I am in Clackmannanshire which is a good indicator – neither East nor West, right on the Highland line, both urban and rural, substantial wealth but also a significant central belt working class population. The politics have tended to mirror national fortunes.
In Tullibody, which was once solid Labour, we progressed to applause and shouts from people coming in to their gardens. I have never seen anything like the turnout. I have spoken personally to at least twenty middle aged or old people who have voted, who never voted before.
The perception is strongly that we are ahead. Nobody knows what is in those 800,000 postal ballots, but the voters on the day are openly and exuberantly broadcasting their allegiance. Weirdly enough, several people including myself have commented that the mid evening voters were the first group who had given a feeling of predominantly No = but 70 to 80 per cent of voters had already cast their ballots before then. Only a feeling, but it is feeling very, very good.
I shall be at the Clackmannanshire count invigilating. Should be one of the earlier declarations.
i wonder what the accountability checks and balances are.. hope they can’t rig it..
the bbc is already starting to feed the line that no is winning.. preparing for an inevitable outcome, maybe? softening the blow for the final twist? bush 04 all over again, or worse? hopefully not.. but you wouldnt put it past them..
AA; If optimism and smiles are any indication of the outcome, it’s YES, until the hammer drops. I sincerely hope it’s YES in spite of the aftermath.
Ben; Are you Ben from Moon of Alabama?
Ben, I was starting to lose hope. But now I think about it Foinavon (I think it was) won the Grand National at 100-1. So you are right. They don’t know.
John Goss
There has apparently been exit polling – just not commissioned for publication. Reports on twitter confirm that some people have encountered exit polling from mainstream organisations. Supposedly there is an exit poll on behalf of major bookies (or at least one they have access to) and I’d be surprised if they didn’t actually conduct one given the amount of money at stake.
But who knows. All rumour until the real results come in.
Squonk, Cheers Mate..working Fine..Thanks
CIA learned their lesson from the last election they rigged, the 2004 presidential. Ohio exit polls proved election theft. That’s why there are no exit polls now. It makes it much harder to show fraud. You’ve got to hope it’s too lopsided to steal.
Craig : Last time I did a spot of invigilating (at the last general election), I was struck by the large number of spoiled ballots. “F- the system”, anarchist symbols, and so on. It would be interesting to know how many you spot.
I tallied results from various counters, showed and compared the results with various others (including the BNP, much to the annoyance of other parties, because “we” weren’t supposed to talk to them), and the result was almost exactly in proportion to the overall result.
Again, the postal votes were mixed in with the ballot box votes, but I’d be surprised if they could have been mixed in so thoroughly, that a substantial swing from these postal votes would not have made a significant difference between the various counters. (i.e., one or other counter would have ended up with a disproportionate number of postal votes.)
So if the invigilators are doing a proper job, they should notice if there’s anything odd going on, if postal votes have been rigged.
*
Thank god we don’t have these filthy touch-screen voting machines, electronic counting and other easily manipulated devices.
By the way – a lady on the radio was explaining how to vote, and stated that people shouldn’t sign their ballot – that would count as “spoiled” – because it could then be traced back to the voter, which was not allowed. So how come every ballot paper has a number on it, enabling cross-referencing with the voter, making the notion of a secret ballots null and void?
I lived in Tullibody for a year. It struck me as being a complete political mixture then: plenty of Unionists as well as Old Labour (sandbagged by Thatcher, then betrayed by Blair so maybe some potential there). Had its own Orange lodge which used to go walkabout past the Catholic church. I’d beware of overoptimism there; a lot of Right to Buy purchases of former council housing. Alloa itself might be different.
Redwood on R4 tonight, and taking his meds like a good sociopath, explaining that anything given to a No-voting Scotland as a bribe would also have to be given to England as compensation. Well, he didn’t say it exactly like that, but the intention is clear. Status quo ante plus jam tomorrow for all.
English parliament equivalent to Scottish parliament: members from both, or maybe UK parliament separately elected, to deal with undevolved items like having Middle East wars. NO federalism because the Northeast rejected Prescott’s half-arsed attempt to impose it and for no other reason.
Commentators are currently raving about how even a no vote will change the face of British/European/world politics. I have subscribed to this myself. But on reflection, it ain’t gonna happen. Meet the new boss. Is the old boss.
Please, god. be Yes.
He is Brilliant. I can see it Now in His Eyes..and What a Brilliant Live Interview..seriously you Guys are Far Better Than The BBC
This Guy Understands Completely..Shit its almost like Being There…
Quoth Tar & Feather The Bastards: “I DO NOT like the sound of 800,000 postal ballots . . . . .They could be massaged into 750,000 “NO” votes…”
Well, it’s the same process as used in the Parliamentary elections, so I would suggest there isn’t really anything to worry about. Watching the television coverage, there are representatives from both sides watching every stage carefully. Note that all postal votes are checked by Returning Officers before they are added to the rest.
Turn-outs are stratospheric – people are very engaged in this…
” Last time I did a spot of invigilating (at the last general election), I was struck by the large number of spoiled ballots. “F- the system”, anarchist symbols, and so on. It would be interesting to know how many you spot.”
Good observation Glenn. ‘Hanging chads’ comes to mind, then it gets real interesting. Election monitors are regulated by precise rules and hierarchy. Any untoward clues should be followed with the same precision.
I do hope Yes can edge it. From my seat here in the Midlands, I’ve absolutely no idea if the MSM suggesting a late surge for No is right-wing wishful thinking, state propaganda or the result of genuine polling.
Still, with it being this close – I assume that analysis is actually right – about half of Scotland is going to be desperately disappointed. Still, there are some things to be cheerful about – even if No is declared, the London triumvirate have some promises to keep. Even if them pesky Tory backbenchers aren’t much keen on giving Scots reasons to stay in the union!
