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Wings Over Scotland


The best of friends

Posted on September 22, 2014 by

We’ve known and documented for some time now that Scottish Labour’s attitude towards “foreigners” is, well, let’s be super-generous and say “ambiguous”. But this photo from nine days ago made even us take a sharp breath.

labfront1

The woman on the left is the Labour MP for Aberdeen South, Dame Anne Begg. She received her DBE in 2011 “for services to disabled people and to equal opportunities”. But who’s her No-campaigning pal?

Here he is, the same day. He’s slightly less keen on equal opportunities.

labfront2

labfront3

He’s Dave MacDonald, leader of National Front Scotland. He’s not a new face in the area – he was the NF’s candidate for the Aberdeen Donside by-election last year, and he’s been politically involved with the NF in the Aberdeen area since at least 2003. It would be absolutely absurd to suggest that Anne Begg didn’t know who he was.

Still, as long as he’s not one of those awful nationalists, eh?

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  1. 23 09 14 22:57

    Down Amongst The 45 | A Greater Stage
    Ignored

  2. 08 12 14 16:00

    The cream of the crop | FreeScotland
    Ignored

678 to “The best of friends”

  1. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    Brian B says:

    22 September, 2014 at 12:14 pm

    For fairness and not because I believe her, she had this to say in her twitter feed:
    “The picture was a set up. Horrible, nasty, odious people who will stoop to any level. Eugh!”
    ………………………
    I thought that was what the BNP clown said !!

    ………………
    As far as the referendum fallout goes, my thoughts.
    Happy to be corrected on possible/not possible.
    ……
    “If these never going to appear new powers ever get “granted” they better be well within the fabled “timetable” or there will be a massive Yes support intent on getting labour ("Quizmaster" - Ed)s out of holyrood in 2016.

    I would actually call a majority of YES supporting Scottish Government parliamentarians a mandate to call it as a UDI on the grounds of what happened with the renaging of the “more devo” pish we have already witnessed after day one.
    Remember the pish about Scotland renaging on debt and being a “pariah” ? Applies to WM signed “vows” then surely ?

    Any moves to stop that happening(changing rules/laws etc) between now and 2016 and we call it(UDI)as a pre-emptive strike before WM shaft us out of the opportunity for another referendum.

    If there is any more unionist rioting upon calling UDI, ask united nations for a peacekeeping force to keep order until there is a settlement, which this time would be legal and binding.

    Just remember, Yes may have lost the referendum, but they are still, and will be until 2016, a majority government in Scotland and as such would have a case for UDI due to downright lies on more devolution “starting the very next day”.

    Independence IS coming, it may be sooner than some on the no side think.

  2. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    SNP on course to be UK’s 3rd largest party – get it up ya Labour Conference!!

    http://imgur.com/a/6A0wb

  3. Kaspar
    Ignored
    says:

    @Gallowglass said
    “is that how the base the largest party though? Membership?”
    probably not but it does give a certain moral authority to turn round and say that they have a larger membership than the others.
    As Lesley Anne said 10 times more members than the British Labour Party in Scotland.

  4. TJenny
    Ignored
    says:

    Gallowglass – ‘Is that how they base the largest party though? Membership?’

    Well, it can’t be based on number of MPs, as Nigel Farage’s UKIP don’t have any, and they’re never off the telly.

  5. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Ireland Timeline
    1886 First Home Rule Bill – House of Commons defeated 343 votes to 313.
    1893 Second Home Rule Bill passed HoC, vetoed HoL 419 votes to 41.
    1912 Third Home Rule Bill passed HoC, rejected HoL but expected autumn 1914.
    1914 World War 1. Home Rule shelved for the duration.
    1916 Easter Rising
    1918 Irish GE, Sinn Féin won 73 out of 105 seats.
    1919 Declaration of Independence.
    1919-1921 War and riots
    1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed
    1922 Creation of the Irish Free State

    Scotland Timeline
    1979 Devolution referendum YES but “vetoed”
    1997 Devolution referendum YES 74.4%
    2008 Independence Referendum refused by unionist parties in Holyrood
    2011 SNP elected Holyrood with overall majority
    2012 Independence Referendum agreed
    2014 Independence Referendum 45% YES vote

    And they call the Irish stupid and slow.

  6. Robert Peffers
    Ignored
    says:

    @Findlay Farquaharson says: 22 September, 2014 at 11:24 pm:

    “Its awffly unfair scotland can vote on independence but england and wales cant. Surely the english and welsh people deserve the same opportunity”

    Aaaargh! The reason they have no vote on independence is because they did not want to fight for it. Secondly are you stupid or something? Westminster is the de facto parliament of the country England and England is funded directly as The United Kingdom by the treasury as it doesn’t get a block grant. England has 533 English MPs who are all both United Kingdom MPs and Country of England MPs.

    That means, for all intents and purposes, The Country of England are the master race devolving English Powers to three subservient countries. This is apparent as there are only 59 Scots members, 40 Welsh and 18 N. Irish members. That’s 533 English and a total of 117 others in total – an English moverall majority of 416. They can do exactly as they wish with all non-English matters. Now guess who decides the level of the Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish Block Grant? Yet these people want to prevent the Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish members from voting on what those 533 Englanders decide are English only matters.

    Sheeeesh! I’m off to bed before my blood pressure gets any higher.

  7. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    Here is my contribution to the conspiracy theory. I thought it was just an odd emphasis from Swinney (speaking outside St Giles service on Sunday) Edinburgh News

    “He said: “I’m here to make clear the willingness of the Yes campaign to be part of taking the country forward in the light of the outcome. We shouldn’t be fearful of the referendum. The referendum was a democratic debate. I had one vote, everyone else had one vote and we exercised those votes and we did so freely, democratically and openly.”

  8. Lesley-Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    A.N.Surgent says:

    Think that the ebc demo might not be the way to go, if people stop paying their licence they become irrelevant, if people stop buying
    papers they become irrelevant. The Hope not Fear rally in October
    could be massive, really massive.

    The dam has burst, we could be experiencing a peoples revolution
    right now and we are all part of it.

    Thing is ANS why not do all three.

    Stop paying TV TAX

    STOP buying newspapers

    BBC Protests

    As you say the first two make the BBC and newspapers irrelevant. However, by continuing with the BBC protests we are continuing to shame the BBC on the international stage because the international media, notably RT and al Jazeera, are now paying attention to these protests and they do report on them. We all know next to no one has the guts to report on them in the British media, which is their downfall because it shows they are all complicit together.

    Provided we can keep doing these monthly protests against the BBC we are above all else showing them that we are not scared of them and that no matter how much the try they can not hide the fact that the people of Scotland are less than impressed with them. You get that word out in the international media and the reputation of the BBC internationally is bound to eventually feel the heat!

  9. john devine
    Ignored
    says:

    another view of the count…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oRg-VKuE68

  10. manandboy
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m wondering,

    who decided that there would be no exit polls –

    and then enforced it.

    And no recount after a declaration.

    Next time I plan to rig a ballot

    I’ll be sure to include both.

  11. James123
    Ignored
    says:

    @Snode1965

    Fair enough, I’m running out of places to shop.

  12. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Please, guys, ill-informed allegations of counting fraud make Baby Jesus cry. Well they make me cry anyway.

    Several people have come on these threads who were counting agents, actually there when it was happening and tasked with observing to make sure there was no jiggery-pokery, and confirmed that everything was honest, fair and transparent. Five comments later and everyone is off again as if it had never been said.

    I was a counting agent too, in Kelso, part of a huge team of Yes agents, covering every count. No had a similar team. Not only was there no funny stuff, familiarity with the process lets you realise that large-scale systematic fraud is as close to impossible as it can be.

    Yes, it’s possible the odd paper accidentally went on the wrong pile, or a bundle was a paper short or a paper over, by mistake. It’s not possible to rig the vote. Please give it up.

    There are hoax videos circulating on the web. Some actually show footage of counts in other countries, not our referendum at all! The ones that show our vote are all entirely innocent, with normal process being misrepresented by a misleading voiceover to allege that something is wrong. It isn’t. (The voiceovers are mostly American, too – think about that one.)

    I wrote a post last night explaining the details, but Akismet kept eating it. I’ll try again later, and I’ll keep reposting every time people start down this destructive rabbit-hole.

    The count was honest. Including the postal votes. Even Ruthie probably didn’t do anything wrong – it seems some councils did the postal vote reconciliation in advance, face down, and if you’re clever you can sample from that. It was naughty to say that on TV, but nobody is going to charge her for that.

    I have racked my brains to try to figure out a way to rig the system that was in operation on Thursday/Friday, and come up with a complete blank. Anything I could dream up, we would have spotted it.

    Please accept that the result was as it was, and move on to deciding what to do about it.

  13. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Dave McEwan Hill
    A Simple leaflet I think with a “These are Better Together’s promises, did they keep them?” with a Promise 1 followed by two blank boxes YES and NO for them to fill in themselves, Promise 2 etc. e.g. 5 promises.

    Then at the end:
    Score 5 – you voted NO and got what you asked for

    Score 2 – they broke 3 promises are you happy with this?

    Score 0 – perhaps next time you could consider voting YES!

    Psychologically “keep” could be changed for “break” and the scores reversed, to make them vote YES even if the promises were kept! It’d need to be trialled both ways.

  14. Alan McHarg
    Ignored
    says:

    O/T Don’t know how the rest of you feel but I am angry, upset, depressed and bitter in varying cycles. I glare at people thinking they sold my country down the river. I would hate to offend, especially a fellow 45. If you are not already doing so can I ask you to wear a yes badge (with pride)as this would show Scotland we are still a force and give fellow yessers some moral support. I do find that probable no voters, when they see your badge, will not look you in the eye! Maybe they are ashamed of their actions.

  15. Natasha
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Lesley-Anne & AN Surgent could you provide details of this Hope not Fear rally? I hadn’t heard of it before reading your post.

  16. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Hell, someone even posted another link to that bloody American hoax video while I was writing my post.

    Get a grip people, have you no critical thinking capability of your own? You’re being sucked into a scam.

  17. Midgehunter
    Ignored
    says:

    At the next UKGE15 the tories should vote SNP to keep Labour out of Westminster… 🙂

  18. David Stevenson
    Ignored
    says:

    Labour has about 190,000 members. I would expect the Scottish membership to be 18-20,000. Even with the massive leap in membership of the SNP, the figure is nowhere near 10x Labour in Scotland. Good chance that a number of the people who are joining the SNP have left Labour, though, so that would accentuate the difference a bit.

  19. Valerie
    Ignored
    says:

    I wondered if someone had set these things running just to watch us go gaga. When people are so bereft, this is what they start clinging to tho’ – makes them feel like they might be doing something to correct a huge mistake – bit like denial.
    I’m pretty cynical, bur rational, and I’m tending towards its nonsense, but the then I get spooked again!

  20. Stevie boy
    Ignored
    says:

    Lesley-Anne

    Regarding the BBC etc.

    Just listened to the full recording of Will McLeod (think u posted it earlier on fact) and he summed it up spot on.

    The American radio show he was reporting for is going to keep track of events here for the next while. He summed it all up perfectly and also really slated the BBC.

    Just shows that other folk outside of Britain are showing/ telling the world what went on here.

    O/T SNP new members has topped the 20,000 mark!! So much for us ‘going away’ lol!!

  21. Lesley-Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    yesindyref2 says:

    Bearing in mind calls from the north-east of England for SNP members to stand there, the least along with a Scotland Alliance could be an additional alliance with NE England MPs.

    Now that would be fun.

    Oh wouldn’t that be hilarious. Can you imagine, May 2015, results night for the General Election.

    Result from Newcastle:

    1ST SNP
    2nd Green
    3rd Labour
    4th Tory
    5th Lib Dem

    Result from Carlisle

    1ST SNP
    2nd Green
    3rd Tory
    4th Labour
    5th Lib Dem

    Now add a couple of other England based SNP M.P.’s to the 50 SNP M.P.’s from Scotland and Westminster would go into absolute and total meltdown. They be trying to ban the SNP M.P.’s from England only votes but they couldn’t ban them all. What absolute chaos they could cause. We could generate a situation where they’d be begging us to leave for good. 😛

    I know it will never happen but it is good to have a laugh now and again at Cameron and Milliband’s expense is it not? 😛

  22. westie7
    Ignored
    says:

    Tomorrows times front page
    RIght hand column
    http://t.co/IYSIigfgpO

  23. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Robert Peffers
    I think Findlays comment was slightly in jest,as in it would be good if that lot (not Wales)decided that they wanted rid of us and saved us the problems of getting our own Independence.

  24. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    There are some who are suggesting that AS knew the indy ref campaign was going to be very hard to win.

    BBC establishment – remember in Edinburgh he mentioned the forces against us.

    So what he has done is to expose Labour for the liars that they are to all.

    The cons want to win England, just watch the combined forces of the Brit establishment line up against lab to push for a tory victory.

    The only way forward was to prise Scotland from the dead hand of Labour, watch the devo max promises bite the dust and we now have a fully committed, highly political electorate ready to go to the next stage.

  25. Defo
    Ignored
    says:

    The monday after, and the policies are released from purdah.
    Child benefit cut, and a mansion tax ring fenced to pay for NHS England, from Balls.
    Do we get a Barnett on that ? Surely there are a few £2m houses up here, to pool & share with London & the SE ?

    I take it were moving on and up then. 🙂

    Re The Guilty list boycott.
    How about naming it ‘Better Together ?’, or even just GIRUY ?

    For immediate anger release, hitting those who pull the establishments strings will do me nicely. Scaring them would be fun.
    A comprehensive list, noted & with links could be attractive to the diaspora & Scotophiles (is that a word ?), plus us of course. Plenty overseas comment sections open on the Ref subject still, probably.
    Every penny I spend (missus) is a weapon.

