Campaigners and officials involved in future referendums – on Europe or more powers for Wales, for example – should be given more time for the campaigns, the Electoral Commission has said.
The elections watchdog said it believed that any legislation, including new rules to extend the franchise to under-18s or other groups, should be in place at least nine months before polling day – three months earlier than currently required – and that referendums on EU membership, a new voting system or extra devolution should be held on their own rather than timed to coincide with other elections, to allow campaigners and voters to concentrate fully on the issues at stake.
A detailed report on the Scottish independence referendum said the vote on 18 September had been a resounding success, with high levels of satisfaction among voters and no evidence of mistakes on polling day.
The poll had the highest voter participation rates in Scotland since full universal suffrage was introduced, at just under 85%, with 10% of voters saying they had voted for the first time and nearly 110,000 new voters aged 16 and 17 registering to take part.
But the commission’s opinion poll after voting day found that 34% of voters suspected there had been some fraud in the referendum – more than in any other previous election. Most of those voters cited reports in the media or the lack of a need for ID at polling stations, with yes voters – who were on the losing side – far more likely than no voters to have such concerns.
The commission said it was still investigating the scale of any misconduct, and Police Scotland were investigating only a small number of allegations, including 10 counts of impersonation of other voters.
It said police were still investigating allegations that some campaigners broke election rules by counting postal votes during monitoring sessions and then breaching the secrecy rules by disclosing those results afterwards. However, it said no one who had taken part in those postal-vote opening sessions had made complaints of misconduct, implying that none of the official campaigns were aggrieved.
The commission chided Scottish ministers for giving councils only a short amount of time to prepare to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, but said the decision to legislate for the overall referendum process nine months in advance of polling day had clearly made it easier to manage the complicated event.
In contrast, a UK-wide referendum in May 2011 on a new proportional voting system for Westminster elections and a Welsh referendum on the same day had been too rushed, with the rules confirmed for those polls only three months in advance.
Those referendums were held on the same day as council and devolved elections, making it harder for campaigners and voters to focus on the issues at stake.
The commission recommended that legislation for future referendums should be placed six months before the beginning of the three-month regulated period, the time where spending limits are tightly controlled.