(And hello to Craig and all here, good to see you).
The live stream is excellent, getting the feel of the city and the mood of the crowd. MSM just talking the same old bollocks,
As for election fraud, at least this electiion is being run by the Scottish and not the British and their seems to be keen observation by both parties of the count.
“And hello to Craig and all here, good to see you”
Good to see you as well, Jon. There will be a second chance if Westminster doesn’t watch their ‘p’s and ‘q’s.
Tweet from RIC saying Dundee voted 71% Yes on first count.
Juteman,
Dundee was/is bookies favourite for highest percentage of YES votes.
North Lanarkshire looking as if it will be Yes, according to ‘a source’.
Juteman,
On further checking I can find no indication Dundee is anywhere near to the end of the first count – could be wrong though. No idea what that 71% is based on but it doesn’t appear to be a real count of all ballots unless they have a time machine.
Habbabkuk,
Your even-handedness fails you: you are comparing a broadly grass-roots Yes campaign comprised mainly of volunteers against an orchestrated state/media campaign comprised of mainly paid individuals representing existing powerful interests *.
With that in mind, the idea that the Yes campaign has the same ability to rig the ballot-boxes as the No side is ludicrous, hopefully for obvious reasons. We would probably be in agreement that there are unscrupulous individuals on both sides who would do it, but that’s not at all the same thing.
To be fair, if Yes edges it by a couple of percentage points, I can’t help but feel it would be better to win more convincingly. Still, what will be will be.
* Not all the right-wing media though, I admit; interesting that Murdoch came out in favour of a Yes. Canny, I suppose – it’ll shore up a stronger Tory showing in the remainder of the UK and make future BSB deals more likely to go through on the nod. I wonder if anyone in Scotland mistook him for a support of democratic self-determination?
A message from the Future:
We’re eight hours ahead in Japan so just to let you know, it is NO. Time for Scotland to celebrate! Congratulations!
Glenn, Thanks for giving me confidence in the vote – from your own experience..I thought there is no way they can fake this..they might try..but the vote will be honest. Integrity is all important or we have nothing. When both my kids were old enough to vote..I voted..and I spent 2 hours trying to convince them of every argument I could think of to go and vote..I even scraped the barrel..just go back to your old school ..(where they were infants 5-11 (5 mins walk up the road)) and observe the process..
They defeated every argument I could come up with (together – We’ve got a boy and girl)
Dad – please don’t vote for any of these horrible people – they are not worth your vote.
I think The Scottish have just Reclaimed Democracy For The Entire World.
Well Done Lads (and you Girls – I was going to call you Lassies- is that OK?)
Gissa Kiss
Tony
rspo 19 Sep, 2014 – 12:03 am
“Quoth Tar & Feather The Bastards: “I DO NOT like the sound of 800,000 postal ballots . . . . .They could be massaged into 750,000 “NO” votes…”
Well, it’s the same process as used in the Parliamentary elections, so I would suggest there isn’t really anything to worry about. Watching the television coverage, there are representatives from both sides watching every stage carefully. Note that all postal votes are checked by Returning Officers before they are added to the rest.”
link ^
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/apr/05/politics.localgovernment
from the following:
Irish Central: Live news feed: The latest on the Scottish independence referendum
American readers may be wondering what the exit polls are indicating. The answer is, there were no exit polls, making independence referendum result still anyone’s best guess. Why weren’t any exit polls taken? The Guardian’s James Ball explains that it was either a case of no one believing the vote would actually be close enough to warrant the cost of an exit poll, or, more likely, that UK broadcasters feared the consequences of calling a vote this close and contentious…
Rutherford said “Everyone here realizes just how big this is, and how much will change,” our reporter said.
“This is much closer – the polls have significantly narrowed. It’s amazing, in Edinburgh for example, you hear the Yes crowd everywhere, but not the No.
“The No camp is very much a significant silent majority.”…
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/Live-news-feed-The-latest-on-the-Scottish-independence-referendum.html
Parky,
‘As for election fraud, at least this electiion is being run by the Scottish and not the British and their seems to be keen observation by both parties of the count.’
The counting isn’t the problem. It’s the postal votes which could quite easily have been tampered with.
Glenn: By the way – a lady on the radio was explaining how to vote, and stated that people shouldn’t sign their ballot – that would count as “spoiled” – because it could then be traced back to the voter, which was not allowed. So how come every ballot paper has a number on it, enabling cross-referencing with the voter, making the notion of a secret ballots null and void?
Is this seriously true? That there are numbered ballots in the referendum? I would also think this is problematic for a secret ballot. I can understand why it is that we may want to make sure that ballot-stuffing does not happen, but this is not a good way of doing it.
Once again what proportion of the 90% turnout of the 793k postal votes are NO votes? To avoid allegations of postal vote fraud, of stuffing rigged postal NO votes into the count. Its unprecedented the postal vote registration and turnout – even influencing the combined turnout as the 793k postal vote registration out of 4.27m registered voters amounts to an unbelievable 18.5% of total voter registration – and in itself may be responsible for the unprecedented 93.7& overall voter registration. If the percentages are adjusted for the historical low uptake percentage levels in populous Glasgow, they must have rigged 100% postal voter registrations elsewhere to end up with the preposterous 93.7% overall voter registration!?
Angrysoba writes:
“Is this seriously true? That there are numbered ballots in the referendum?”
Sure. There are numbered ballots in every UK election. In fact, there are reports (from at least the 1940s and 1970s) of Special Branch taking away the votes of just the left-wing political parties in order to correlate the votes with the identities of the voters for surveillance purposes.
SKY and BBC reporting voter fraud in Glasgow.