  26. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag

    I’m with you. If there are any irregularities I’m sure the YES Scotland and the Scottish Government are aware of them and will take appropriate action, police and courts.

    After each of the 32 regions is counted and agreed, the ballot boxes are sealed and kept for a year in case of court action, where they can be opened and inspected.

    Meanwhile the rest of the world are saying that the Progressive YES movement looks like a retarded conspiracy cult.

  27. Stevie boy
    Ignored
    says:

    Liz

    Yeah I agree, Big Eck knew what he was doing. Whatever happened he knew we would push on to some degree.. wonder if even he thought we would get 45%.. and 20,000+ new SNP members and rising.. and an extremely clued up and engaged force hunger for much much more now! 🙂

  28. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    @Morag – I keep saying this is a sideshow but remember there will be folk trying to distract from the real purpose.

    I think enough of us know that even if it did happen it is going to be too hard to prove.

    If we have this big investigation and it is proved false, then we will be seen as conspiracy nuts.

    This suits some folk’s purpose.

  29. Stevie boy
    Ignored
    says:

    .. oh yeah, and SLAB on its arse lol.

    Nailed it then!!

  30. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Vote rigging.

    Here’s how it can happen and almost certainly does by both sides but on a small scale.

    1). Applying for postal votes on behalf of others and using them. Quite limited.
    2). “Helping” people to fill in their postal votes, or advising them in advance how to vote, e.g. “Do you want to stay in the Union?” “Heck no, I want Independence”. “O.K. then, put an X in the NO box”.
    3). Someone asks “if I don;t vote is that counted as a NO?” (shades of ’79). “Are you a NO voter”. “Yes, I want to stay in the union”. “OK then, you don’t have to bother voting at all”.

    These fiddles work for both sides, mostly cancel out, and there always some people who go too far in their beliefs.

    Widescale rigging? I doubt it very much.

  31. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    There are three main clips featured in the hoax videos.

    In one, BBC live footage shows a table labelled No, with bundles of votes on it. Some of the bundles have Yes ballots on the top.

    This is entirely above board. (Come on, would any evil mastermind let the BBC beam evidence of fraud live into every home?) The count is done in two stages. First, the boxes are opened and the papers piled in front of the tellers. All they have to do is count them randomly into bundles of 25, without separating Yes from No. That is the “reconciliation”, and the point is to check that the number of papers in the box is the same as the record from the polling station showing how many voters voted there. Only when that all tallies do they go on to step 2.

    In our count, the tellers had a snack break at that point, so the unsorted bundles of 25 just sat there waiting to be counted. That’s what the video shows. The table shown is the one that would be used LATER to stack the No bundles, but the label is irrelevant before the sorting stage.

    In another clip, a young man in a yellow vest is seen writing something on a paper in front of him. It’s unclear if he’s actually a teller, but let’s assume he is. You can’t see what he’s writing, or even what he’s writing on. The tellers had to make notes periodically during the count. For example, if a box didn’t have an exact multiple of 25 papers in it, they wrote the number in the final, incomplete bundle on a post-it, and stuck it to the bundle. It looks as if that might be what the lad in the clip is doing. Oh but he looks around furtively! So what, maybe he just farted. Do you really think this vote was rigged by tellers making up fake ballots right out in the open, at the count, in full view of everyone there including the counting agents? There’s nothing untoward in that clip.

    In another, a woman teller is seen from the front, with Yes and No trays in front of her. She takes a paper or two from the Yes tray and moves them to the No tray. She only does it once, but the video is looped to make it seem as if she’s doing it repeatedly.

    I’m unclear whether that clip is from last week. Someone has said it was from a referendum in Texas. I don’t know, but there are differences from our count that could suggest that. For example, our tellers had three trays, not two, with one for doubtful ballots. She’s also not wearing a tabard as our tellers were.

    It’s impossible to see what is written on the ballots she moves. The likelihood is that she just realised she put something in the wrong tray and is correcting the mistake. Think about it. If she wanted to put Yes votes in the No tray, why not just do that? Why put them in the Yes tray first?

    Any counting agent who saw something like that had a clear duty. To ask the teller politely to show him the papers to check they were in the right tray. That’s what the agents are bloody well there for. Does the person filming do that? Seems not.

    There’s a further safeguard in that the tellers work in pairs and switch bundles to check each other’s work before the bundles go into the main piles. This is a careful exercise and you can’t just throw things anywhere.

    Who filmed these clips anyway? The agents stand behind a tape, immediately BEHIND the tellers, looking over their shoulders. Don’t see any agents in these clips. (The filming is from the middle, where only officials should be at our counts.) No honest agent would film covertly, rather than query an apparent anomaly. This stinks to high heaven to me. Someone is hoaxing you, setting you up to believe a fake conspiracy theory. Don’t fall for it.

    So much for all that. If you want to start shouting about postal votes or interference with boxes in transit I’ll take that too (though it’s getting late). But give us agents a break here. We know what we saw, and we saw a fair, honest and transparent count. Please stop skipping our posts as if we’re invisible.

  32. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Valerie
    Likewise. I did follow links and had a look, but two things prevail. One is common sense – there are people with the authority to investigate if neccessary, it doesn’t need us (except to report any suspicious occurrences of our own – not third-hand – to them).

    The other thing is that the likes of WoS and the WBB came damn close to doing the job, there were attempts to discredit it and the likes of me as a Pro-Indy poster in the Herald (a good few tries). and these are and will continue.

    Those attempts at discrediting Pro-Indy resources must be resisted at all costs.

  33. Alex Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    I agree with Morag, these videos show nothing of any substance. We need now to move on from this and those who haven’t lost the will to live are showing the way.

    By getting out there and joining a pro-indy political party, if you haven’t already done so then ahve a serious think about doing the same. If necessary we take them on issue by issue, don’t forget the politicians we elect are there to represent us, lets do our bit to make sure they really do represent our views.

    Sign up now and do what you can, however small that may be.

  34. Dal Riata
    Ignored
    says:

    @HandandShrimp

    Thanks for the reply, HaS!

    I wasn’t making accusations of any skulduggery going on in Orkney and Shetland, just curious about the high No vote percentages and why. Your insight helps to make things clearer. Thanks!

    And, yes, the BT fraudsters’ Project Fear campaign needs to be congratulated [sarcasm]… because it obviously worked!

  35. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    I agree that small-scale postal vote fiddles certainly happen. People register to vote at their holiday cottages, or at their parents’ home (like Stu could have done but didn’t ‘cos he’s honest). As likely to be done by a Yes voter as a No.

    Labour have a reputation for registering non-existent people at various addresses, and then getting postal votes for them. However, too much of that and someone is going to notice. Bear in mind both sides have access to the electoral register.

    They also have a reputation for getting into old folk’s homes and filling in postal votes. Maybe it happens, but again the scale is small and most of the old biddies were probably going to vote No anyway.

    Another one is voting early in the name of someone you know never bothers to vote. This was caught in Glasgow this time, probably because people went out to vote who had never voted before. Ten examples. The voters weren’t turned away though. They were allowed to vote on a coloured ballot, and that was kept aside. Then at the count the ballot boxes were searched for the fake votes, by looking for the numbered ballot issued to the person who earlier had pretended to be the voter. Then the coloured paper was substituted.

    Nobody rigged the referendum this way. It simply isn’t possible to do it on a large enough scale. (Which doesn’t mean voter registration and identification doesn’t need to be tightened up, but let’s be realistic about it.)

  36. Lesley-Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    Natasha says:

    @ Lesley-Anne & AN Surgent could you provide details of this Hope not Fear rally? I hadn’t heard of it before reading your post.

    Here’s a link to the Hope not Fear rally Natasha.

    https://www.facebook.com/events/303779443153007/?ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular

  37. Onwards
    Ignored
    says:

    I wonder if the SNP membership exceeding the LibDems, makes any difference in getting a voice in TV debates for the UK general election.

    Remember the last time, when the SNP were shut out.

    If they stand in a token seat in England/Wales could that make a difference?

    I expect UKIP will be given a place and they have no MP’s.

  38. Betsy
    Ignored
    says:

    @Morag,
    Thank-you. I was starting to think it was just me. I find it hard to believe people would film electoral fraud and not report it at the time and film it being reported to expose the fix and subsequent cover up. Oh and the other thing to lead me to doubt the fraud theory is that the people making the allegations are still alive. I wouldn’t put electoral fraud past the British state but find it hard to believe that if they had pulled off a rigged referendum , they would let evidence get out so quickly or would hesitate in killing anyone who stumbled upon the smoking gun.

    Now if I were conspiracy minded, I’d think these fraud allegations were a state attempt to discredit the independence movement but that’s just me and my tin foil talking.

  39. John O
    Ignored
    says:

    Anne Begg would have known who dave national front and bnp guy was he even tryed to get permission for march in Aberdeen can’t remember if it was for the orange order or the bnp but evening express archive may have the story.

    Send the picture to Aberdeen pensioners forum as they should remember dave as they tryed to stop the march along with others including labour people and snp tryed to stop the march.

  40. Lesley-Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    h look folks, wee Gordie Brown spent all that time pacing back and forward spouting lie after lie in order to save the union and his cloak of ermine and guess what … RED Ed forgets to thank him for the grand job he did! 😛

    https://archive.today/0kpOl

  41. Fiona
    Ignored
    says:

    I agree with those who do not think the idea of fraud has legs

    I said yesterday, and say again today: give it up, people. Even if it happened (and I don’t think it did) it is impossible to prove. There is no future in this at all

    Those of you who are joining political parties at this juncture would do well to take up Lesley Riddoch’s suggestion of looking at the powers Holyrood does have, and how best to use them to make changes for the better in Scotland. I think there are more radical things which could be done, though I am not properly informed about the scope.

    This site would be better employed in exploring the limits of the SG’s power with a view to implementing policy which takes Scotland in a better direction so far as it can, then in fixating on a conspiracy theory which will achieve nothing substantive and will alienate many potential yes supporters. Or so I believe

  42. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    What about interference with the boxes?

    First, polling agents have the right to inspect the boxes first thing, before they are sealed, to make sure they’re enpty. My neighbour did that here, then was the first person to vote.

    In any case, the whole point of the reconciliation is to make sure the number of papers in the box when it’s opened is the same as the number of papers recorded as having been put in it in the polling station. You can’t stuff ballot boxes.

    What if a box or two was intercepted en route? First, you’d have to subvert several people, and indeed hope that nobody from Yes was following the box back to the count. (Some campaigners do that, you know.) And you’d have to be quick, or someone would start wondering what had kept you.

    You’d have to have exactly the right number of papers to go in the box. And you’d have to replace them without disturbing the seal, or have identical seals ready to fix.

    And it still wouldn’t work, for two reasons. First, the papers are individually marked, precisely so that fraudulent voting can be detected. If someone makes a complaint that someone else has stolen their vote, and a search is made for that vote in the box, and the papers in the box don’t have the numbers of the papers recorded as having been put in the box, all hell will break loose.

    The other reason is us. Part of what we do is stand behind the tellers during the reconciliation and try to see a representative “sample” of votes in the box. 100 papers will do. We report this back to our agent, who collates these samples with the places the boxes came from. The idea is to be able to estimate how strong the Yes vote was in different places.

    If one box came out wildly different from our expectations, we’d know. They didn’t. Nice rural villages were heavily No, urban areas leaned Yes. (The village I Wee Blue Booked compared well with similar villages that hadn’t been carpet bombed with the things by the way.) One very small village (88 voters!) was surprisingly Yes – and that was the one my friend had returned from a week or so earlier saying that the villagers had come out to meet her, wanting Wee Blue Books, and were somehow already onside!

    You simply can’t rig a vote with all that cross-checking going on. You’d have to substitute just about every box with a carefully-weighted set of papers to look right for the district, with the right number of papers in it, and the right indvidual bar codes. It’s IMPOSSIBLE.

  43. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    One more while I’m at it, at the risk of being unpopular, search for “referendum postal votes royal mail counting” and take the first electionscotland link, it tells us all the procedure. It also says somewhere that most postal votes are received on the day of the referendum, either by Royal Mail or in person at polling stations.

    Now, apart from having all the Eurofighter Typhoons in the UK doing a shuttle service at Mac 1.6 – and back – scrambling from convenient runways outside all the polling stations and town halls in Scotland (they scrapped the Harrier VTOLs), would anyone like to work out how on earth all those – the majority – of postal votes could get down to London – and back for the count – at 10pm at night?

    No, I thought not.

  44. ClanDonald
    Ignored
    says:

    What bothers me about Ruthie and the advance postal count is the bookies paying out in advance yet still taking money on yes bets, Also YouGov coming out will a last minute poll that looks random but turns out correct. Did they know something we didn’t know? And what about the stock markets? People with inside knowledge could make a packet there.

    If only for these reasons the postal votes shouldn’t be opened in advance.

  45. BB
    Ignored
    says:

    @yesindyref2

    Most postal votes arrived at council buildings days before the end of the referendum. Updates on the total number of them in were available and matter of record. They also had to arrive before count day because verification and opening took place over days before that and this was done in front of witnesses from various participants in the campaign. A long process for the relatively few ballots because of the extra steps involved. After processing these were locked in ballot boxes and then in turn locked in a large safe until the voting day itself and at the end of that at 10PM they were sent to the count location.

    I am not aware of any part of it that involved them being sent to London or why this would happen?

  46. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    What about postal votes?

    These have to be accompanied by a declaration signed by the voter, and the signature has to match the one on record from when the postal vote application was made. When postal votes are opened, counting agents have the right to be present to check all this. This was done. Our agents at the postal vote opening reported that there were some cases where the signatures didn’t match, and these votes were not allowed.

    No evidence of mass registration of postal voters in a suspicious pattern was seen. Many people had had a postal vote for years. Some very old people were noted to have voted (dates of birth are also checked), and maybe someone else in the household had voted with that ballot paper, but if they had, they’d got the old person to sign the declaration.

