'Tainted' poll claim rocks Labour chiefs

Published on Sunday 26 April 2009 22:40

LABOUR members have demanded the result of the Edinburgh East candidate selection process be overturned after accusing officials of presiding over a postal votes scandal.

The poll was won by former councillor and housing convener Sheila Gilmore earlier this month. She beat lawyer Catriona Munro by a single vote.

But 15 members of the party, including one of the two scrutineers, have written to Labour's ruling National Executive Committee, condemning the result as "tainted".

Twelve breaches of the Labour Party's own rulebook and of Electoral Commission guidelines were identified by the members, including the lack of postal vote verification.

Labour party insiders, however, have dismissed the claims, insisting that the complaints are not based on sound evidence.

However, Labour members in Edinburgh East have spelt out their concerns in a petition to the party hierarchy.

In it, they claim: "The proper procedures for the registration, issuing, returning, securing and counting of postal votes were not followed.

"As the process was flawed, the result is tainted and the declaration must be in doubt."

One signatory of the petition, Patsy King, said she feared the contest row would compound the party's other controversies.

"Now is the time that Labour has to be beyond reproach. It's important for members to stand up for what is right," she said.

She called for the postal vote to be rerun.

Discrepancies highlighted in the petition include that there was no list of verified postal voters.

David Walker, one of two scrutineers overseeing the election's count, described the process as "inconsistent and unfair" after one postal vote was allowed to be counted although the identity could not be verified while another was disallowed for the same reason.

Two late emergency postal votes were submitted on the night to be included in the count, but were in "completely different envelopes to those issued for postal voting purposes", he wrote in a letter to the NEC.

The postal votes were not kept in a secure sealed box at the hustings but were transported in a plastic bag, said Mr Walker.

Almost 70 postal votes were applied for but only 55 were taken to the count, he added.

There were also only two scrutineers, both of them male, rather than the requisite 12, of whom half are meant to be women.

A Labour spokesman said: "Of course, we will look at the letter but there is no evidence to suggest that this was anything but a well-run selection process."

The SNP's candidate is George Kerevan, who is also an associate editor of this newspaper. The Holyrood seat for the area is held by the SNP Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill.