POLICE are continuing to examine allegations that pro-Union agents broke electoral law by looking at postal ballot results to see how well the No campaign was doing before the main Scottish independence poll had taken place.
The complaints passed to the force by the independent elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission, arose from comments made by Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader and a prominent support of the Better Together campaign.
She said 45 minutes after the ballots closed that they had been "incredibly encouraged" by the results of a "sample opening" of the postal ballot which she said had taken place around the country over the few weeks prior to the poll closing.
She said agents were able to "take tallies" of postal ballots "and the reports have been very positive for us".
Police Scotland said last night the complaints were still being "assessed".
Meanwhile in the wake of the row, Ms Davidson tweeted support for a pro-independence blog that she said "blows the conspiracy theories out of the water" by stating, "we certainly didn't lose because of shenanigans at the counts".
Complaints sent to police and the Electoral Commission surrounded agents being able to see the ballot papers and communicate how the vote was going in advance during opening sessions across Scotland.
Guidance on postal votes states it is an offence for anyone attending the opening of postal votes "to attempt to ascertain how any vote has been cast or to communicate any such information obtained".
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article