Changes coming to Scottish Parliament election rules

By Mark Pack | Wed 27th October 2010 - 7:15 pm

The Scottish Parliament (Elections etc.) Order 2010 has been tabled in Parliament this week bringing about changes in the law for the Scottish Parliament elections. As it is a Statutory Instrument (SI) it cannot be amended – either it gets Parliamentary approval or it is rejected outright. It is extremely rare for an SI to be rejected and there are no signs that this one will be in that class.

The main changes people can therefore expect for the next Scottish Parliament elections are:

The rules controlling donations to Scottish Parliament constituency candidates will now be the same as those for Westminster Parliament candidates.
There is now a “long campaign” period in which the expenses of constituency candidates are controlled, again as with Westminster Parliament elections.
The “minimum period” between the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament and the day of poll has been increased from 21 to 28 days, in line with the recommendations from the Gould report.
The rules have been amended to also allow grandparents or grandchildren to assist a person with disabilities to vote at a polling station.
The rules have been amended to reflect the transfer of responsibility for the storage of election documents, including marked registers, from Sheriff Clerks to constituency returning officers. Similar changes have already been made for Westminster Parliament elections.

3 Comments

John Richardson 27th Oct '10 - 9:58pm

Is it really necessary to change the layout of the entire website when clicking on a post to do with election law? I don’t think it adds anything and is quite annoying.
Mark Pack 27th Oct '10 - 10:55pm

John: the posts are in effect cross-posts from http://www.ElectionLawChannel.com – and the reason that exists is that an election law focused site (rather than a more general political one) appeals to a different audience.
Nigel Ashton 28th Oct '10 - 11:41am

UK election law should be changed to make the timetable for Westminster Parliamentary elections the same as for local elections.

The timetable for issuing postal votes is now incredibly tight, making life very diffcult for election staff. Perhaps this is something that could be addressed in any Regulations drawn up under the Voting System and Constituencies Act.