Wings Over Scotland

Odd how a super majority wasn’t required for Brexit.

Move the goalposts all the time. I just hope that the country dies proud this time

Why 55, why not 60, 70 or 95?

Spooky what the loss of a mahoosive starting lead will do to your confidence innit? 🙄

Yup they winged it in the last two referenda, nearly lost the first, didn’t learn & lost the last.

Next time they won’t be leaving anything to chance starting with trying not to have one, followed by imposing the need for super majority ironically based on the proof of the disastrous consequences of not doing so and getting Brexit which will of course also be used to show that leaving a Union is BAD.

Then again we’ll be pushing to stay in a Union, the EU, only this time with Scotland’s interests directly represented at the table.

Postal voting should be banned, not just for indyref2 but for ALL elections/referenda.

Postal voting is an open invitation to voter fraud and intimidation – especially in Muslim households where it is common practice for the (male) head of the family to demand (and get) all the voting forms intended for female members of the family.

This isn’t some kind of islamophobia, its endemic – I’m sure we can all remember Judge Richard Mawrey (in 2005) finding six (Muslim) Labour councillors guilty of “massive, systemic and organised” postal voting fraud & described their behaviour as a “disgrace even for a banana republic”.

You can see the same thing in Tower Hamlets (in 2015) – massive postal voting fraud amongst the Muslim community.

Of course it suits Labour to have this happen as the vast majority of Muslim immigrants vote for them.

I’m sure the Tories found postal voting useful in 2015 as well – very handy for those awkward marginals mmm?

Brexit 52% means brexit?

I suspect that in reality the majority required for Westminster recognition of Scottish independence will be whatever the majority actually is, plus one.

Yes they are afraid and will try any devious way to block us but 50+1 is good enough for me.

PS I could not let this thought go having team GB at the palace did they have to consult with the Tank if it was ok for the Scots into that grand place,I would like the FM to have a dig at Ruthie about it tomorrow.

Doubtful they could make this stick with indyref and EUref as recent precedents.

How idiotic the Yoon Loons are and are becoming progressively more idiotic as the Scottish demands for independence continue to grow.

Here we have a prime example of an over inflated yoon loon balloon’s imbecilic thought process by The Herald’s, grandly titled, “Scottish Political Editor”, Tom Gordon.

First the yoons claimed the Scottish Government, who represent the legally sovereign people of Scotland, must have the express permission from their Westminster Establishment Masters, (who have no legal sovereignty over the people of Scotland), to hold a referendum.

Then, after those delegated by the membership of the SNP give the SG a mandate to hold a referendum that the yoon Loons have claimed they cannot hold without Westminster’s express permission, they threaten to impose, “Super Majority”, rules upon the result of a referendum they claimed they will not allow the SG to hold in the first place.

The man is an overinflated balloon and he has just developed a slow puncture that will see such as he deflated.

How pathetic is that – “We won’t allow you to hold a referendum, but when you do we will impose a ‘Super Majority’, upon it – so there”. Na! Ni! Na! Ni! Na! Na!

Bloody hilarious.

Ken @
They probably went for 55% because it can be portrayed as reasonable.
On the face of it and to those who think claiming the dead can sounds crazy,this won’t seem such an outrageous requirement.
It will be spun as the yes side only having to achieve what the no side did last time.
So all in all 55% is a marketable number.

While 40% like the 79 referendum could be made to look like it was just being cautious it could trigger memories in some,so a wee bit of a risk.
The main down side to that is the controversy over it is very searchable on the internet.
Also the impressive turn out in 2014 may not make it such a safe number.

It’s worring that this is being floated again,as although those who were politically savvy last time saw it as the con it was,the public didn’t bat an eyelid over it.

For a big Constutional change 55% is not that unreasonable,but only if there is compulsory voting and a voter role that’s as up to date as possible,a and that’s not going to happen.

On the up side it’s one more example of a rule being enforced on Scotland,that didn’t apply in England.
That might but I don’t really know,be illegal according to the Act of the Union,but that Treaty’s been broken so many times.
The poll Tax being just one example I don’t know if it would help here.

