Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Democracy was too complicated for many


I posted a few days ago that I though the voting for the Scottish parliament and the local councils was perhaps a trifle too involved, there were two different forms of PR in use, and that it might cause problems for people. There was some concern being expressed too, about the counting machines. Someone commented to assure me that my concerns were unfounded, it sounded at the time suspiciously like spin.
Well I appear to have had the last laugh. Lol.
While I was away at Apachecon Nikki voted for me by proxy, and whilst she maintains that it wasn't all that complicated around 100,000 people (about one in ten) still found it confusing enough and managed to spoil their ballots as reported by the BBC here and the Herald here which also mentions issues with the counting machines.
I gather that in some cases there were more spoiled ballots than the majority of the winning candidate.
Democracy? Maybe but only a wee bit.


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