    All of this is checked while the ballot is still sealed in its envelope anyway, so agents can’t know which way the sealed vote has gone unless the voter is personally known to them.

    Once that check has been done, in our count the papers were put directly into a sealed ballot box. The reconciliation wasn’t done until the boxes were opened at the count at 10pm on the 18th, when it was done face up and we were able to sample the boxes openly.

    Some places seem to have done the reconciliation in advance, face down. When that happens, agents present may get a glimpse of the votes anyway, or some people practice spotting where the cross is from the reverse side of the paper. Thus sampling in advance can happen even though it’s not really supposed to.

    Ruthie obviously had data from such an exercise, and probably our side did too. She wasn’t supposed to say so in public, and indeed agents aren’t supposed to tell anyone, but it’s recognised that all parties do it if they can. Reporting Ruthie might lead to fun consquences, but on the whole I think it probably won’t.

    Look, the whole bloody thing is scrutinised within an inch of its life. We were all over it like a rash. There are one or two fevered FB accounts ostensibly from agents who think they saw something wrong, but if they’re even real in the first place, they’re the work of naive first-timers who were badly trained and didn’t know what they should be looking for or what to do about it.

    Please, please, take your heads out of the rabbit-hole.

  47. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    LA
    I think everyone underestimated Gordon Brown, and there’s little doubt his speech reported 24/7 on BBC including during the night, swung it. He would have taken a lot of the older generation with him, and had already scared the pensioners out of their wits – virtually unchallenged.

    However, it does give us an advantage, and that is his timetable agreed in the “VOW” by the three party leaders. It needs everyone to stay on his back to “force” it through or, well, or else. 14% of the the 3.6 million who voted voted NO on the back of that VOW – that’s 500,000 voters who may vote YES next time.

  48. Lesley-Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    O.K. folks, well at least those of you in and around Edinburgh. There is to be a rally at the Scottish Parliament on 27th September. The details are below.

    On Saturday 27th of September, we will rally peacefully at the Scottish Parliament to have our voices heard.

    On the 18th of September, 45% of the voters in Scotland voted for Independence.

    We may have ‘lost’ the referendum, but we are not giving up. So this will be a peaceful event to show them for starters that we are still here, we are stronger than ever and we will be heard. That this vote has given us even more momentum to move forward and keep the Yes Movement going.

    So on this day, gather your badges, your flags, your banners. We are still fighting this fight. Let’s let Alex Salmond also know we are with him all the way. In fact, let’s get him down to join us!

    Westminster may have won this battle, but they have certainly not won the war.

    This is the beginning of our freedom to govern ourselves.

    So all you yes voters – LETS HAVE A PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION AND SHOW WE MEAN BUSINESS!

    IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT WE ARE ASKING FOR PEOPLE TO BRING FOOD DONATIONS FOR THE FOOD BANKS, don’t feel pressured though, ALSO WE DO HAVE A PIPER TO PLAY AT THIS EVENT!

  49. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh, I forgot one of the hoax video clips. There’s one where a woman picks up a pile of papers from a table and stuffs them wholesale into a slot in a very large plastic box. I thought for a minute she was operating a paper shredder. It doesn’t look anything like anything that happened at our counts, and the box isn’t anything like our ballot boxes.

    Again the fraudulent voiceover says this is the Scottish referendum, and it’s proof of ballot-stuffing.

    It has been confirmed to be footage from an election somewhere in Russia.

  50. Doug Daniel
    Ignored
    says:

    Do people have any idea how depressing it has been these past few days seeing the same bullshit conspiracy theories being shared over and over again on Facebook and Twitter? Quite apart from all the things Morag has said, as a Referendum Agent at the Aberdeen count, I’m insulted that folk think me or any of my counting agents were stupid enough to be duped by such shenanigans.

    We’ve spent two and a half years slagging off the No campaign for spreading lies and scare stories, and yet folk are happily doing exactly that about the referendum counts.

    We didn’t lose because of vote rigging, we lost because we couldn’t convince the over-55s that independence was worth voting for, and instead of having us tell them that the UK state pension is the worst in Europe and that independence would give them a better one, they had the likes of Blair McDougall phoning them up to scare them in their homes. It’s surely no coincidence that the one target group that we failed to convince was the only one that didn’t have a high-profile campaign group. Where was the senior citizens’ equivalent of WFI, RIC or Generation Yes? Nowhere. So BT were left free to run their scare stories, because there was no strong voice saying “hang on, you’re speaking pish.”

    The grassroots groups are trying to move onto the next stage to keep the momentum going. It doesn’t help to have people making nutty conspiracy claims making us all look like idiots.

  51. Onwards
    Ignored
    says:

    Just a couple of thoughts.

    1. The fraud allegations really need to stop. It discredits any campaign going forward. People will just see a tinfoil-hat brigade. Even if individual cases took place, it wasn’t anywhere near a 10 point difference. Personally, too many people I know ended up voting No, so I don’t doubt the result.

    2. Any SNP name change, I think would help long term.
    The phrase ‘nationalists’ is used as an easy insult, because of the different types of nationalism. That problem isn’t going to go away.

    Maybe there isn’t time to do it before the UK general election, but it would be sensible to at least add a suitable tagline after the word SNP, reflecting broad support for both devo-max or independence.

    eg
    SNP – MORE POWERS FOR SCOTLAND.
    SNP – PUTTING SCOTLAND FIRST.

    3. The Ashcroft polls show that the UK general election is likely to be a close result. Labour are a few points ahead, but UKIP votes are likely to go back to the Tories, with the promises of an EU referendum.

    That means that if Scotland can elect 20+ SNP MP’s then we have a good chance of controlling the balance of power, and doing a deal to gain Devo-Max. Realistically, I think this is the best chance we have at this time. The main problem is going to be fending off Labour’s bribes on minimum wage or a campaign to keep out the Tories.
    People need to be reminded constantly about UK Labour and Conservatives working together to keep Scotland controlled from London.

  52. Michael McCabe
    Ignored
    says:

    Some vote rigging Maybe ? Overall vote rigging cant see it. Even if there is how do you Prove it. Lets move on. Lets all work together to make sure that all the Politicians going down to Westminster at the next General Election are all Yes minded. Lets wipe out all the Labour Career Politicians. Lets Vote Scottish.

  53. Lesley-Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    I think it is quite hilarious yesindyref2. First we had Darling who was allegedly “The Man” and he was “The Man” that we saw most of the time up until the time the polls started closing and the suddenly out of the ether up pops “The Main Man” none other than Brown.

    Brown the EX P.M., the EX Chancellor, the EX politician (allegedly) appeared in front of the mass of pre vetted Labour favourites and paced back and forth spouting his bile. Once he was finished off he scooted without so much as a by your leave and definitely NO Q&A sessions lest he found out to be lying.

    Now I think it quite amusing that “The Main Man” sent in at the last minute to save the union, which apparently he did with the help of his lies, is conveniently forgotten by his lord and master RED Ed. 😛

  54. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    BB
    Sure, I sent mine in on the Friday so it would have arrived Sat / Mon. But many did hand them in on the day, and some including my last minute son probably the day before. In many places (like my house) the post doesn’t arrive until afternoon. I always postal vote in case I have to go away the day.

    They did process postal votes on the day, the deadline even on my “How to vote by post” here in front of me that came with the postal vote and envelopes says “For your postal vote to count, we must receive it by 10pm on Thursday 18th September 2014”.

    There’s a rumour they were sent down to London for some incredibly weird parallel universe reason, hence my first post and posts from others.

  55. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    I think this is interesting in that many people seem conditioned to believe anything shown to them in a video clip with a voice-over. Maybe it’s because that’s how TV documentaries and educational programmes are presented. It’s quite striking.

    I’ve had people insist to me that the woman is moving Yes votes into the No tray, and that the young lad is putting a cross on a ballot in the No box, even though in neither case is it possible to see what’s marked on the ballots in question. But the voice-over says that’s what’s happening, and so people imagine that’s what they’ve seen. Fascinating. They also believe that because the voice says “this is admissible in court”, that it is. It absolutely isn’t.

    I mention again that the voice-over is American. This should arouse suspicions, but again people are simply shouting at me that “the international community” has picked up on this. Actually, American conspiracy nuts are stirring it for all they’re worth. (And just because you have funded your own candidacy in US presidential elections, doesn’t mean you aren’t a raving conspiracy nut by the way.)

    We should think about who took these video clips, if they are indeed from our referendum. And what their position was at the count, and what their motive was. And how long they stood filming these tellers before they caught the couple of seconds where something happened that could be spun as problematical. And why they posted the videos online, rather than querying what they saw at the time.

    Distressed Yes supporters are being sucked into this conspiracy stuff, and many will not be persuaded that it’s bogus. It offers them the comforting lie that Yes really won, so they won’t let it go.

    There’s a petition with a stupid number of signatures on it, demanding a re-run of the referendum because of this. This makes our wonderful, joyful Yes campaign look like a bunch of demented nutcases.

    Whoever assembled these video clips and added the false voice-over has done a great disservice to the Yes movement. Some may wonder if we were delberately set up, and yes I’m one of them.

    Please, please, think with your brains and don’t fall for it.

  56. ClanDonald
    Ignored
    says:

    The worst thing about the pensioners being scared into a no vote with lies that their pension will be stopped is today’s announcement that they will lose their winter fuel allowance, and, of course, this will hit Scots pensioners hardest.

    How could Labour do this? Con our old people into voting for a worse future. How can these people live with themselves? They are nothing better than con merchants, now depriving old folks of the ability to heat themselves. Oh God, I hate them so much. It is truly despicable, Aaaaaarrrrggggghhhhhhh!!!!

  57. Russell Bruce
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag is right. Going on about vote rigging is a blind alley and counter productive. The best thing for people to do is, as many have been, is to join one of the pro-independence parties and think about the 2015 General election where voting SNP is the only practical option. With first past the post there are no seats the Greens and SSP could reasonably hope to win. The situation is different in 2016. With proportional representation the smaller parties have a real chance of winning Scottish Parliament seats on the list vote. No need to worry about over dominance of the SNP in a Westminster election because there are only 59 seats in Scotland, but a substantial SNP contingent would carry weight in the demand for more powers with potentially the balance of power and ready to vote down a unionist government unwilling to play fair with Scotland.
    We are in a new long game – one step at a time.

    The other thing activists can do is talk to pensioners BUT IT IS VERY IMPORTANT NOT TO CAST BLAME. These are the people who voted for Winnie Ewing in the late sixties and for the large SNP contingent in the 1974 elections. They were targeted disgracefully by BT Project Fear. They were made to feel vulnerable and thought they were protecting their income, savings and pensions by voting no. In the wake of the announcements by Ed Balls at the Labour Party conference we have material to reassure them and work towards a stronger coalition across all demographic areas.

    Stu perhaps a leaflet on this issue if there is a bit left in the pot?

  58. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Lesley-Anne, much as I love you to bits, will you please calm down. You were one of the most vocal people promoting the conspiracy hoax, and earlier in this thread I could frankly have throttled you. Now you’re barreling on to other topics, without giving any sign that you’ve taken on board what Doug and I and other counting agents have been trying to tell you.

    I realise you’re fired up, but could you just slow down and think for a bit before you run off these stream-of-consciousness posts. It’s not the time for thinking out loud, it really isn’t.

    And I know certain people will now attack me for being domineering or something, but really guys we need to get a grip here.

  59. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    @Morag
    Yes, you also have to put your date of birth as well as signature carefully within the box. I practised all mine on a blank piece of paper to make sure I got it right, and even re-read the question and the YES against the box!

    As it happens my postal son’s name is the same is mine, and for some odd reason we just gave one name each for the register so got two enevlopes with exactly the same name. I had to phone the number, get another number to phone, and give my “Number on Register” to confirm that mine was mine – and his was his. Otherwise two wasted YES votes. They were efficient, and I checked his too, just in case.

    It’s an envelope within an envelope we send, with the detail folded over but not detached.

  60. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Pensioners for indy. I hadn’t thought about that. We had quite a few in our group of course, but they’re the sort of person who doesn’t congregate with the old folks at the bingo or the bridge or the coffee morning.

    Food for thought, that one.

  61. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    One last thing, as it’s way past my bed time.

    At the end of our count at Kelso, while the tellers were packing up and we were waiting for Ingleston to approve our result, I overheard a remark from one of the more senior people observing. He was either a council official or a councillor. He said this.

    “I know these people [the tellers]. Most of them voted Yes. I’m absolutely gutted for them, having to sit there and count all these No votes.”

    The tellers were local people too, part of our communites. There were No voters and Yes voters among them. Since most were young, probably most voted Yes. These accusations that tellers were systematically rigging the vote for No right under the noses of the cameras and the counting agents, insult these people and indeed insult all of us. The online comments about the young lad seen writing something unidentified on something unidentified are absolutely vile.

    Please stop this, but please do something else. Please be active on Twitter and Facebook and try to tell people the videos are a hoax. Even if you don’t persuade the person you’re addressing, you may persuade someone reading.

    I’ve taken flak doing that these past few days, and so has Doug. A bit of help wouldn’t go amiss.

  62. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag,

    The ONLY thing you can say for sure is that the count itself was accurate, and I don’t dispute that.

    But there were endless possibilities for the vote to be rigged BEFORE the ballot papers got to the count, not least the postal votes.

    How many ballot papers were printed and how many used?

    God knows how many postal votes were sent by the British establishment.

    Why was there a record 97% registration but then only 83% bothered to vote?

    Why were there relatively low turnouts in Glasgow and Dundee?

    The canvassing by Grassroots Yes campaigners in so many areas all over the country was showing 60% or more support for independence. Were they all being lied to?