Never trust a unionist ,they are not interested in democracy ,only power . They will shift the goal posts . Just watch Britexit stall.

Vestas @10.01. The big problem with the postal vote concerns not those signing and sending off even whole families worth, but the total lack of scrutiny over the transport and opening of those votes prior to their delivery to a counting station. In fact every posted vote could be substituted with a desired result if that was necessary.

What happens if NO don’t get 55%?

Do we have a re-run?

But yes I think we can safely say WM and it minions are more than a tad concerned if there effectively talking up a referendum that hasn’t even been consulted apon yet

@One_Scot says: 19 October, 2016 at 9:49 am:

“Given that the Yoons want to raise the majority to 55% for Yes to win, it does not fill me full of confidence that they’re going to play fair in their attempts to win.”

Don’t know how many of you noticed, “The Donald’s”, claims about the USA presidential campaign. First of all there were claims that computer, “Bots”, inflated the Opinion Poles on the results of the Clinton vs Trump TV debate.

So, as I’ve always known, ALL opinion polls are utter,”Quorn”, mince, and if they can use bots to fake opinion polls they can do exactly the same for election results – particularly when they allow free open access to postal votes and have no exit polls at the polling stations.

Which is, of course, how that Davidson harridan could tell the result well before the election was held.

Bob Millar says at 10:42 am

I believe some sort of ‘sunset’/transitional arrangement similar to that which you propose would be a necessity.

Scots Gov. would have to have full oversight of the tax receipts though and 20%/80% in Y1 sounds overly generous to me.

Bob Millar says at 10:42 am

Of course those details can be thrashed out following a win in IndyRef2.

Douge Daniel @ 10.15
While I couldn’t agree more that if the proposal is worth keeping it should be easy to win a simple majority.
But I do think there is a place for super majority votes,in Parliament,but,only in Parliament not for referendums.
Although I think the circumstances of them need to be written down well before the proposals for the actual vote arrived,and the area’s they apply to Very limited.
The examples I am thinking of are, currently The death penalty, and hypothetically any future Scottish politicians signing an Act of Union with Westminster.

Yoons just being back Labour’s 40% rule as in the 1979 Devolution referendum for a very limited Assembly that keep us under Tory rule for the next 18 years when our oil bounty was squandered.

This had the effect of counting those who died within six months of the vote as being against an Assembly. How inconsiderate of them to die at that time.

I tend to think ‘should Scotland be independent’ was the wrong question. It laid open lots of interpretations of independence form the Unionists.

If people had been asked if Scotland should be self governing then how could they have said No? What’s not to like? Maybe it doesn’t imply the complete break away that it would mean. Just a thought.

Also spoke to another person yesterday disgusted with the ‘sanctioning’ of RT news. Not only did he watch it but he watches Al Jezeera too for his news. Said BBC was bad. People down here are slowly but surely wakening up to the BBC bias. (He got a wee black book to read and pass on to relatives in Scotland!)

As i have said before we need to make sure the yoon electoral cheats do not get to run the referendum and we do that by making it an EU run referendum.

The question must be “should Scotland be an independent country inside the European union” yes/no

Since the UK or England is leaving the EU they will have no right to run or interfere in what is a EU constitutional referendum.

All you SNP guys need to go talk with the party leaders and make this happen or we will be cheated again.

We must also let the EU know that we do not trust the UK electoral system to be fair.

@ Robert Peffers, 10:44am

Absolutely agree, Robert. These days doesn’t require removing them anywhere to manipulate votes.

I’d rather ask a trustworthy friend to proxy vote for me than ever use a postal vote. I reckon only necessary postal votes should be allowed.

I daren’t start on what I think about the security arrangements for ballot papers when we have local authorities who think that cable ties or unlogged numbered seals are acceptable for securing boxes.

We are asked to trust…

Yeah, it is vaguely possible I commented on that and the guy’s own article, at some small length.

But – is there a possibility your average punter reading that would realise that it likely means there’s already a majority for Independence? And perhaps be tempted to join in to be on the winning side?

Or is my optimistic positivity getting the better of me?

Oh – a question for the next survey, something like:

25). (NO voters) If the polls showed there to ba a majority for YES would that make you more likely to vote YES?

