Examination of Witnesses (Questions 184-199)
MR RON
GOULD, CM AND
MR MICHAEL
BODA
15 JANUARY 2008
Q184 Chairman: Good morning, Mr Gould
and Mr Boda, I welcome you here this morning and I thank you for
coming all the way to give us evidence on the experience of the
Scottish elections. Perhaps you could introduce yourselves for
the record?
Mr Gould: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
My name is Ron Gould, I was for 20 years the deputy head managing
federal elections in Canada with Elections Canada, and during
that time as well and since my retirement in 2001 I have been
involved in various aspects of elections from observation to the
design of the elections in Cambodia, the design of the Bosnia
elections and Kosovo, and was a member of the South African Election
Commission in 1994 for Mr Mandela, all of which were challenging
but certainly not as challenging as the review of the 3 May Scottish
elections. With that I will turn it over to Michael Boda.
Mr Boda: My name is Michael Boda;
I have worked in the area of elections for about 15 years. I have
been on the senior staff of the International Foundation for Election
Systems, an organisation that assists around the world with elections
and evaluates elections. I have done a lot of consulting and worked
with Jimmy Carter and others. I acted as deputy reviewer and director
of the Scottish Election Tribunal.
Q185 Chairman: Before we start on
the detailed questions, would you like to make opening statements?
Mr Gould: Thank you, Mr Chairman,
just a few very brief opening remarks. First of all, obviously,
I really want to thank you for inviting us to come back from North
America, although we do not appreciate the weather, but we certainly
are pleased to come back and meet with you and discuss the report
on the review of the 3 May elections in Scotland. We certainly
will be pleased to explain as fully as possible our findings and
the rationale related to the comments, options and recommendations
contained in the report. Very briefly, as you may be aware, our
basic terms of reference for the review had to do with a focus
on the reasons for the high number of rejected ballots, the decision
to electronically count all the ballots, the electronic counting
process itself, arrangements for production and despatch of postal
ballots, the decision-making process related to all of these issues
and the role of the Electoral Commission itself. In carrying out
this mandate the focus of the report was very much on the administration
of the election and every effort was made to avoid any actions
which might have resulted in challenges to the already accepted
election results, and also to avoid taking any actions which would
in any way compromise or encroach on the secrecy of the vote.
The objective from the outset was to look at the past problems,
only as a vehicle for achieving positive future progress through
examining the background of each of the issues identified, describing
the key related problems and suggesting options as well as making
recommendations designed to minimise or avoid similar problems
in the future, thereby strengthening future Scottish Parliamentary
and local elections. This being said, we certainly would welcome
any comments or questions which you may have in relation to the
report and will do our best to respond as fully and accurately
as possible. Thank you, Mr Chairman.
Q186 Chairman: Your report concluded
that "the voter was treated as an afterthought by virtually
all the other stakeholders". Is this damning indictment for
all, including the Electoral Commission?
Mr Gould: In making that statement
we were not saying that there was a determined effort to avoid
considering the voters, what we were saying was that the focus
was on completing certain actions and getting them done without
taking the time to say "How is this going to ultimately impact
on the voter?" and I do not think there were any exceptions
in terms of the stakeholders involved in the elections, so we
gave numerous examples in the report of various actions which
were or were not taken, that could have been taken or should have
been taken in order to facilitate the voters' ability to understand
the whole process much better.
Q187 David Mundell: In your report,
Mr Gould, and your subsequent letter of clarification to the Electoral
Commission, you appear to explicitly refuse to assign any particular
fault or blame. Is it really credible to say that no one was to
blame for what happened on 3 May?
Mr Gould: It would be better to
say that everyone was to blame for the process, and this is why
we said we do not feel that it is valid to use the report to assess
blame, and it cannot be done because the fragmentation was so
great throughout this process that really there is no ultimate
accountability. There is accountability for certain things and
certain places, but even that is very difficult to determine because
there are so many competing factors in the process. As again we
said the whole point of identifying the problems and the issues
and, if you wish, the blame was to say okay, how can we resolve
this, how can we find a point of accountability somewhere in this
process that we can recommend for the future so that this kind
of thing does not happen, and if it does happen, then you will
be able to say, yes, it was this person who was ultimately responsible.
