Legal challenge to election results
7 May 07
Questions asked about discounted votes and narrow victory margin
Lawyers are preparing a case challenging the results of last week's Scottish elections.
The Labour Party's lawyers are asking for a manual recount of the votes cast in the Cunninghame North constituency where they lost by 48 votes to the SNP. In addition, the Govan Law Centre is to challenge the result of the regional list ballot in Glasgow after 9,000 votes were discarded.
Mike Dailly of the centre said he would be raising the challenge at the Court of Session under article 3 of the first protocol of the Human Rights Act, with the aim of either re-running the Glasgow list elections or getting the returning officer to contact the 9,000 people whose votes had been discarded and asking them who they had intended to vote for.
The votes had been discounted, Mr Dailly said, because people had not properly understood the new voting system and placed two crosses on the regional ballot and none on the constituency form. Had these votes been considered, it could have resulted in a seat for Tommy Sheridan's Solidarity Party or another Green Party MSP.
In Cunninghame North, Labour is challenging the result because party members say that the returning officer Ian Snodgrass refused a manual recount at the time.