With each passing day of this long drawn out constitutional reconfiguration, I become ever more convinced that there is a fundamental difference it the type of people we are compared to Unionists.

Not particularly the mass of voters who don’t think continually about politics, but I mean the two opposing groups of politically active folks.

Many things mark differences. Unionist generally ouze entitlement and exceptionalism. This leads to a sense of end justifies the means morally. Truth and facts so often seem irrelevant to them.

Perhaps most evident is a total lack of self awareness as they fail to apply basic logic. So soon after the Brexit vote, which will be honoured (it appears) with 53%, the suggestion of a threshold of 55% for IndyRef2 is being proposed. Does it not occur to them just how astonishingly outrageous that looks?!

It amounts to one rule for us, and no need for rules for them. They are the special people, we however are just the little people.

Imagine 54.9% for Yes where we assume a similar turnout and postal vote level to 2014, i.e. 3.6 million voters, 0.68 million of which were postal.

Total Yes votes would be 1.98 million

Of which, assuming again the reported 70:30 split by postal voters, this would account for 0.48 million No votes and 0.2 million Yes votes.

Which would mean that non postal voters would have voted 1.78 million out of 2.92 million or 61% for Yes.

In other words, if the hypothecated postal vote fiddle were true and repeated, you would need to get over 61% Yes from the ballot station vote to clear that 55% hurdle.

[Aside]
Even without fiddling a 55% hurdle is potentially inflammatory IMV.

They got away with it, just, for Montenegro where the hurdle was cleared by a fraction of a percent, if it had failed by the same fraction who knows what may have occurred although I am pretty sure we can all guess.

The move, to placate Serbia, was adopted by the European Commission.

The Montenegrin Government accepted the stipulation in order for the referendum to go ahead and be recognised by Serbia, however, the Montenegrin Prime Minister stated that if a majority of >50% but less than 55% were obtained, they would declare independence anyway.

Not sure Westminster even yet, would take the same line as Serbia. Especially in the light of them being one of the first countries to recognise Kosovo after its UDI from Serbia. That would surely be a hypocrisy too far, even for them.

I would like to see voting rights allocated to Scottish Taxpayers only. That and the exclusion of second home owners from outwith Scotland.

I agree that postal votes should only be allowed if folk have confirmation of a debilitating ailment.

There should also be a ban on campaigners visiting care homes.

Desperation is a stinky cologne.

With each passing day we see the UK turning into a Fascist state.

Nigel Smith now wants to gerrymander the electoral system in order to stop Scottish Independence happening and have .

scotspine says:

postal votes should only be allowed if folk have confirmation of a debilitating ailment.

It’s not so simple. I believe most politicians have a postal vote because votes are on Thursdays and generally they will likely be away at one of the two parliaments on polling day (if the vote does not entail them).

Many able working people need postal votes because they can’t be at home.

I would agree with you if limited polling stations were opened in every constituency for a few weeks, 7days a week, prior to the count day. That would give all able bodied an opportunity to vote in person.

link to un.org

“2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”

If they think there’s division now, try rejecting a majority vote for independence because it doesn’t meet some arbitrary threshold. I really can’t see it happening.

I agree that postal votes are a problem, though it’s a difficult case to argue without sounding paranoid. Look at the reaction to Trump’s complaints in a country that has insecure electronic voting. Of course, the reason that he’s being criticised (for undermining faith in the electoral system) is exactly the same reason it should be addressed in the first place, so it really shouldn’t get to the stage where politicians are having to draw attention to it.

Brexit is doing wonders for house prices here in London 😉

As has already been implied, the BREXT vote was quite a bit below 55%. Sauce for the goose…Furthermore, what about Scotland’s super majority of 62% that wants to remain in Europe?

I just love it when those crazy yoons do all our hard work for us. Talk about a death spiral. 🙂

@ galamcennalath 11:53am :

“Many able working people need postal votes because they can’t be at home.”

No they don’t. They can nominate a proxy to vote for them and thats legal now.

The number of people who don’t have a partner/family member/friend capable of getting to the polling station and being a proxy is tiny.

