those that were counted in Irvine [where the count was held]. But the returning officer said he would go ahead anyway."

There were also claims that some of the votes from Arran were soaked during the journey by ferry and may therefore have been unable to be counted.

Martin added: "A lot of people saw the Scottish Labour party on the regional list and thought to themselves that they were voting for Allan Wilson. People were so confused. So many of them voted on the regional list but left the constituency one blank."

The failure to mark the constituency vote is now being seen as the main reason for the staggering number of spoiled ballot papers which were recorded. As many as 100,000 votes were not recorded, out of the electorate of just over two million.

International observers yesterday condemned the Scottish election as "totally unacceptable" and compared it with the fiasco of the 'hanging chads' in the US elections of 2000.

However, the winner in Cunninghame North last night hit back at Labour's claims. Kenny Gibson, the SNP candidate, said: "This is sour grapes by the Labour party. If they want to waste their time on this then that is up to them. Everyone knew about these problems on the night and they accepted it then, so I don't know why they are going to legal action now."

The reason for the high number of spoiled papers is now to be the subject of an inquiry. The fiasco has been blamed on the fact that council elections using a new voting system were held on the same day as the Scottish Parliament elections. Also blamed is the design of the Scottish Parliament ballot paper, which critics claim was not clear enough for voters.

Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University has calculated that if the Cunninghame North seat was handed to Labour, they would win the election, as the SNP does not have enough votes to be compensated with a regional list 'top-up' seat.