Q188 David Mundell: But even in this
process as it stood there were certain people making the decisions.
Whilst others may have had input into the process, ultimately
decisions were taken at certain levels, for example at the Scotland
Office. It is not credible to say that other political parties
made the decisions, is it, they did not make the decisions, the
key decisions were either taken by the Scotland Office or the
then Scottish Executive?
Mr Gould: In terms of the process
my understanding was that all parties had an input into the process
and all parties contributed, for whatever reasons, to the decision-making
process and the final decision was made on the basis of what all
parties had inputted into the decision-making process which was,
as you know, a long process and delayed unduly. We understand
that the reason for the delay was the vast consultation process
across the board, with parties and with others.
Q189 David Mundell: They may have
contributed to consultation, but they did not make the decisions,
did they? The decisions were made by the Scotland Office and the
then Scottish Executive?
Mr Boda: Our focus has very much
been on the institutional arrangement there is for administering
and implementing elections up in Scotland, and looking at it comparatively
in other contexts, it is extremely complex and the fragmentation
of the decision-making process is highly unusual. As a result,
the buck seemed to stop nowhere and I think that reinforces what
Ron is trying to explain here in that that is the problem with
the system, that it is so fragmented that it is difficult to say
who is responsible for it.
Q190 David Mundell: It is not the
reality that the buck stopped nowhere because no one was prepared
to take responsibility.
Mr Gould: No one was prepared
to take responsibility, only because of the fragmentation and
the way the law is set up and the diversification. You have 32
returning officers, all of whom have equal responsibility for
making what decisions they wish to make, based on what comes out
of other decisions. That is where we see the whole problem; this
fragmentation just makes it impossible for the carrying out of
a concerted, focused election process where someone is accountable
in the last analysis for what happens when the process is brought
together. There are people who made decisions, rightly or wrongly,
throughout the process in different parts of the thing, but when
you bring it together the problem is that there is nowhere that
you can really assign blame and say this was the cause of the
whole thing and the problems in the whole thing, the problems
resulted from the different areas and decisions that were made
across the board by different stakeholders.
Q191 David Mundell: I just want,
finally, to ask about your letter of clarification because from
evidence that we have taken from the Electoral Commission and
others it did not seem to have the desired effect of clarifying
things in the sense that some interpreted the letter as making
no difference, others—we all accept for political purposes—sought
to interpret the letter as exonerating individuals. What was the
purpose of the letter of clarification and, ultimately, why did
you not just say you stood by your report?
Mr Gould: The purpose of the letter
of clarification was my concern, after the report was released,
that the focus of the report was going backwards instead of forwards,
the focus was on who did what to whom back there instead of how
can we avoid all this happening in the future, so the whole purpose
of my letter was to say, look, this whole aspect of suggesting
who was to blame is not the intention of the authors and not the
intention of our report. As I say, I was very concerned that the
value of the report would be lost because of the focus on the
past instead of the future.
Q192 Mr Wallace: I just want to follow
on slightly; I understand, Mr Gould, the point you make, but as
you repeated at the beginning the terms of reference of your review
were all about the past; it was a review of the elections of 2007,
it was a review of the decision-making process, so while I understand
you did not want your recommendations to be swallowed up by a
political dogfight, the purpose of your report was itself to analyse
the past and who was responsible for which decisions, so it is
not any wonder that people focused on that because two-thirds
of your report are about that. My understanding from the Electoral
Commission is that you were appointed not only to look at the
future but also to say what went wrong, why did it go wrong, was
it negligence, was it the system, was it politics. With respect,
given your terms of reference, it is inevitable, is it not, that
that was the case?