People don’t do that now because its more hassle than postal voting, simple as that.

This came up in respect of the 2014 ref and also the Brexit one.

Was a UK parlimentary report 2011 on refs which went to the Lords who came back with recommendations. Both Commons and Lords said they thought min voter turnout and supermajority type arrangements were a very bad idea and that a simple majority should suffice. In part due to the bad feeling the 40% rule caused during the ’79 ref..

That was the basis on which both 2014 and 2016 referendums were held requiring a simple majority. With such precedent, there is zero chance of IndyRef2 requiring min voter turnout or any sort of supermajority.

The Rev’s point isn’t that this will happen, it won’t, more a signal of the expectation among the Unionists that they’re going to lose. And are already scraping the barrel trying to dream up unfair means of preventing their impending demise.

As some are fond of saying, tick tock … .

The Scottish Government needs to boot this in the bin NOW. Anyway, surely with an imposed 55% hurdle then any result between 50.1% and 54.9% risks tipping us into UDI territory… I know I’d be fucking raging if over half the electorate voted Yes only to have a big firm No imposed on them.

55percent is used to give the illusion of being reasonable. It is designed to mislead the general public who do not understand the implications of such tactics.

However the good news is that such devices and tactics indicate the level of panic in the unionist camp.

@ Vestas, 11:49am

I think an individual is only allowed to cast two proxy votes.

A vote should only ever be given to a proxy who can be trusted by the voter.

Ronnie @ 12:19pm

An Independence vote could be won by a 10 percent margin. However if it was a turnout of 70percent which is good we would have only achieved 40percent of the electorate…some 15percent below the threshold.

That you consider 50.1 the point of anger it could be much, much lower.
With a 70percent turnout we would need to win the vote with nearly 80 percent to achieve the target.

This is the trap.

There has been clamour for the question this time to be along the lines of “Do you want Scotland to remain in the UK?” So that the union holds the positive high ground.
I’m quite happy for a supermajority to apply to that version of the question!

@ Betty Boop 12:42pm :

Two seems a reasonable number to me – for example a couple of OAPs can’t make it so someone votes for them.

You can cast unlimited proxy votes for members of your immediate family. Thats somewhat unfortunate in the Muslim scenario where women are having their votes taken away by the men, but at least there is visibility of who is voting as a multiple proxy.

BTW there are exemptions available for multiple proxy voting – for example nursing/care homes can have a nominated member of staff cast votes for all residents.

Proxy voting isn’t a panacea – theres loads of ways to game the system, but ONLY on polling day. No advance voting, no holiday home owners, no state actors having a quick shufti in the postal votes boxes…..

Oh and you apply for a proxy vote up until 5pm on polling day (doubt you’d get it sorted that late) unlike postal voting where it has to be received by 5pm 11 WORKING days before.

No excuses really for not banning postal votes except in the most exceptional of cases. The Electoral Commission will never countenace it of course….

@GrahamB 12:51 – The problem with that question is that we all instantly flip from being rabid Yessers to campaigning for “No thanks”!

1 word “democracy”…it is pathetic that this is even being discussed however it shows without question the SNP tactics of opening 2 fronts for the UK government to contend forcing them to choose the English vote of BREXIT or the union and REMAIN is the correct course to follow.

As the more right wing and desperate the unionists become the harder to square the circle and resolve the obvious issues the people of Scotland have with BREXIT and the apparent right wing agenda.

Independence is a question of when not if!!!

I just thought of another example – If we had a 55 percent voter turnout at the referendum the ONE individual could prevent Independence under this rule 🙁

I know the turnout would be higher but it highlights the twisted maths that becomes stronger as the turnout falls.

Some folk don’t vote because they don’t care
Some folk don’t like the question so don’t vote
Some folk don’t like answering questions so don’t vote
Some folk think it’s all rigged and they don’t count anyway
Some folk will never vote because they’re hiding

All these folk importantly are unimportant to the vote except when the UK wants to use them as invented opinion to match their agenda, and some way must be found to impress upon these groups that abstaining on a vote, to the UK is as good as voting for whatever the UK decides that means

Meaning, you’re giving away your right to Theresa May and co, to tell you what you think
And there’s not a damn thing you can do about it because you chose not to have your right to say

Abstaining is for Mugs (see Labour party)

And this ladies and gentlemen is nothing more than another confirmation that the Scottish people are seen as an inferior class by unionist careerist politicians and indeed many down south.

