http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1693792007DOUGLAS Alexander, the International Development Secretary, faced calls for his resignation last night after being heavily criticised in the official report into this year's Holyrood voting fiasco.
More than 140,000 votes were spoiled in May's Scottish Parliament elections, which were organised by Mr Alexander.
Ron Gould, the international expert brought in to find out what went wrong, published his report yesterday and blamed Labour ministers north and south of the Border for a series of failings, which he claimed contributed directly to voter confusion on 3 May.
Mr Gould did not mention Mr Alexander by name, but made it clear with repeated references to "ministers" that he held the then Scottish secretary responsible for the key decision of combining both the constituency and list ballot papers on the same form.
He accused Mr Alexander of indulging in "party self-interest" when designing the ballot paper, of inadequate planning, a lack of contingency plans and for making decisions too late.
Crucially, Mr Gould claimed Mr Alexander, and other politicians, ignored the interests of the voters and treated the electorate as an "afterthought" in the pursuit of their own "partisan" political objectives.
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Should Douglas Alexander go? Absolutely. He knew of the problems, ignored them, and refused initial calls for an enquiry. The article also claims 'Alex Salmond For First Minister' caused confusion, while doubtlful it was wrong to suggest Salmond 'authorised' it. Only the electoral comission and Douglas Alexander had the right to do so.
Had all the votes been counted would there have been much of a difference? We will never know, though from my experience at the South Lanarkshire count and watching the votes flash on screen, the SNP were disproportionately affected by a '70/30' margin, according to others I spoke to at the count.