    There was a widespread view that once No’s and DK’s became informed and Yes, they wouldn’t go back. Was that false?

    In numerous debates, the Yes vote won after the debate. Why didn’t that materialise on the day?

    Why were there massive No votes in the SNP ‘heartlands’?

    Apart from Dundee, why were there Yes victories or close results ONLY in Labour strongholds? Reason: they weren’t expecting Yes wins there and therefore didn’t bother rigging there.

    Why was there only 57% Yes in Dundee when 70% or more was expected?

    Why did the No camp panic in the last couple of weeks and started making ‘vows’ of more powers, which they could have done a long time ago but didn’t because they thought they would win?

    The elderly and the middle classes were always going to vote No, but the working classes would not have been frightened back into voting No at the last minute by Gordon Brown.

    How could a betting company pay for No bets before the result?

    How could Kellner be 99% sure of No as soon as the polls had closed?

    I had been expecting it and have no doubt whatsoever that the vote was rigged.

    But I also know that there is no way the British establishment would leave any evidence for it to be discovered.

    So there is no point in seeking re-counts or re-votes.

    But to categorically claim that it was not rigged is nonsense.

  63. ClanDonald
    Ignored
    says:

    There was a Seniors for Yes page on facebook but it never really got very far. But, yes, Doug, you are right, we were lacking a pensioner campaign group, it should be top of the agenda for next time.

    Morag: thanks for your explanations, you are the voice of reason on all things conspiratorial. I will spread the word. Maybe you could put all this in a blog for Stu to post, then we can share it on twitter?

  64. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    In 2007, the SNP achieved a 1 seat majority over Labour. I voted in Cunninghame North, won by just 48 votes.

    The SNP’s Kenneth Gibson defeated Allan Wilson of Labour by the tightest of margins – just 48 votes separated the two candidates.

    There were 1015 spoiled ballot papers, including claims that some of those which arrived from Arran were damp. Labour toyed with launching a legal challenge but chose not to.”

    48 vote majority making the difference between a Labour minority Government or an SNP one – no legal challenge. 2014 Referendum 400,000 vote majority for NO.

    Time to move on. Onwards and upwards, from 45% first target 55% YES with 2/3rds of those that voted for more powers being sadly disappointed (or all of them for 59%).

    Then the 25% who succumbed to FUD – Fear, Uncertainty Doubt, including the pensioners who were sadly neglected in the campaign which targetted women (younger ones) and Trident.

    Taking just 15% of that 25%, that makes it 70% YES. Now we have the referendum again – Indy Ref 2. Timeline – 6 months 🙂

    (over 24 hours off the Herald – yay, I broke the addiction)

  65. Lesley-Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    Hmm, it seems that we have a couple of wee backlashes going on in Scotland right now. Jim Sillars was asked for an interview by the BBC on 20th September, here is his Tweet about it.

    Just been asked for #BBC interview. Said no interest in talking to such biased org. #45

    Well done that man!

    Now I have seen a tweet by Alan Bissett concerning the BBC. I wonder what he said.

    .@nickeardley Sorry, Nick, but the BBC let the people of Scotland down badly and I’m no longer giving them my time.

    Oh and one final thing. It appears that Eric Joyce may have been going off on one tonight about food banks. I don’t know all the in’s and out’s but there are certainly very many angry people having a go at him about it.

  66. thoughtsofascot
    Ignored
    says:

    1. The fraud allegations really need to stop. It discredits any campaign going forward. People will just see a tinfoil-hat brigade. Even if individual cases took place, it wasn’t anywhere near a 10 point difference. Personally, too many people I know ended up voting No, so I don’t doubt the result.

    I agree completely. It may or may not have happened, but even if it did, nothing can be done about it. Crying about it on facebook will solve nothing. A petition will solve nothing, because petitions never solve anything. Regroup, refocus and wipe out Labour. Labour must be uprooted and thrown out.

  67. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    LA
    Well, next referendum which won’t be that long away, we’ll have our guy ready to pop up when needed, though I suspect he’ll be treated a lot better after the win. I think he’s busy at the moment, at the Ryder Cup, using his silver putter 🙂

  68. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Oh for God’s sake, Rock, give it a bloody rest. If you read all of what I wrote, you’ll realise that your allegations have all been considered and countered and (other than penny-number fiddles) they’re IMPOSSIBLE. It simply couldn’t be done. Not with all the cross-checks and the sampling.

    Honestly, I spend half the night trying to explain this, and someone promptly picks it all up again. It would be enough to make you slit your wrists.

    A final final thought.

    The tellers were people from our own community. The counting officials were people from our own community. The polling agents and counting agents were people from our own community, connected to one or other campaign. We in Wings had our own agents in most council areas! The polling clerks and presiding officers were people from our own communities. The people who drove the boxes from the polls to the counts were people from our own communities.

    They were our neighbours. People we know. They were also voters, and some voted No but as few were over 65 maybe most voted Yes.

    This community involvement in the process at all levels is probably the strongest thing about it. We know each other and we’re (politely) watching each other. There IS no remote “they” in a position to interfere with any of the counts!

  69. Proud Cybernat
    Ignored
    says:

    The other point to consider about all these vote rigging conspiracies is that they could very well be a conspiracy within a conspiracy (where’s my tin-foil tammy). What I mean is if a lot of people believe this vote rigging stuff it could potentially make a lot of people ask themselves the question: what’s the point in voting if they are just going to rig it? And then they just don’t bother voting. Yes–crazy, isn’t it? Playing with your head.

    People, forget all this stuff. Vote. Just vote. Let’s concentrate on booting SLAB out of Scotland.

  70. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Holy shit, how to destroy the credibility of the YES movement in one easy load of crap.

    Statistically with about 10 polls totalling 10,000 votes the MOE is probably down to 1% I can’t be arsed looking it up in my stats books. So if it’s 48% YES and 52% NO with 10,000 sampling, there’s about a 99% confidence in the result of 51% NO to 53% YES, so that takes care of Kellner and his 99% probability – it’s actually statistically correct for a normal distribution. “normal” is a technical term in stats.

    Why do bookies pay out early? For publciity, and I doubt they paid your man his £180,000 on his £800,000 bet until after the bet, in fact that probably wasn’t even on the general market. It also encoourages more bets at worse odds, but they’re still getting YES at better odds, so they make even more money money money money, muunnny.

    Not everyone votes. People say YES to the YES people and NO to the NO people. They probably mean it for 5 minutes. As we all said whenever we saw polls showing NO ahead “it’s the poll on 18th September that counts”.

    Next we’ll be hearing the Kuz flaming netzov was sailing in our waters – it wasn’t, it was international waters outside the 12 nm, and it was a fishing boat that discovered it, no, it was tracked by radar solid from flaming Murmansk and eye-balled by at least one Astute, oh, and surface warships don’t generally attack surface warships so HMS poor York was just there to show the flag and make sure no fly-tipping was done. Strange that Lossie is so near the Moray Firth and there was nothing there to shoot down the limited jets on board and sink the carrier. The RAF really must get some flaming missiles for their Tranche 3 Typhoons or the then Tornados.

    I despair. 32 months of correcting Unionists and now it’s not Unionists with the garbage. I’m not sorry for the rant, but I might be later today, good night all.

  71. scunner
    Ignored
    says:

    Although I vowed never to visit any of the MSM sites again, especially The Herald and the Hootsman, I stumbled across this:

    http://tinyurl.com/m9eh4tr

    Tommy Sheridan urging Yessers of every persuasion to back the SNP in an effort to drastically thin out the BT parties in May. Quite a discussion going on in the comments. The same themes as here, with the odd No gloater and economic incompetents with their tiresome BT line that we couldn’t run our own affairs.

    They have also discussed rigging but the focus is on the future. We need to drop the conspiracy theories and recount fantasy and get on with the job of voting these troughers out of our nation. After an emotionally draining few days, we are regrouping, with renewed vigour.

    Trying to joing the SNP but the bloody site is always down. I want to be the 50,000th member, unless they’ve already passed that figure!

  72. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    And finally. If one more person cleverly points out that I was only at one of the counts (well done for spotting that I left my TARDIS at home) and therefore declares that I don’t KNOW all the counts were fair, so they’ll just assert that their pet fraud happened at all the OTHER counting centres, I probably will get arrested for what I’ll do to them.

  73. Malcolm
    Ignored
    says:

    Forget vote fraud stories, makes us look like idiots.
    Sept 18th is lost but the struggle goes on and is being intensified.
    Be careful, many voters have no stomach for a rerun at the moment.
    So let’s keep the profile high, join a YES party, and let Westminster destroy itself.
    English devolution, spending cuts, further NHS privatization, massive “new” oil finds, broken promises and increasing austerity will make the 300k waverers feel conned. Forget the hard nos, they will never change. But we should realistically be thinking about the next 5 years. If there is opportunity before then so be it.
    But let’s do some proper strategic thinking. There will be no re run. But there will certainly be a Round 2. A more straight forward currency plan ( although I still believe Alex would have been proved right), a list of positives from NATO and the EU and we are home and dry.

  74. Az
    Ignored
    says:

    Hi all – regular reader but rarely comment here. Also a bit of a night-hawk!

    Regarding vote rigging – I sense division over this issue. I fully understand why those here involved in the count could take these allegations personally or indeed feel insulted, having devoted their time in an honest manner towards the procurement of a fair democratic process.

    I also understand that this issue will simply not go away.

    I also recognise in the examples above, everything seemed to be in order locally but I must balance this with how it could indeed be a relatively simple task to swing a couple of hundred thousand votes at some stage of the process.

    My personal view is that this was always going to happen, and at some point vote rigging may have taken place on the scale I mentioned. This would have been undetectable to the counting staff etc. I believe it probably did happen, but I am very sympathetic to the idea that pursuing this could be counter-productive.

    It is my understanding that there is a 6 week period of challenge and cannot blame those who wish to pursue this. It should be considered though, that this ‘distraction’ in fact serves us well, because if the Establishment believes they have a tin-foil hat brigade in opposition, they’re likely to focus away from Scotland altogether, preferring to devote their time and energy to fighting the 2015 GE.

    To Morag and others I say – Chill! Let those who want to chase a revote do so. It has no reason to interfere with the excellent plans being fomented here and elsewhere, nor to disrupt your own personal contribution.

    To others I’d suggest the SNP won’t touch this with a barge-pole, unless there was some irrefutable proof, rather than spurious (and mostly anonymous) accounts of weird goings-on and some unexplained videos.

    Everyone is a bit emotional just now, but there’s no point in getting annoyed at each other. If we can’t let out our frustrations and suspicions here, where can we?

    We all know the way forward is to secure an unprecedented level of SNP support at the next GE, possibly enough to have a mandate for independence. I’d set a target of about 2/3rds of the setas, and a share of over 50%. That is an unquestionable mandate.

    In the meantime, let those keen on the rigging thing do their thing. They’ll only be at it for a few weeks 😉

    Love and light to all xx

  75. Onwards
    Ignored
    says:

    @ClanDonald says:
    “The worst thing about the pensioners being scared into a no vote with lies that their pension will be stopped is today’s announcement that they will lose their winter fuel allowance, and, of course, this will hit Scots pensioners hardest.”

    I think people are going to be hit with some harsh reality. We are going to be hit with more Westminster austerity whoever gets in.

    The SNP can’t go on with the council tax freeze much longer,
    and things like free bus passes or personal care may have to be cut back, because the Scottish government can simply no longer afford them.
    We don’t have the powers of independence to grow the economy now, so No voters will surely understand.

    Another ironic thing is that many people voted no because they were scared of tax increases.
    Yet with extra devolution instead – and the limited income tax powers only – there is a HIGHER chance that the top band will be increased than under independence, where there would have been a broader range of powers.

  76. Alex Clark
    Ignored
    says:

    So now there are massive air strikes on Syria. Did anyone doubt this would happen?

    The majority have been duped into voting No due to the lies and propaganda from the establishment media, we must go on. Join the party closest to your beliefs, lets take politics back into our hands.

  77. Az
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Alex

    Sad news. The corporatocracy continues with its unrelenting misinformation, having been distracted by us briefly. Back to business as usual, hoping to start a war somewhere.

    I feel a bit sick, considering the alternative reality we’d have been in with a Yes vote.

  78. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Anyway.

    Again from the Ashcroft poll, the interesting figure is that of the 55% NO voters, “only” 27% said their most important reason for voting NO was “A strong attachment to the UK and its shared history, culture and traditions“.

    This works out at 15% of all those who voted in the Referendum. So that’s 540,000 who probably can’t be swayed by any argument, though Westminster and the BBC did throw over a year’s worth of British History at us all. I haven’t checked the breakdown by age group, it might be many older ones who lived through it or whose parents did.

    That’s phenomenal, as it started at around 30%. Basically what it means is that after 32 months of the Referendum kidnap attempt by Cameron, and 26 months of the two campaigns, there’s a potential to get out up to an 85% YES vote next referendum.

    I forgot to say with my messing up the gravatar naming, I used to post occasionally here as dadsarmy (ex Guardian Cif), Peter Piper in the Herald where I’ve stopped, and yesindyref2 is dual purpose – YES vote if the same question in Indy Ref 2, and YES to actually getting Indy Ref 2 real soon now to vote in.

  79. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Catching up, from Grun last Friday: “Without oil and gas, the UK would be running a current account deficit of 7% of GDP. Even with the help of the North Sea, the gap stands at 4.5%, extremely high for a country in the early stages of an economic recovery.

    The prospect of an independent Scotland taking control of 90% of North Sea reserves would undoubtedly have sent sterling into a tailspin.”

    This is just an example of the things Indy supporters have been saying for 2 years, but unionists have been denying, and all the media too. The poll that put YES ahead and the £ on a slide, shook not only the Westminster Government, but the whole London based media out of complacency and ignorance, into looking at the reality behind all the figures, rather than their blinkered London-centric views. “North Britain” counts for something, after all.