Brexit will lead the UK to oblivion and by the look of it, a good part of the vote was fueled by flirting with xenophobia. And yet, the vote for Brexit is not being contested in the way indiref is or demanded to be a ‘super majority’. Not even considering that the UK is formed by 4 countries of which only 2 voted to leave the EU.

Well that is of course okay because England voted to leave. English know what they are voting for. Scots can be easily mislead. Please Mr Smith don’t insult our intelligence.

This looks like there is a rule for the Scots and a rule for all the rest: another example of the democratic farce Scotland is subjected within this union. The sad thing is that this self-serving hypocrites cannot be even bothered in hiding it anymore.

Furthermore, according to that article Mr Smith said:

“Given the rest of the UK would not have a say on Scottish independence, he said Theresa May would be right to insist upon proof of consensus through a higher threshold for Yes”

Now my question to Mr Smith would have to be: and why should the rest of the UK have any say whatsoever in what are exclusively Scottish Matters?

Didn’t Mr Cameron impose EVEL so Scotland did not have a say in English matters?

So what sort of discrimination is this? Isn’t the UK a ‘union of equals’? So why does Mr Smith insist in treating Scotland as an English colony?

Also, I would like to ask Mr Smith:
Scotland has been portrayed by unionist parties over and over again as a basket case. Why does Mr Smith and other unionists insist then upon on lumbering the English people with the burden of Scotland’s deficit? Or is it that things are not exactly as they were told?

Also, I am sure that Mr Smith has still enough functioning neurons to realise that it is a completely unbalanced affair putting an 85% of the population against an 8%. Doesn’t Mr Smith believe in honest democracy and fairness?

Besides, if he is that convinced that not enough people in Scotland has an appetite for independence, what on earth do the unionist have to fear? Or have we been telling porkies again?

I honestly cannot believe that this people can betray their democratic principles, and indiscriminately act in such a brass way.

Crumbs, I am furious.

Dave McEwan Hill says:
19 October, 2016 at 1:24 pm
Let me repeat if it’s 55% for us then it’s 55% for them and anything less automatically triggers another referendum

Obviously our Yoon custodians of democracy will have as a condition that the status quo be retained if the 55% threshold is not achieved,with no provision for further referendums.

Apologies if this has already been mentioned … and for being O/T. 😉

There is a piece in today’s National about the Brain family. We all remember the Brain family right? 😉

Well would you believe me if I told you all that they have now received, via e-mail a request from the Home Office to complete a customer satisfaction survey! 😀

What alternate universe has the Home Office just beamed in from? 😉

Thankfully I am not the Brain family because if I were I’d be telling the Home Office, in no uncertain terms, what they can do with their customer satisfaction survey and then once they have done that where they can stick their survey for future reference! 😀

link to thenational.scot

Not this time. This was a little trick they could only pull once, and they’ve used it.

We live in a different era, wirh a very politicised nation, and who are in no mood after Better Together’s antics from 2 years ago.

They can ask, hint …even beg, but after being hauled out of Europe on a 52% win margin, they’ll be laughed out of the room on this one. No chance!

fireproofjim – It was the Under 16 World Cup. I was there too. Just google imaged this. Blimey! I’d forgotten how obvious it was. I would confidently state every one of them is over 22. One guy in particular on the front row has definitely had a difficult paper round.

link to twitter.com

Shouldn’t we be flattered that they want to hold on so desperately to our little basketcase of a country? Perhaps the good people of England could have their say: ‘Good people of England, do you wish to keep subsidising those good-for-nothing Jocks out of your own hard-earned dosh?.

Feel the love!

We should only accept the super majority of 55% in the Scottish independence referendum if 55% of Westminster Scottish MP’s Agree to it.

the dog philosopher says:
19 October, 2016 at 1:57 pm
Shouldn’t we be flattered that they want to hold on so desperately to our little basketcase of a country?

