The questions that demand answers

The 2007 Scottish elections were memorable for many things. Unfortunately, one of these things is the fiasco of the rejected votes. Many thousands of voters found yesterday that they had been disenfranchised in the Scottish parliamentary elections because they had failed to get to grips with the complexity of a new ballot process. It was not straightforward, compared with the traditional method of voting under a universal first-past-the-post model. If we want elections to be fairer, by making as many votes as possible count, and if we are committed to boosting participation in an age of apathy, we have to find new ways of organising ballots. Democracy suffers unless these two goals are advanced.