    What this means for the next Referendum is that the London-based media, while hostile, might not be able to lie so much. Which might make our job easier. The Scotland papers and editions might well have to review their integrity at that point. With any luck, some – many – of the 55% will already be reviewing their trust.

    The corollary of bad news for the rUK might well be good news for Independent Scotland, which might just make the economic argument easier.

  80. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    The Scottish Gov can afford them, but we must get another vote for Independence soon. Whether through Westminster or another Referendum. The Labour Psrty must now be wiped out of Scotland. The Tories and LibDem are gone. Now Labour must pay the price of Brown/Darling treachery. The academics pay by Scottish taxpayers who took £Millions of tax payers money illegally to rig the ballot must go. They have blood on their hands. They have caused death and devastation worldwide and are responsible for food banks.

    Wipe out the Unionists in Scotland before it is too late. Only then will Scotland become a rightful country.

  81. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Ruth Davidson should be charged with electoral fraud.

  82. turnip_ghost
    Ignored
    says:

    Sorry for going O/T but I woke up with an epiphany this morning and I hope I’m not repeating something someone has said and I’ve not seen it..

    Does anyone remember United With Labour? We roundly mocked it for being a facade, fit ion, something that didn’t really matter. What if you didn’t have access to the internet…what if you relied on BBC etc for your news or believed what they said about it?

    Well, you’d think Brown, speaking through United with Labour, was a spokesperson with authority in the referendum. But then of course, once official campaigns were announced, it vanished.

    Then Brown re-appears in the last week. This was set up in case they needed it. In case they were losing. They needed someone who APPEARED to speak for BT but wasn’t part of it so they wouldn’t be breaking any purdah laws. The real reason for United with Labour becomes clear.

    They were set up from the start to make people THINK it was a voice within Better Together so Brown could come out and make promises at a late stage if it looked like they were going to lose.

    Underhanded, manipulative and borderline lies. The things they’ll do to save their jobs.

  83. Calgacus
    Ignored
    says:

    @Morag,I now accept from your testimony that there was little or no fraud at the polling places. I still have a niggling doubt about polls being sent to London for scanning. I am not stating as a categorical fact that this happened but I am asking if anyone knows anything about this.

    Everyone is allowed to question the fairness of a vote.

  84. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Hague should be in jail. The criminal who destroyed the Report of child abuse by Westminster MP’s.

    Hague telling Scotland what it can do, what powers it can have. Aye that will be right.

    Scotland will have full powers. Independence

  85. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Just to give you another cat to herd Morag, I had personal experience of my daughter bringing a 16 y/o to her first vote for her to be told she had already voted,

    now call me naive but in my entire life I have never heard of that happening before in my ward, and without sounding disparaging to my ain folk I dont think any (local) would have had the nouse to perpatrate such a fraud

    btw I have absolutly no doubt what you SAW was completely above board,but as Joseph Goebbels quotes;

    “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

    “A lie told often enough becomes truth” – Vladimir Lenin.

    “There’s nothing so absurd that if you repeat it often enough, people will believe it.” – William James (1842-1910) The father of modern Psychology
    It would seem many people have had such experience of “THE BIG LIE” so its no unknown,

    Dont think for a second anyone is trying to make the count monitors look daft, but none of you could have been with those boxes all of the time, there had to be long periods between the polling stations and the count when no one was overseeing the security of those boxes,

    Again the same with the (ridiculously large amount of) postal votes,
    who had sight of them at all times for the weeks before the vote?

    No Morag in this I disagree, when we think of just HOW MUCH the UK had to lose, they HAD to rig that ballot!

    David Stephenson @ 12.19
    “Labour has about 190,000 members. I would expect the Scottish membership to be 18-20,000.”

    I seem to remember a post put up by Rev Stu over a year ago which clearly showed that the income for Labour in Scotland meant that (Scottish) Labour had a membership of approx 5000 (and that was on the basis of every member paying the absolute minimum membership fee)
    not the 18 or 20 thousand you credit them with,
    so if the SNP keep it up IT WILL BE 10X LABOUR MEMBERSHIP!

  86. AuldA
    Ignored
    says:

    Vote rigging in the UK is unthinkable. The UK may be rotten or outdated or whatever, but it is still a Western democracy, not a pseudo-democracy such as Algeria or Libya before the downfall of Khadafi or even Russia nowadays and before. If such a large scale rigging could be proved, that would be probably open a crisis that would spread far outside the borders of the island. The UK would lose every credibility abroad and become the laughingstock of all Europe and beyond. This is a risk no government, not matter how conservative, would consider taking. Even if Scottish independence is a thorn of thistle in the foot of the Tories, it’d be infinitely less dangerous for them to let Scotland go rather than to fake a referendum result.

  87. scottish_skier
    Ignored
    says:

    Forget all this vote rigging stuff. Time to move on.

    Take out Labour in May.

    End unionist parties as a force in Scottish politics and you will end the union.

    Tories and the Libs have been dealt with, it’s now Labour’s turn.

  88. Faltdubh
    Ignored
    says:

    Aye, folks.

    The conspiracy stuff does us no favours at all.

    We fight 2015 on a ‘Devo Max’ ticket. SNP get highest number MPs in Scotland, we called not UDI, but Devo Max 🙂

    After initial dejection and heartbroken, I’m more determinted to get those corrupt Labour crones out of Holyrood and Westminister.

    A loose ‘YesAlliance’ for Westminister in a common bond to achieving ‘Devo Max’ for Scotland, and then judging by the rise in party memberships for the SSP, Greens and SNP – I think we’ll see a large number of pro-Indy parties in Holyrood, 2016.

    Imagine Scotland with a majority of pro-Indy MSPs. Labour sitting on 14 or so, Tories on 10 and the Libs will be gone!

    Labour, Tories will always have a hardcore support, but imagine over a 100 MSPs all independent supporters.

    This constitutional wrangling will go on for days, weeks, months. The 3 Westminister parties are as has already been shown not agreeing on how much and already broken part of their “timetable”.

    We may have lost, but certainly not out. Honestly, thought pre-ref it was a No, I’d be back in my box.

    Absolutley not, and I know so, so many people are thinking the same too. I know guys who haven’t voted in years – now donating to food banks, joining the 3 pro Indy parties.

    We didn’t win, but as Salmond said in 2011. A political earthquake has struck Scotland on Thursday.

    These 1.6million (ok some, a minority may revert to form), but a huge amount of them are not going away. We’ll vote tactically, we vote together, we’ll stand together, and we’ll bloody well win.

    The genie is oot the bottle and it’s not going back in.

    Heids up and mourning over.

    We crack on!

  89. Albalha
    Ignored
    says:

    @rock

    You ask about the Dundee vote and why it wasn’t the high of 70% Yes as expected.

    You only need to look at the results for the better off areas in Dundee East, where they return an SNP MP and MSP. So in the traditional Labour voting areas you had Yes as high as 75%, in Barnhill, Broughty Ferry etc it was around 70% No.

    And don’t forget the rubbish Yes results in other SNP areas, Angus and Aberdeenshire, perhaps local SNP folks can explain what happened to their vote.

    It was surely due, largely, to the work of RIC in Dundee and Glasgow that resulted in the respective Yes majorities.

  90. Free Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    Honest, ah’m no kiddin, that photo wiz a set-up. He jist walked up tae me, crouched doon an said: “Listen, auld yin, you are gonnae smile and pretend you’re pleased tae see me, coz if ye don’t, that big fat skinheid wi the rule-britannia earings and the union jack tatooed on his foreheid – aye, him, the wan that’s haudin the camera – is gonnae jump on ye and mash ye tae a pulp. Got that?”

  91. davidb
    Ignored
    says:

    Im sure I read last week somewhere that SLAB had 13k members. I laughed when I googled Scots party memberships there. The SLAB stub stated it was Scotland’s largest political party. Perhaps that is by weight. Even last year SNP membership was higher than your pro rata estimate of 18 – 20k. So theres another blatant lie. Who would have thought Labour would lie to us?

    Oh I looked at the history page on their sign up website. Seems their founder Keir Hardie ( of whom we will all be aware ) stood on a ticket favouring Scottish home rule. How would he feel today about the monster he created?

  92. Haggis Hunter
    Ignored
    says:

    OT
    Happy to see that Farmers 4 Yes and Bikers for Yes are still going strong, to take us through the next stage.
    Stu, I hope you will also, if you dont I might aswell chuck my iPad and social media!

  93. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag says:
    23 September, 2014 at 1:15 am
    What about interference with the boxes?

    “First, polling agents have the right to inspect the boxes first thing, before they are sealed, to make sure they’re enpty. My neighbour did that here, then was the first person to vote.”

    Hi Morag, good advice and info from you as ever. The closer people get to the process the better I think. English and British zealotry was and is a powerful motivator to do stuff, check out the UK fascists thugs the BBC reported as rivals clashing in George Square.

    Just on your point that boxes can be inspected before being sealed to make sure they’re empty. I hand posted my vote in Aberdeen and the ballot box on the floor of Aberdeen City council town house front hall didn’t need to be opened to see if it was empty.

    The slot to post your envelope through was huge and you could see all the ballot envelopes in the box without opening. Presumably this large opening is there for easy quick posting but they as wide as a letter box in your front door. So wide in fact it was not a nice experience actually seeing it so wide up front and personal. I repeat, you did not have to open the ballot box to see the contents.

    It is over now Morag and there is no going back but what all of this really does is show how there are far more effective ways of preventing vote fraud and Scotland should use them.

    Even allowing anyone a postal vote without providing a reason has got to end.

    Thanks again. Tin foil hat folded away until next time.

    PS. Davidson needs to be investigated by the Police and if not, why did they ban exit polls?

  94. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Patronizing tosh fro Ed Mliband on BBC Scotland this morning when he said
    “People in Scotland who voted YES did so because thay felt they had nothing to lose”,

    WRONG
    we voted yes becuase we had EVERYTHING TO WIN!

  95. Golfnut
    Ignored
    says:

    re vote rigging.
    The SG/SNP won’t touch this, rightly so. If anything comes of this in the future, it will have been driven by us, the electorate. Same with Bbc protests, UN charter for children, Purdah, EC, the lies, the vow, God there is so much. All of these things will be very useful later.

  96. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    Why did people vote No? They were lied to. End off. Now get the liars.

  97. Molly
    Ignored
    says:

    albalha, I have relatives in Birkhill, they wouldn’t even listen , far less entertain it.

    John king did the girl get to vote?

  98. Boorach
    Ignored
    says:

    I posted this at the end of the previous thread not knowing that this one had been running for some time. Hopefully the apparent lack of interest was due to people having moved on and some folk will pick up the baton on this thread. We need to get back on the streets and to chapping doors:

    I would like to see a site along the lines of ‘Indy Poster Boy’ be established as a library of (preferably) A5 leaflets in PDF format for downloading and home printing.

    There’s a huge range of general topic subjects which could be covered: Oil, Pensions, The Scottish NHS, Barnett Formula, comparison of average wage and tax take etc of Scandinavian countries with UK demonstrating difference in spending power with UK. etc,

    Let’s get our street stalls back out there and educate our neighbours so that when the call comes we are ready and the scare stories have already have been neutralised.

    Pesonally I use a laser printer and with the winter approaching would suggest that folk who don’t have one look to aquiring one. They are not expensive and the toner doesn’t run when damp. Also, they are actually cheaper to run than inkjets.

  99. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Albalha, And don’t forget the rubbish Yes results in other SNP areas, Angus and Aberdeenshire, perhaps local SNP folks can explain what happened to their vote.

    These areas are wealthy with full employment, high wages, excellent public services, a huge number of middle class English incomers and an extremely powerful vote NO campaign by the Press and Journal. P&J clearly had a lot of money pumped in meaning much higher standards of local news reporting, new glossy supplement and unremitting project fear.

    Roll all the BBC STV project fear massive attack into the above and thats how you win a referendum.

  100. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    “People in Scotland who voted YES did so because thay felt they had nothing to lose”,

    So we live in region where half the electorate that voted have nothing. Great.

  101. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    “Look” Margaret Curran says Labour will listen to the people of Scotland and presumably then take action in response to that listening and listening they just kicked the poor in the gonads. screeeeeeeeeaaaaaaam

  102. h_johnny
    Ignored
    says:

    @Faltdubh Good post. I do agree that conspiracy theories don’t do us much good but at the same time you now have a generation of folk who do not trust the electoral system(inc me). That is a serious situation.

    I do not want to go round and round having referendum after referendum every 20 years that they either rig by media or postal votes. The voting system needs a full inquiry in the mean time and changes need to be made for anyone to trust it again. In my own opinion i would not put it past them rigging a vote, the British state has always played dirty tricks and is rotten from top to bottom. It amazes me that people laugh at you for mentioning vote rigging in this country as if it is impossible or you are talking absurdly. This is a country that went on an illegal war, covered up mass paedo ring, black and tans, expenses Hillsborough and so n and so on.

    I agree with the rest of your post, let’s tactically vote and destroy Labour. Their day of reckoning is going to come. If you saw the videos of Scottish Labour in Manchester, their faces were tripping them(pretending to party). They know what is coming.

    They want us to go back in our box but we are going to use the hurt and devastation of Friday morning to come back stronger than ever. Scotland has changed forever, no matter what they say.

    Never give up, we will do this!

  103. Gilbert R Ross
    Ignored
    says:

    1st. time I have ever commented anywhere.I am in Angus close to Dundee and attended outside the polling station most of the day. Lots of scared elderly people but some others are Tory who normally vote S.N.P. to keep labour out in my opinion. I think it is wrong to ignore them as it is possible to bring them to independence side for the next referendum.