Last BBC Question Time show I saw was from Hendon north London and the audience were cheering their heads off at their UK becoming independent and sovereign again Brexit wise.

Special guest (SNPusual never on QT)Alex Salmond raised Scottish independence and the audience went silent. Mute!

It wasn’t as funny as when Dimbelby and QT came to Dundee, where there’s only posh tory yoon roasters in Dundee and in the Dundee Question time audience but it was close.

Proposals for a ‘super majority’ are only valid if the choice is change or the status quo – that will not be the case in any new referendum, both choices will lead to change and areas of uncertainty due to the change in circumstances that will have brought it about.

Re postal votes, in the US and maybe other places too, people can vote in advance(3 weeks – 1 week before the official voting day), allowing those that won’t be able to vote on the official voting day, or who simply prefer to avoid queue’s, to vote in advance. But they have to do this at an official office where the normal id checks are made. This could help address many of the UK postal vote weaknesses.

But the overseas postal votes still seem wide open to fraud.

link to aboutmyvote.co.uk

Implies you can register in two places at the same time. The bit about students and the subsequent final decision being up to the local electoral officer hint that the 50% of residence is a guideline. The crime is only in voting more than once or fraudulently claiming to live at an address you don’t.

The problem in the strict interpretation of the law given is it only deals with elections and not referenda.

The problem with postal voting is the natural assumption that it will reflect the exit polls. Which it might if there were no last minute swings. Darling’s attempt to close down discussion as soon as postal voting opened might partly be because there was going to be a notable discrepancy if the vote continued to swing towards yes.

As to Davidson, her comment was incredibly ill thought out but in the end we’d hope that next time those on the Yes side would also have a sneaky peek. How else would you guard against fraud? It wouldn’t surprise me that they went one step further and used each count as a check on how their campaign was going.

So postal voting, most people have a gut instinct it shouldn’t be needed. Publishing a breakdown might lead to cries of fix in even the cleanest of elections. In a volatile campaign to many postal votes would also preclude exit polls for the same reason. The same might be said for proxy voting.

@ BJ

What folks need to understand BJ is that the EU subsidies will continue until A50 is completed they do not end the day it is signed so these claims of “matching” until 2020 by westminster are disingenuous if not down right lies.

Of course the subsidies will continue but it will not be westminster treasury that is paying them even if they would like people to think they are.

Just another con by a bunch of crooked gits they will probably try to reduce them hoping that people are stupid enough to believe they are paying them to help out when it will be EU money they will be paying with.

After A50 is completed and the UK no longer pays the EU membership is when the EU cash will stop.

Jeremy Corbyn adviser urged Scottish Labour to ditch Kezia Dugdale and back second independence referendum

‘Reckless talk’ says Rowley.

link to archive.is

PS: In other news.

Theresa May have made a double entendre… Aye right!

Sorry try this one
link to youtube.com

I think I am not mistaken when I recall during Indy1 postal votes were all sent down south for some reason, manchester I think it was but maybe wrong.

After whatever, they were returned. It is known that Westminster has machines that can copy your signature to a T, not hard to have copies of the actual forms with details on.
So just why were they sent south just to be sent back again a wee bit later?

Just listened to a snippet from PMQ’s today -Angus robertson enquiring about the possible use of Scottish made missiles being used by Saudi’s to kill civilians in Yemen.

link to bbc.co.uk
Have a listen – 25 seconds in, do I hear the PM congratulating him on becoming he depute leader of the Scottish NATIONALIST Party?

No such party exists!

Does she know the difference or are we all divisive nationalists!

@Robert Peffers

taking Trump’s claims as a source is to say the least very dubious. Even if there were no safeguards not all polls are done online so they can’t be affected.

Of course one should be careful not to take any such info as “gospel” – check what questions were asked, what form they were asked in, how they compare with other polls etc. before drawing any conclusions, and any conclusions should be provisional.

However. Going with Trump’s type of accusations only give the anti-independence forces a stick to beat you with (the one with tin foli hat engraved on it).