Mr Gould: My understanding in
discussions with the Commission was that, yes, it was necessary
to look at the causes and what had happened at the elections and
the contributing factors to that, but I had only accepted that
on the basis of saying that I would accept this as a vehicle for
putting forward suggestions in terms of how the problems that
were identified could be avoided in future. I guess I am not a
judge, I am not conducting a full inquiry, my job was to review,
number one, and, secondly, I was hired as an election administrator,
manager, whatever you call it, and I know the intent of the Commission
was to use that background and experience in terms of resolving
problems for the future, and all they were doing as I understand
was to guide me through the various areas that should be explored
for future resolution.
Q193 Mr Devine: Can I ask you how
you did the report? You talk about the Electoral Commission identified
the problems, you have described that they guided you through
it. When you say "they guided you through it" am I assuming
that that is the Electoral Commission guided you through it; for
example at Livingston we had 1700 spoilt ballot papers, the count
was suspended at 5.30 in the morning, it recommenced at 12.00.
Did you go out to Livingston, did you speak to the returning officer,
did you look at any of their ballot papers that were stacked up
or did you do that anywhere?
Mr Boda: Yes, in terms of first
of all the Electoral Commission offering guidance, they offered
a beginning framework from which we moved forward and established
how we would proceed, but certainly they were not there through
the process. We were meeting with people over the course of two
months, and in fact in the end we found that more people wanted
to meet with us than we had anticipated and we had to extend those
meetings, and so we did meet with returning officers, we did meet
with the stakeholders up in Scotland and spent a good deal of
time listening to the problems.
Q194 Mr Devine: What MPs did you
meet with, for example?
Mr Gould: Mr Mundell for one.
Mr Boda: We came down to London
and had a meeting—
Q195 Mr Devine: I remember that;
that was the meeting.
Mr Boda: That was our meeting,
yes. Anyone who had asked to meet with us in general, until we
got into the pure writing phase, we were certainly willing to
meet with them.
Q196 Mr Wallace: I listened to the
response about the party self-interest but further in your report
you are a little more specific, at page 17 where you refer to
uncoordinated decision-making: "What is characteristic of
2007 was a notable level of party self interest evident in ministerial
decision-making (especially in regard to the timing and method
of counts and the design of ballot papers)." That is quite
a specific allegation to make, that is not everyone is in it,
it is the minister—you do not say whether it is a minister
of the Crown or a Scottish minister but you say "ministerial
decision-making" and I suspect a lot of that seems to be
based on the SOLAR and SOLACE submission, I am not sure if there
was any other evidence. Could you just talk us through what you
meant by that and, secondly, how you got that, did you get it
entirely from SOLAR and SOLACE, the local authority representatives,
or did you then follow up their submissions et cetera and how
did you get to that point?
Mr Gould: I would start off by
indicating that on page 17 the term "party interest"
should have read "all party interest" so it conveyed
exactly what we wished to say, it did not mean one specific party.
Q197 Mr Davidson: Can I just be clear
about that? You are saying then that you are not referring to
a Labour minister having taken decisions in the interests of the
Labour Party. The system does not record nods, but you are agreeing
that that is not what you were suggesting.
Mr Gould: Exactly.
Q198 Mr Davidson: Fine, thank you
very much.
Mr Gould: As I say, the term "party
interest" was a generic term for the parties that were involved
in the process.
Q199 Mr Davidson: It should have
been "the interest of parties".
Mr Gould: Yes, in discussions
with the minister, obviously, as we were referring to earlier.
With respect to the question having to do with how we came to
the conclusion, I will make a general comment and then pass it
to Michael, but our conclusion on this one or our comments on
that came not only from the SOLAR input but from other discussions
with various stakeholders that we had as we went along, who gave
examples or gave us descriptions of situations and, of course,
the delays that were involved in the decision-making process.
Do you want to pick up on that?
Mr Boda: The general views that
are laid out did come from a variety of stakeholders, it was not
just from—
|