  104. Anne
    Ignored
    says:

    In my place of work – a university science department – most people were no voters. I am dismayed about this but at the same time know there was targeted propaganda and fearmongering. We were threatened with the removal of research council funding, that there would be a brain drain, that the universities would fail. Even the president of the royal society weighed in on the better together side. Other groups were the target of focussed scaremomongering too, notably the pensioners. So perhaps it is not so surprising that the no vote prevailed. I doubt that the vote could have been rigged to that extent. We need to move on. The surge of membership in the greens and SNP is encouraging. As others have said we have the opportunity now to change the face of Scottish politics for ever. And my no voting colleagues will surely realize, sooner or later, that they chose the dark side on this occasion.

  105. bookie from hell
    Ignored
    says:

    Aberdeen needs to vote YES before Independence can happen

    They feel quality of life isn’t worth risking

    My own feeling is the silent majority was NO

    Gordon Brown speeches made no diff,it was a rogue poll 52%

    Only good thing is the VOW Gord gave,devo +,federal state?

    It’s caused chaos in the unionist camp ????

  106. Ken500
    Ignored
    says:

    People voted No because they were told lies.

    18 – 24 year old group, a pro rata higher no of English students. (1/5) Aberdeen area pro rata higher no of English settlers. Oil. (1/5) Moray pro rata higher No of English settlers Military (1/5).

  107. Callum
    Ignored
    says:

    totally agree about the fraud allegations. in order to swing this at least 1 in 20 votes would have had to have been changed; which would have been a huge operation and would have been spotted much more widespreadly across the whole country. The oldies voted no, quivering in their boots and through loyalty to the union. That’s that.

    HOWEVER. This sets a huge precedent and could change the whole campaign for the EU in/out referendum – especially if ther “out” side attempt a fear campaign. All the Scots have to say is; “by the way voters of the UK, this is what they did to us a few years ago and here’s the evidence.” and that could swing it back to “in”.

  108. h_johnny
    Ignored
    says:

    I do agree with you guys above but:

    “If voting changed anything, they wouldn’t let us vote’ – Mark Twain.

    I don’t really want to go round in circles with a voting system i do not trust, should there not at least be an inquiry from the Electoral Commission? Tightening up procedures, making the postal votes more secure. People didn’t trust the postal voting system even before the referendum.

    For me UDI should remain on the cards, keep that threat on the back of their minds and make it an SNP landslide in 2016..

  109. john king
    Ignored
    says:

    Molly @ 8.08

    I heard of this well after the event about 9.00oclock at night , but as far as I am aware, no the girl did not get to vote, (she nor my daughter ) knew what to do and the polling agents were not interested.

  110. Bob Sinclair
    Ignored
    says:

    I’m 100% with Morag on this. Chasing a conspiracy is not worth the effort and is a waste of all our energies. If there is anything dubious i’d be inclined to believe the ‘cock-up rather than conspiracy theory’ approach. To actually pull off a conspiracy along the lines suggested would require a cast of thousands, and people talk.

    I spent much of yesterday removing random nutcases from my FB friends list after reading some of the dross they are spouting as fact.

    that being said, Ruth D is not getting off the hook. She admitted to the law being broken and this must be followed up.

  111. Calgacus
    Ignored
    says:

    @scottish_skier, if we vote tactically to remove labour will the unionist bloc vote tactically to defeat the SNP

  112. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag – while I tend to agree with you about “rigging” I still have nagging doubts. Regardless of the allegations around the referendum. What about 1979? Glenrothes? and of course didn’t the Government of the time lie us into an illegal war? There was proven voting fraud in Birmingham a few years ago. Then there is the general level of dishonesty from the “Better Together” lot throughout the campaign! An establishment that will lie to send men to kill and be killed must be the lowest of the low – why wouldn’t they rig a vote to keep trillions of pounds worth of oil? Just asking – want to be assured that the process was fair!

  113. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    I think I’ll just go and shoot myself now. I sat up till stupid o’clock to try to counter these conspiracy theories, and I might as well have gone to my bed for all the good it did.

    I dissected the specific, individual allegations circulating on the net, the allegations that crackpot petition is based on, and explained in detail why there was no substance to any of them. People simply asserted that they believed there had been fraud anyway.

    I explained the detailed procedures at the count and the cross-checks that were in place, and the reasons why the Yes polling agents were satisfied there was no fraud. People simply asserted that they believed there had been fraud anyway.

    I explained the procedures for safeguarding the integrity of the ballot boxes, and for verifying the validity of the postal votes, and how it was impossible to violate the former and essentially impossible to fiddle the latter beyond a few low-level, penny-number fraudulent registrations. People simply asserted that they believed there had been fraud anyway.

    I can’t say any more. I’m in despair. Our beautiful, wonderful, magical Yes movement is galloping down a pernicious rabbit hole opened up for it by people who are not our friends. Boy they must be laughing now.

    We have to accept that we lost the vote, by 45% to 55%. Only when we do that can we move on constructively. Even saying, “well I still believe we won but we need to move on” won’t cut it. We lost for a number of reasons, and the sooner we analyse what these were the sooner we can figure out what to do about it.

    Yes Scotland were far too passive and nicey-nicey, and left way too much of the heavy lifting to the amateur grass-roots. Remember all the assurances we gave each other about rope-a-dope and keeping their powder dry? But they didn’t come out fighting at the end, or at all, did they? Their literature was so anodyne it took the Wee Blue Book to inspire activists and engage the thinking voters. They could have done a lot more with the disenfranchised that the RIC campaign was able to do, good though it was, but they didn’t bother.

    We didn’t engage with the cocooned elderly who never access social media. We were outgunned by the media and the Westminster machine.

    And still, we nearly did it. Even the napalming, the carpet-bombing of fear in the last two weeks might not have swung it for them, but the addition of an apparent promise of the holy grail of devo-max to voters already reeling under the fear-bombardment was the last straw.

    That’s what we need to talk about. Not tell ourselves comforting lies about how we really won and they had to rig the vote to prevent us.

  114. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Bill, for heaven’s sake drop it. Glenrothes is a bit of a mystery but nothing like that happened at the referendum. The Birmingham fraud was a group of Asian men trying to get a council seat for one of their number, and who indulged in attempted fraud on a scale so blatant and so incompetent that any counting agent (or indeed returning officer) would have spotted it a mile off if it had actually made it as far as the count.

    Constant low-level dishonesty is one thing, doing the impossible (i.e. rigging the referendum to the tune of 100s of 1000s of votes without being detected) is quite another.

    Westminster never believed they could possibly lose, not until very near the end, when they panicked and started laying on the stick and the carrot in an absolutely manic fashion. They didn’t prepare a huge, covert vote-rigging exercise. Indeed they couldn’t, nobody could.

    Our system has minor holes that allow small-scale mistakes and penny-number fraud. On the large scale, it is astonishingly robust. It’s run not by faceless bureaucrats, but by our own friends and neighbours and indeed by we ourselves when we volunteer to be polling clerks or presiding officers or polling or counting agents.

    Please, please can people take this on board and stop telling me to “chill”. It’s those who are falling for a US-based conspiracy hoax who need the chill pill.

  115. h_johnny
    Ignored
    says:

    I think telling people to shutup about vote rigging is not the way to go either. There was mistrust in the postal voting system before the referendum, now there is mistrust in the whole voting system. How are we meant to get a the SNP in next year or the landslide in 2016 if people do not get out and vote?

    It is up to the Electoral Commission to come out and put this to bed. Deal with people concerns instead of calling them crackpots and conspiracy theorists. The British state has played every dirty trick in the book including lying about Iraq killing millions, a little vote rigging would be nothing to them. People are not crazy, they simply mistrust this state and with good reason.

    This needs to be dealt with properly then we can start moving on. If we don’t deal with their concerns they will not vote.

  116. Colin Mccartney
    Ignored
    says:

    @Calgacus

    Tactical voting requires a bit of intelligence, so that rules out any unionists managing it!

  117. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag – I have not told you to “chill”. I understand why you want to close down this debate but you seem to miss the point I am making. I want to be able to believe in the integrity of the referendum no matter how incompetent and dishonest they (Westminster et al) are! I postulated that they are many signs that they are dishonest even in their own much vaunted “democratic” parliament. Sending people to kill and be killed – “low level dishonesty”? Please be a bit more tolerant of the views of others who have genuine doubts

  118. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Morag, That’s what we need to talk about. Not tell ourselves comforting lies about how we really won and they had to rig the vote to prevent us.

    Appreciate your anger etc but the fact is and these are facts Morag, the NO campaign suddenly went apeshit in the last week before the ref, THE VOW, Asda price hikes etc OK?

    You cant deny any of that.

    Then we have the leader of the Scottish Tory party stating quite clearly on BBC tv that the postal vote was “sampled” and that the results they took from this sampling made her think that NO had won.

    These are the facts Morag. You know the rules as regards “sampling” and using these samples and yet clearly a huge change in the Bettertogether campaign kicked off.

    Yes it could all have be down to that one Sunday Times poll but rules were broken and votes were counted long before the official count and these result was used for BT campaigning, if only to make Ruth Davidson think they had won.

    This is not paranoia, this is what happened.

  119. Free Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    @Morag at 9:46
    What we have to remember as we move around Scotland is that almost half of the people we meet voted for independence. And there are two ways of thinking about the result: the unionists think about it as a win by ten percentage points; it can also be thought of as a result which would have required only a 5.4 swing from no to Yes to secure the win for Yes. We were that close. Let’s keep moving forward.

    I agree entirely with your post, and can recommend Derek Bateman’s latest, if you have not read it already.

  120. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Good grief, now we’re told people don’t trust the electoral system and don’t vote.

    Say hello to your imaginary 3.6 million friends who did.

  121. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Heedtracker, the postal votes were overwhelmingly pro-No. Why would the knowledge of that stimulate the carpet-bombing of fear and the Devo-max false promise?

    Ruthie is being contradictory. She says they were relaxed because of the postal vote, but at the same time they weren’t behaving relaxed. I suspect the left hand didn’t know what the right was doing. She may have felt relaxed because of her inside knowledge, but Westminster was panicking over opinion polls.

    Everybody “samples” postal ballots at the reconciliation stage if they get the chance. What they’re not supposed to do is divulge what they have learned. From what Ruthie said, that rule was broken. It’s broken all the time, it’s just that most people have more sense than to admit to it on live TV.

    Minor anomalies and fiddles exist. On the macro scale the process is enormously robust and tamper-proof.

  122. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Bill, Westminster have the power to send people to kill or be killed. They do not have the power to rig a national referendum at the macro scale. Nobody has. It’s really that simple.

    We were cheated of a win by Westminster force majeure, the BBC, and some poor tactical choices by Yes Scotand. Not by vote-rigging.

  123. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    For what its worth Morag is correct. Vote rigging is not the issue but the unfairness certainly is. The breaking of purdah is one of my main concern and for the Electoral Commission to allow that because the “Vow” was not a westminster government thing but a press release by three westminster party leaders is obscene!

    In the very early referendum consultation I advised that the EC was establishment and a neutral overseeing of the referendum was essential.

    This was not implemented.

  124. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    @yesindyref2

    To be brutally frank there are only two ways to achieve independence, the bomb/bullet or the ballot.

    If people do not trust the ballot we must ensure that the voting system is as robust as it can be.

    The other way is not worth contemplating.

  125. Dorothy Devine
    Ignored
    says:

    Could I put out an appeal to all wingers NOT to be tempted to post on any newspaper site and to ignore the trolls on the Herald , bite their fingers if necessary but don’t respond – it only encourages them .

    Leaving them to agree with themselves and airing their spite would be quite fun to read and the papers would ultimately suffer.

    I am now charging my husband £10 a week for newspapers he wishes to read – the £10 will be used to help the several foodbanks in my area.

  126. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag – you still miss the point. If WM has the power why did they need to accompany power with a lie? Do you not see what I’m getting at? If local councillors in Birmingham and Slab in Fife can fix results do you really think it is beyond the “power” of Westminster. This is not real, in my opinion, i’m afraid. You should not try to shut this debate down based solely on your opinion as you at least acknowledge that they used “force majeure” on that bastion of decency and impartiality, the BBC,to cheat us! I agree that we should wind away from it. Is it not better to have the debate now than in 6 months when we need to apply ourselves to defeating the evil that is Scottish Labour?

  127. cearc
    Ignored
    says:

    I do hope that all you people who won’t let this drop will be coming forward as polling agents next time?

    Everybody had the opportunity to monitor a polling station and follow the box in. If you didn’t volounteer, don’t complain now.

    Unlike counting agents and postal vote agents there is no limit on the number.

    Perhaps unsurprisingly, when applications for all these roles were open very few applied.

    Writing online comments for other yes supporters to read is one thing but leaving the keyboard behind to go out and actually do stuff, it seems, is too much bother.

    Thank you Morag for your attempts to educate.

  128. StevieB
    Ignored
    says:

    All this talk of vote rigging is counter productive but understandable, people feel a sense of injustice and looking for some-thing/one to blame. Having said that the one thing which I am suspicious of is the yougov poll that put yes in the lead.

    This was the game-changer. The establishment went into overdrive after this poll and the BT campaign changed. We had the 3 stooges drop everything (eg. PM’s QT) and join the fray, Gordon Brown took over from Darling as front man and MSM were busting a gut with their project fear / pro union propaganda.

    The momentum was strongly in YES favour before that poll and it is my feeling that if there was any jiggery-pokery it was made here.

  129. yesindyref2
    Ignored
    says:

    Just as a thought, I’ve been spending the last two years posting I thought the result would be YES 75%, NO 25%.

    Had I turned out to be right, I daresay the Unionist conspiratists would have accused me of rigging the whole referendum single-handed as “otherwise how would he have known the result?”.

  130. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Bill, I’m not missing the point. There were some anomalies at Glenrothes that gave rise to suspicion, and were never satisfactorily explained. Some vital records went missing. There were no such anomalies last week and nothing has gone missing.