Theresa May’s Government (with the help of the US) will stop at NOTHING to prevent us from getting our Independence but I doubt they’ll use the 55% target. Next one up. We’ll probably be bombarded with ‘the whole of the UK should be involved in the vote’ argument, as per people like Forsyth.

There’s loads of data online that highlights the hellish level of fraudulence relating to postal voting. Can the Scottish Government do anything about that? The ‘second home’ issue is another. Someone should try to ascertain how many there are because I doubt the online figure is correct. FAR from it.

At the end of the day they have the capacity to rig the vote by SIMPLY (at the touch of a button) using computer software and the only way to counteract that, seemingly, is through having EXIT polls.

We should also ensure that we involve the UN to oversee.

Closer scrutiny of the Electoral Commission wouldn’t go amiss either, imo.

yesindyref2 says:

Nope I was right, havea read at this blog which goes into real depth of the Indy vote. If you read it all that is good, but if not near the bottom you will find this-

“Even more disturbing are claims that postal ballots were first being sent to England to be ‘scanned’ and ‘have their signature checked’ before being returned to the relevant electoral district in Scotland:”

This WAS done.
Here is the blogg

link to joequinn.net

I will find other references for you. They would have been removed after you sometime after you saw them delivered.

yesindyref2 says:

There is other evidence here of rigging and againlower down a ref to the postal votes being sent to England first, they were returned I seem to remember a week or so prior to the referendum.
There was astonishment from Yes folk at the time.

link to aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk

Do not be surprised if you cannot find many references to it, most seem to have ” disappeared”.

It truly did happen.

I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, don’t the Yoons learn anything from history especially from mid the 20th century onwards where many countries of the old empire wanted Independence. Where this was ignored or treated as silly children and told to go away as they didn’t have the skills to rule themselves. The result was for Patriots to start physically fighting for their Independence, India, Burma, Malaya, Cypress, Kenya, Rhodesia ET AL and never forget Ireland. They all achieved Independence in the end and it could all have been done without spilling any blood, but the English Establishment new better. Aye they knew so much better that most of them were burned out of Ireland.

It is also interesting to note how quickly Westminster granted ‘Dominion Status’ (a kind of home rule)to Canada, Australia and New Zealand for they were scared stiff that these countries would follow the American example.

Auld Rock

@Petra
Jings there was a thead way back, and a post from Doug Daniel explaining the whole thing. Whwnever postal votes were opened there were observers- from Wings as well. And then when processed they all went back in the safe. Not on supersonic totally invisible fast jets off to a dark and dank cellar in London somewhere.

Here y’are

link to wingsoverscotland.com

The 55% cut-off is nonsense and can easily be challenged in court.

The important thing with indyref2 is to get the vote out.

I suggest Independent observers (UN and/or EU) in all hospices/nursing homes etc who will transport votes to nearest polling station;
Independent observers (UN and/or EU) in all polling stations;
Votes to be counted and registered directly as soon as polling closes in all polling stations and tallies confirmed in the counting station;
postal votes to be limited as far as possible,sent to the local polling station and counted there;
same with proxies;

The man on the scene? At one scene only and not privy to what could have gone on beforehand, indyref2.

London? Every postie in Scotland? Who said that?

And, eh, there were no observers from Wings when the postal votes were opened in Renfrewshire. 30,000 of them.

Time we took Amber Rudd’s advice and made lists. We need to identify those who are against us, who are not part of us, who resist our democtatic wishes. And then when we know who they are we can name them and shame them. Standing idly by is not an option.

Regarding child refugees, it strikes me that even if there are some young adults there, it is these young adults who are most vulnerable to having an AK47 put n their hand and marched off to the front to kill somebody.
These people have had their homes and livelihoods destroyed, and what they need is a little compassion and safety, not to be treated like cattle or sent back into the meat grinder.

@ robert j sutherland

Thank you for such a detailed and kindly reply to my suggestions on how to ensure a fair voting procedure.

I have some doubts about your statement:

“Distributing counting over the polling stations themselves would require a massive and unaffordable increase in numbers involved and be even harder to monitor than centralised as at present”.