    Nobody rigged the vote in Birmingham. A laughably inept conspiracy to steal a council seat was exposed, and if it hadn’t been exposed when it was, it would have been detected at the count with the greatest of ease.

    Westminster have the power to do a lot of things, and they didn’t miss much as regards referendum dirty tricks. They simply do not have the power to rig a Scotland-wide referendum on any significant scale. The process is too robust and too transparent for that, and it’s run by ordinary people, our friends and our neighbours and ourselves, not Ernst Blofeld.

  131. James Caithness
    Ignored
    says:

    As part of any deception on the scale of the state, A strategy I would employ would be, I would plant my people amongst my enemies, to spread disharmony, misinformation and generally cool things, guide them away from fact and plant my message.

    This is what the world’s government do now against each other and more worryingly against their own people.

  132. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Wow that’s really helpful. Not.

    Worry about who produced these hoax videos with the false allegations of counting fraud that so many people have fallen for. If there’s a conspiracy, that’s where I think you’ll find it.

  133. Bill McLean
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag – I don’t want to fall out with a fellow independentista. You did, and continue to, miss the point and there is absolutely no need for sarcasm – i’ll just give up!

  134. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    The point is that vote-rigging was not seen by the numerous observers we had all over the process. More importantly, knowledge of the process demonstrates that the vote was impossible to rig on the scale of 100s of 1000s of votes.

    Westminster clearly thought they might be losing it, the week or so before the vote. That also might tell you something.

  135. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Morag, yes but, the fact is that “sampling” clearly gives time for changes to electoral policy or as here referendum THE NOW hoax, or it doesn’t.

    Just because you think otherwise makes no odds, Electoral law has been written to stop precisely this kind of insanity and it has been broken.

    The fact is that Bettertogether changed the whole referendum in the last week and that fact that they had access to the postal result is a clear indication of the biggest fraud and corruption of all.

    People voted and then UKOK changed everything they had voted on. Could we get our postal vote back? ofcourse not.

    Its just not enough to for private individuals like you to decide how the law may have interpreted or broken.

    Davidson has made a clear statement on camera that both she and BetterTogether broke elctoral law and this is the point at which both Police and Scots.gov have to get busy.

    You are not the law Morag:D

  136. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Heedtracker, I’m not arguing with you about Davidson’s gaffe, though I think it will be seen as a more minor matter than you’re portraying it as.

    It’s not actually logical, though, because the sampling she refers to revealed a massive No in the postal votes. I struggle to see how that could have galvanised the No campaign to what we saw it do in the last week or two. A comfortable No majority should rather have made them realise they didn’t have to cough up any more bribes. The bribes seem more likely to have been triggered by the YouGov poll.

    Be that as it may, though, we seem to be somewhat at cross purposes. I’m pointing out that the actual count was as honest and transparent as it could have been. What wee Ruthie’s postal voting agent mates were up to doesn’t really change that.

  137. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    @Ken 500 -stop trying to cause divisions otherwise I will suspect you of trolling

  138. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Morag
    Why are you so adamant that Electoral fraud did not or cannot happen?
    An English Judge ,earlier this year,Judge Richard Mawrey who sits in judgement on electoral fraud cases warned that Postal Voting had made Britain`s electoral system “Vulnerable to fraud on an Industrial Scale ”
    This is not from one of us `crazy conspiracy nuts` but from a Deputy High Court Judge.
    After all the lies and media/business manipulation from the Establishment to think that you cannot accept the possibility of them being able if they needed to,to manipulating the vote is hard to accept.

  139. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Postal voting is open to voter registration fraud. He’s exaggerating when he says this could be done on an industrial scale. Or more realistically, if anyone tried to do it on that scale they would be spotted. You can get small numbers under the radar, but not the numbers needed to swing a referendum this size.

    In a single constituency, or more so a council ward, where the result was tight, postal votes might need to be looked at with a very beady eye. This doesn’t apply to last week.

  140. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    My last point on the vote ‘fixing’ – it may have happened it also may not have happened. The point is we can neither prove nor disprove therefore we would be wasting our time and energy trying to get this solved.

    I tend to read every post on here but sometimes I think others just keep posting their own POV and do not engage with other posters.

    @James Caithness – I agree and I have said it a couple of times, the conspiracy theory suits some folks’ purposes in sending us off down a bind alley.

    By all means those who still believe it – do something about it but stop trying to convince others to join you – we have much more important work to do.

    Despite all the blitz of propaganda and scare stories, we had 45% voting Yes that is an achievement which we need to build on.

  141. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    My last point on the vote ‘fixing’ – it may have happened it also may not have happened. The point is we can neither prove nor disprove therefore we would be wasting our time and energy trying to get this solved.

    I tend to read every post on here but sometimes I think others just keep posting their own POV and do not engage with other posters.

    @James Caithness – I agree and I have said it a couple of times, the conspiracy theory suits some folks’ purposes in sending us off down a bind alley.

    By all means those who still believe it – do something about it but stop trying to convince others to join you – we have much more important work to do.

    Despite all the blitz of propaganda and scare stories, we had 45% voting Yes that is an achievement which we need to build on.

  142. liz
    Ignored
    says:

    My last point on the vote ‘fixing’ – it may have happened it also may not have happened. The point is we can neither prove nor disprove therefore we would be wasting our time and energy trying to get this solved.

    I tend to read every post on here but sometimes I think others just keep posting their own POV and do not engage with other posters.

    @James Caithness – I agree and I have said it a couple of times, the conspiracy theory suits some folks’ purposes in sending us off down a bind alley.

    By all means those who still believe it – do something about it but stop trying to convince others to join you – we have much more important work to do.

    Despite all the blitz of propaganda and scare stories, we had 45% voting Yes that is an achievement which we need to build on.

  143. Alan McHarg
    Ignored
    says:

    I was at the count in West Lothian. It was very professional with the counting staff and samplers all working diligently. However, I was manning a couple of polling stations and got talking to the “No” reps who told me that they were being told from above that they would win, as their canvassing polls on the streets were returning 55% for “No”…just sayin.

    Morag…we all have the right to our opinion, rightly or wrongly, democracy suggests that that opinion, however irrational in the eyes of others, has a right to be heard.

    However, you would hope that through argument, debate and education the opposing arguments will eventually be settled coming to a sane, sensible and you would hope just conclusion.

    If we were told before the referendum that there were “too many unanswered questions”, I would suggest there are even more unanswered questions now! Let’s work through this difficult time together and support each other but keep our eyes firmly on the goal of our independence. The 45

  144. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @Morag, i hear you and yes if you say the actual count was fraud free then I believe you BUT and this the major flaw in your argument.

    “It’s not actually logical, though, because the sampling she refers to revealed a massive No in the postal votes.”

    How do you actually know that? If like Davidson you were told about the postal vote result then you too are in the same boat.

    You probably learned of the pre ref vote sampling results like everyone else, after the referendum but Davidson appears to say they knew the NO win result from sampling and that is illegal for the simple reason that it gives either side the opportunity to change what people are voting for before actual polling day,

    SO the whole thing is a complete and utter farce. Not just the fact that I did not know my postal vote might be sampled, I will never do that again, but of course because Brown and Cameron and Miliband completely flipped the deal, bait and switch, call it what you will.

    None of this detracts or denigrates in anyway the amazing work you and people like you do, but if you are going to cheat in a referendum or at the bookies, you get along to a “sampling” and then you act.

    And finally, why is sampling NOT public knowledge and how many postal votes ARE sampled to start with?

    Why allow sampling and not exit polling?

    Where is the legislation that brought up such an insane opportunity for fraud and i want to know why Ruth Davidson is not in front of the Police right now.

    Morag you’re a star but don’t tell people to stop asking questions because its the only we will win next time!

  145. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Morag
    A lot of people on Wings whether posters or just readers are deeply concerned about the role of the Electoral Commission,and Electoral Fraud.
    You and others patting us on the head and saying don`t worry trust the grown ups best don`t mention it again theres a good boy is patronising to say the least.

    You and others say it could not happen check the internet and it says it is happening all the time and open to ” vote rigging on an industrial scale”
    Why are you not even open to the opinion of others that it is possible.

  146. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Heedtracker, I was at the count in Kelso and sampled the postal votes there after 10pm. They were verified face-up so it wasn’t difficult. It was absolutely desperate. We knew postal votes in the Borders would be among the worst but we were getting boxes with 12% Yes in them.

    That’s the sort of thing Ruthie’s postal voting agent with the loose tongue would have been seeing.

  147. bob sinclair
    Ignored
    says:

    RE the Ruth Davidson quote & Postal vote sampling. The bottom line is the law was broken and she admitted it. I think a simple analogy would be getting fined for Speeding. You cannot use a defence that you were speeding because other people were. I know because I tried that once & the Police politely laughed and handed me the ticket 🙂

  148. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Scott, I’m not open to the opinion of people who think major fraud happened because I KNOW it didn’t. Factual knowledge trumps uninformed opinion.

    There’s a lot of nonsense on the internet and these claims of fraud are part of it. Worse, they seem to be a deliberate hoax designed to suck in Yes activists, and people are falling for it.

  149. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Testing – I can’t get a comment through.

  150. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Heedtracker, I get that you’re angry about the early postal vote sampling, and why. You have a right to be.

    It’s a side-effect of the transparency of the process. Postal vote agents are entitled to witness the opening of the postal votes, as part of the transparency. In that context they may see they way some of the ballots are marked, although the tellers try to conceal the front of the papers.

    It’s a bit of a game. Tellers try to hide the papers and agents try to see them. What is supposed to stop it being a problem is the undertaking of secrecy that every agent has to agree to. It’s accepted they may see something, unavoidably, because they have a right to witness the process. They are then put on their honour not to tell.

    Someone told Ruth, and if you want to make an issue of that, carry on. I’m just warning that it may not be taken as seriously as you would like.

    I just don’t think Ruth passed on the message, because it doesn’t make sense for them to have gone with the Vow if they knew No was looking good in the postals.

  151. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Morag, so youre saying that sampling of postal votes took place at polling counts after the polls closed at 10pm Thurs?

    Davidson right from the off here says sampling was conducted over “the last few weeks” but again this absolutely outrageous.

    The vote tampering fraud query is nothing compared to this “sampling” over the weeks preceding the actual vote. But on balance, Davidson could just be bullshitting for effect or she knew NO had won. Again, this a very serious Police matter.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcL69gUtPb0

  152. heedtracker
    Ignored
    says:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcL69gUtPb0

    And by the end of this BBC video statement Davidson states it is illegal to discuss the postal vote results from sampling despite making it clear she has a NO win forecast after being informed of the results, and “there has been people in the room who have been sampling and taking tallies… and their/the reports have been very positive for us”

    A clear admission of fraud by Davidson, and regardless of how Bettertoghter responded in the last week before the ref, there has been a clear breach of electoral law.

  153. GrantMacD
    Ignored
    says:

    It’s probably best to face the fact the old political mantra was proven, once again, correct.

    “You can fool some of the people, some of the time. But you can fool the Scottish people, every time…”

    The penny dropped as to what went wrong. The YES campaign did not appeal to the greed of the electorate to balance Fear and Terror from the NO side. Difficult one to manage tho’.

  154. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Heedtracker, some counts verified the postal votes as they came in, and it was possible to “sample” these boxes at that point if you kept your eyes peeled. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, and that’s what it appears Ruth was aware of.

    It’s an unaviodable side-effect of allowing agents to witness the process. It’s supposed to be made OK by putting them on their honour not to tell, but people do. They tell their own side. We were probably doing it too.

    Ruth made a big mistake blurting it out on TV. She inadvertently confessed to some definite naughtiness. Whether the authorities will take it as serously as you do remains to be seen. I suspect it’s about as serious as doing 40 in a 30 mph zone.

  155. MarkAustin
    Ignored
    says:

    I’d like to back up Morag. I wasn’t at any of the referendum counts—I’m an exiled Scot living in London, but I’ve been politically active for 40 years.

    I’ve been to dozens of counts and there is absolutely no way an election count can be manipulated in the UK. Yes, mistakes get made, and postal voting is practically an invitation to small-scale fraud.

    Let’s review the process from beginning to end.

    Before the voting starts, counting agents have the right to check if the box is empty before starting, and it is then sealed.

    The vote. A voter enters the polling station, shows their card or gives their name. the name is crossed of the register, a ballor paper is issued from the book, the serial number recorded, and the vote is then duly cast. There are a minimum of two people on each table, probably more than one table, a policeman, perhaps counter agents and generally other voters present. No possibility of fiddling here.

    Collecting to votes. After the count closes, the boxes are taken to the counting station by car (generally) with the pliceman present, and the marked register and unused papers taken there in a different car—which often takes a different route in case of accidents.

    The reconciliation count. When all the boxes have arrived at the count the number of ballots that should be in each box is determined from the marked register, the boxes are opened, and the ballots are checked to ensure this is the case. The count does not proceed to the next stage until this is done for ALL the relevant boxes (in the case of a referendum, all of them). I remember one case where the could not reconcile a box despite about four counts, and it was only when a policeman upended the box and put his head in it that they found a ballot paper stuck in the metal seam of the box. You can’t introduce or take out votes, because it would be impossible to reconcile the box. This is when the picture of Yes votes on the No table comes in. When a box has been reconciled, they put them out of the way because there isn’t room for all of them on the counting tables. In council elections, this is obvious, because they put them in piles in front of a label giving the ward name. They should do this counting face-down, but often don’t and counting agents can often get a feel for the way things are going. The ballots are then removed from the bundles and put in boxes at random, to avoid counting agents being able to count a district.

    The postal votes. These are added at this point, and are often alreading in bundles when taken out of the box.

    This is where we get ballots coming out in bundles when the box is upended—they were bundled for the reconciliation cout.