Compared with the counting station, polling places have few votes, so paying a couple of counters for a couple of hours work in each would be more than sufficient.
Adds up over the country?
Indeed it does but wouldn’t it be worthwhile if the vote was certified where it happened? With no doubts?
I’m afraid I can’t understand why you think it would be even harder to monitor than at present – polling staff and representatives of each side would be breathing down counters necks!!!to say nothing of any independent observers that were present

Interesting paper from the Electoral Commission abut the Ref. Basically it finds that confidence in the running of the Ref was about the same as the 2011 election. Which of course was well won by the SNP!

link to electoralcommission.org.uk

@Thepnr
Yeah. That repeat and “stronger” post, I thought I was in another thread thinking oh no, here we go again with the “referendum we wuz robbed it was rigged”. Morag would have been disgusted. Turns out it was the same thread in a different tab. Ooops.

I well remember that crock o’ crap, introduced by a Scottish MP (Cunningham) sitting in an English Constituency…. the “40% rule” … the Pro-Devolution vote had to have their voters mark a ballot but the No voters didn’t … so non-voters & the dead all voted “No” …… even Stalin would have been impressed by that piece of “Democracy” …. Mother of all Parliaments … my arse.

ben madigan @ 00:30,

You’re welcome. It’s important that we all have confidence in the counting system, and not descend into “Trumpsteria”.

Yes, counting at each polling station is feasible, but that’s not the problem, which is security of the count. There would have to be something like three neutral observers at each polling station to oversee the count, then accompany the numbers together with the now-opened ballots to a central accounting point. There just isn’t the human resources to do that, plus in effect it has now created a multiplicity of vulnerabilities that previously didn’t exist.

As things stand, the ballot boxes are locked from the start, and finally sealed before transport. A count of the number of votes cast is kept separately, and the first thing that happens when the seal is broken on each box is a count of the number of ballots (not of the votes) therein, to ensure there has been no “stuffing” or losses of ballots before/during transit.

The system is in effect designed to minimise the need for trustworthiness at every stage, not that it’s a problem in practice anyway, but it’s trust-efficient. The volunteers who do this kind of thing are the unsung heroes of democracy, and deserve all our thanks for the essential job they diligently carry out.

The same resourcing argument incidentally applies to the postal votes but with knobs on. The cost of having a separate validation workstation at each polling station would be enormously wasteful given their infrequence of use. Each polling district has only a small handful of these machines, and that’s all they need.

The ballots have to be collated centrally anyway because the last stage before a result is declared is for all the rejected ballots for that electoral district to be scrutinised by all the relevant candidates plus any additional observers, in order to agree that each one of those ballots is indeed invalid. Full transparency.

Betty Boop @ 01:15,
Thanks for that clarification. I only saw the process during the main count, and then the ballots only became occasionally visible during normal counting like all the rest. So I have evidently assumed too much for the pre-counts. Maybe they are ultra-sensitive at the pre-counts because of their advance timing. But thanks to

Liz g @ 08:45
for that other insight. If the story I have been telling myself heretofore about the Ruth Davidson thing does not entirely stand up, one may speculate that instead she was tipped-off by someone sympathetic involved with the count who had some inside knowledge. Any such thing, if it happened, is to be strongly condemned because it is corrosive of trust in the process, and leads to speculation about interference that hasn’t actually occurred.

And yes, thinking about Amber Rudd and her call for lists to be made of foreign workers so they can be named and shamed, how exactly will this play out in NI.

Will they list the foreign Irish from the republic and discriminate against them. A unionist charter that any true blue unionist would be proud of. They certainly know a thing or two about the hated community within their community. Oh what fun awaits and all wholeheartedly supported by folks like the Home Secretary.

And so are we really talking about a return, and I quote a historical phrase of ..” a Protestant country for a Protestant people”. And there is many a bigot in Glasgow who’d dance to that tune too, given half a chance.

And yes, why stop at the Irish. How about the Asians. Surely they must feature high on Madame Rudd’s radar list. Or Jews too, what about them.

The hatred is palpable and such stigmatisation is I’ think a sure fire recipe for disaster.

So welcome to a Britain for the British.

And the cry – ” no foreigner here – no surrender “