    The count. The ballots are counted face-up into three piles: Yes, No and Doubtful. The counters are told to reject pretty well everything that isn’t a cross, but the Returning Officer will often take the obviously clear ones (e.g. ticks) back into the count as he or she sees them. They must count them so that the counting agents can see them and check each one, and they can object to any ballot they think invalid. In this case it will either go in the Doubtful pile or the Returning Officer will make a decision there and then. Sometimes you get counters who (used to counting piles of notes) do it too fast—I’ve asked people to recount a batch when this has been done, and they must do it. As they are counted, they are bundled in 100s, and someone writes the number in the last two (Yes and No) bundles and puts that with it. This could well be what the counter in the video was doing. They are then piled up in rows on the relevant table. The ballots are then counted: so many bundles of 100 plus the odds.

    Doubtful votes. When everything else has been done, the Agents for the two side are called up to examine these. The Returning Officer will either explain why they’ve been rejected or ask if both (in thais case) Agents are prepared to accept the vote as valid. I had one case where a voter had used a smiley face to vote Labour—all the Agents were prepared to accept this, but the Returning Offiocer said no.

    OK, mistakes can be made: there might be 99 or 101 ballots in a bundle, very rarely there might be a vote for the one side put on top of 99 for the other, but I’ve only seen this once in 40 years. Most mistakes, being random, will cancel.

    Any attempt to suborn an election in the UK would require a conspiracay involving literally thousands of people. What are the chances that someone would not already have sold the story to the Record?

    No, the election was conducted fairly (with the exception of postal votes—and there are not enough disputed votes for this to have made a difference).

    Project fear won. It’s as simple as that. Stop banging on about fraud. It didn’t happen.

  156. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    I agree with Morag. Let’s forget the minor imperfections of our voting system and Yes the postal vote is open to abuse but not on the scale alleged and not this time.

    We lost because the elderly in particular were scared out of their mind by those such as Darling repeating endlessly that they would lose their “Brittish Pension”. these were his words,cynically chosen.At my OAP club the talk was of nothing else and the palpable relief when the NO won broke my heart. The media led by the publicly funded BBC reinforced these fears and never challenged them.(I hate saying this but Andrew Neil was the nearest to an honest journalist on the Beeb)

    Why I do not accept the result and will not turn over and die is because all my life I have fought against liars cheats and thieves and they will not get anointed by me. Darling I have not lost the plot and you will never enjoy the results of your evil!

    Good God,this is turning me into an evangelist “and may the Lord smite the Darlingites” Hells bells it keeps me sane.

  157. Morag
    Ignored
    says:

    Thanks Mark. Do I know you from SNP London Branch?

    I think we have to distinguish between mistakes, low-grade fraud, and significant systematic rigging. Mistakes are inadvertent. Nobody is at their best at three in the morning. They’re almost always penny numbers. Low-grade fraud is possible with our system, and it would be better if it could be tightened up on. Someone votes early in the name of someone they think probably won’t vote. Some registers a vote at an address that isn’t their main residence. Again it’s penny numbers. It can be a worry in a closely-fought constituency or even more so a council ward. There’s no way it could infulence last week’s result.

    All the actual evidence people are banging on about, real and imagined is of this nature. It’s background noise. It’s irrelevant to the outcome. Nobody is going to rerun the vote or even do a complete recount on the basis of someone believing a couple of papers ended up in the wrong tray, or even that Mrs High-and-Mighty registered herself to vote at her holiday cottage.

    The people who are buying the conspiracy theory believe that a winning Yes majority was turned into a loss coming 5% short by major fraud. That didn’t happen. It couldn’t happen. You could more easily put a man on Mars.

  158. Famous15
    Ignored
    says:

    Senior moment ! Darling lies because OAP’s would not lose their British Pension because what they paid for the DWP has confirmed the obvious that the British Government will honour their responsibilities. For younger people transition arrangements would have been agreed but no one would lose their pensions.Private pensions are contractual and therefore OK. Scotland being richer etc etc….no one listened so will not repeat.

  159. Ann
    Ignored
    says:

    The only conspiracy I can really think about is the sudden appearance of Rupert Murdoch on the scene which unleashed the non-stop Unionist assault in the last two weeks of the referendum, which in my mind ultimately turned the tide.

    All national papers apart from the Sunday Herald were anti-independent with the Sun along with the Daily Record front and centre.

    Regardless of what happened to The News of The World, I think he was contacted by David Cameron to give the YES side false hope and this giving him the excuse to unleash the media assault.

    I personally think it was all planned well head.

    Howerve it is done. Let’s leave it behind and look to the future and take one step and time until we reach our ultimate goal, Independence for Scotland.

  160. Anne Macdonald
    Ignored
    says:

    At last I hear some sense! I am 76 years old and have been waiting for this day for 60 years! It would have made no difference to me what either side said – in fact I immediately recycled everything that came through my letterbox – I was going to vote Yes. We all mocked the BT campaign as being inept and fragmented but they looked at the numbers and recognised that the grey vote was the key. It was a simple matter to put doubt and fear into the minds of the un-committed and the Yes campaign did NOTHING to deal with that! Young people with fire in their bellies aren’t easily frightened but old, poor people who started out with very little fear the loss of it. Next time – and I hope there is a next time in my lifetime – do the sums and think about the fact that there are more of us oldies than there are of you! And next time treat us with a bit more respect – how do you think the movement got to this stage?

  161. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ Morag
    How on Gods earth could you “Know it did not happen” unless you were with the Postal votes from post box to counting table you could not possibly “Know it did not Happen”
    If you were not it makes your” Factual Knowledge” redundant.
    @ MarkAustin
    ` If anyone saw anything fraudulent they could go to the Record` , Are you fricken serious did you sleep through the last 6 months ,the media are a sham they would never report any fraud in this case.

    @Morag
    NASA are hoping to have a man/woman on Mars by 2035.

  162. Robert Kerr
    Ignored
    says:

    Some light relief.

    Working in garden I was approached by someone whom I have know from before school.

    He voted no because the “Scottish nobility were all killed at Floden”

    Asked why the union flags further up the street on the lamp-posts were at half mast.

    I explained that the orangemen had only short ladders.

  163. JimnArlene
    Ignored
    says:

    With regards to the post; Scum.

  164. David
    Ignored
    says:

    handclapping says:
    22 September, 2014 at 9:38 pm

    That sounds like bad organisation by NLC. You need at least 300 samples of a population to get a reliable poll. It sounds as if it was only on the first days that the Nos could have got a decent sample out of the c.10000 being processed each day and who is to say that every day’s batch was the same. Add to that the tendency to “optimise” some of the glimpses that you see and a “correct” estimate of how the postal votes are going is unlikely.

    There is also the possibility, to be most generous, that politicians lie to discomfit their opponents, as when the result goes against them they can always claim that the postal sample must have been unrepresentative. However a public warning about wasting police time would not come amiss.

    Were you there? I Was and the labour party rep was counting EVERY PV cast that was opened by the two NLC employees that were sitting at the end of the table nearest her.

    SO on that basis she got to see and count around 10% of the votes cast that day and it was a busy busy day.

    THIS WAS NOT glimpses for sure the NLC set up was flawed in many many ways one being that you could get very very close to the table and even IF the NLC person opened the A envelope with the vote side down IF they did not put that on the table like a croupier keeping in very close to the table YOU CAN SEE though the voting paper and since there were only two options it was very very easy to count votes.

    Like I said around 10% of the PV cast in NLC in my estimation on that day were counted.

    I put a stop to this but NLC were not overly concerned, read my previous post on this Based on what we were told on day one…”any funny business and the police station is just across the road” in our view ‘three WoS PV monitors’ the police should have been called by NLC. I have the daily number still and for sure every day was different starting big then tapering off to around 1,500 a day

  165. rock
    Ignored
    says:

    john king,

    “No Morag in this I disagree, when we think of just HOW MUCH the UK had to lose, they HAD to rig that ballot!”

    Precisely.

    I had been warning about this for a long time before the vote, yet hoping against hope that it wouldn’t happen.

    I have no doubt whatsoever that it was rigged.

    The final attack by BT was a window dressing exercise to give the impression that people had changed their minds at the last minute and to pave the way for declaring a rigged result.

    A majority of the elderly and the middle classes were never going to vote Yes. But it is highly unlikely that the working classes changed their minds at the last minute.

    The unionists would not have looked so smug at 10 pm if they were not absolutely sure of the result. Has anyone ever been 99% sure of the result of a knife edge election in the past?

  166. Rock
    Ignored
    says:

    Morag,

    “Scott, I’m not open to the opinion of people who think major fraud happened because I KNOW it didn’t. Factual knowledge trumps uninformed opinion.”

    Morag, I have great respect for you for your tireless campaigning for a Yes vote and for your desire to get at the truth about Lockerbie.

    But on this you are simply wrong.

    Nothing, absolutely nothing is beyond the British establishment. And there is absolutely no way they were going to let Scotland go.

    I am not in favour of a legal challenge because the British establishment will have made sure no evidence remains.

    But I will not accept that the result was not rigged.

    Apart from that, no need to argue any further. After all, we are still on the same side and we will soon be doing our best to send 59 Yes MPs to Westminster in 2015.

  167. Ann
    Ignored
    says:

    I forgot to include the YES 51/49 poll that was issued along with his appearance in the post at 3.18.

    I found it kind of strange that polsters that continually had NO way in front, suddenly had yes in the lead or as near as damn it.

  168. Joe
    Ignored
    says:

    Having read all the posts here concerning voting fraud , haven’t yet seen any mention of the evidence of actual fraud taken by police in Glasgow, we need to wait and see result of investigation of this , hopefully someone has left grubby bt fingerprints behind , what happens then if a person or persons connected with bt is identified has having taken part in those 10 cases of fraud , it may be only 10 but how many were not picked up. Interesting to see the progress of the police investigation.

  169. johnny come lately
    Ignored
    says:

    Please leave it out with all this conspiricy theory crap. We lost. Plain and simple and forcing a recount would seriously undermine the yes movment, as the recount would show a no.
    Even Dennis cannavan an hour after the polls was practicly admitting defeat. And of course this was because he had seen the exit polls. So please leave out you lot. You ar embarassing yourselves and an otherwise fantastic movment.

  170. Gallowglass
    Ignored
    says:

    Yeah, they’re already throwing conspiracy theory memes about and it’ll only take off if we keep at this and it is going to make half of us look like a bunch of nutjobs; and then all of us by association assisted by a very willing press.

    It was lost.

  171. geeo
    Ignored
    says:

    @Morag.

    Not wanting to be pedantic but doing 40 in a 30 zone can be the difference of life and death in the event of an accident between a car and a pedestrian.

    There is more corruption by allowing the ‘vow’ when postal votes have been made.

    The 3 ‘leaders’ physically signed that ‘vow’ so it cannot be seen as anything other than a new offer put to the electorate by the standing government which hundreds of thousands were denied a vote on.

  172. Stone_Truth
    Ignored
    says:

    @johnny come lately
    What exit polls are these? I have neither seen nor heard of ANY exit polls being conducted. Infact the only thing I have heard are definitive statements in the mainstream there were none and calls from the police on the day directed at the public not to conduct or publish their own!

  173. David
    Ignored
    says:

    Just to add to what I have written twice before, re the NLC PV opening and the Labour Party rep that was doing five bar gates as she counted what I estimate being about 10% of the votes cast and received that day ..from memory the third day of opening PV’s.

    While I was really upset with these shenanigans, what I saw on her A4 sheet of paper before reporting her to the NLC official in charge of the PV opening, was a 75/25 split in favour of yes. So while I was really peed off with this going on I was excited at seeing the results, so heavily in favour of yes. Yes we won NLC but with nothing like that margin…that to me seems inconsistent with our expectations – and from seeing the info of the illegal sampling of the PV’s – which strongly supported our on the ground feedback. For me this whole thing stinks to high heavens.

  174. Flower of Scotland
    Ignored
    says:

    @morag

    I spoke with you about conspiracy stuff before at a Wings night! You Poo, poo my suggestion that there was MI5 interference in the Willie MacRae case. I knew his brother, our Doctor, at the time. My husband had been scared off, because he joined Siol nan Gaidheal, by phone tapping on our home phone near West Calder.
    I’m sorry Morag, but I’ve always believed that MI5 had a hand in Scotland,s affairs. Who are you to just dispel these facts?

  175. Scot Finlayson
    Ignored
    says:

    @ David
    When you hear things like you have stated you wonder why certain people on this site refuse to believe their was any fraud in the Referendum Vote.
    What you have stated is your Factual Knowledge of what took place and do not let certain people on this site and in the scum media try and persuade you to drop your enquiries/concerns
    Remember they told us time after time that oil was going to run out ,that to mention it in any pro Independence way was mocked and laughed at so we stopped talking about it and they kept stealing it.
    If I was John McTernan (head of project No)I sure as hell would be trying to control the Referendum Vote.

  176. Anne Macdonald
    Ignored
    says:

    Russell Bruce says it ‘is important not to apportion blame’ and he is so right. The older voters were targeted by Operation Fear because BT had done their homework! They knew exactly who was going to decide this vote simply by sheer weight of numbers. If the Yes campaign had thought it through instead of rubbing their hands at the apparent ineptitude of the opposition they could have smothered us Oldies with reassurance and things might have been very different.

    I would also like to make the point to Morag that we didn’t just vote to protect our pensions and bus passes. I was always going to be a Yes but many of my friends thought long and hard and voted NO because they thought they were protecting the future of their grandchildren who will have to make their way in the world we were creating.

    A little thought and a lot more respect will be required if we are going to have an effective campaign in the GE in 2015. We were indeed the generation who sent Winnie Ewing to Westminster and refused to go away until we got our Scottish parliament. There are a lot of us and you will despise and deride us at your peril.



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