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Daily Record
Daily Record
National
Nicholas Keyden

Scots Tory leader Jackson Carlaw in General Election twitter spat after 'voting twice' claim

The leader of the Scottish Tories has been caught up in an online General Election spat after being accused of voting twice.

An eagled-eyed social media user spotted Jackson Carlaw's apparently "own up" to his blunder this afternoon.

The pictures - tweeted nearly two weeks apart - show him submitting a postal vote and then appearing at a polling station in East Renfrewshire.

On both occasions he backed Tory candidate Paul Masterton.

On November 30, alongside a picture of Carlaw at a post box he, wrote: "Sending my postal vote for @PM4EastRen and speaking to residents across the constituency.

"Paul has a great local record, is the only candidate who can stop IndyRef2 and deserves to be back on the green benches."

But just before 12.30pm on voting day today, he uploaded another picture outside Clarkston's town hall.

He said: "I’ve just voted at Clarkston Hall for @PM4EastRen.

"I voted to stop IndyRef2 and to get Nicola Sturgeon focused back on your schools and your hospitals, not separation. Use your vote today to tell her again."

Sarah Mackie was quick to point out the “glaring discrepancy” picked up on by nearly a thousand people, among them Nicola Sturgeon and veteran SNP MSP Michael Russell.

While the First Minister simply retweeted "oh dear" with a laughing emoji, the Secretary for Government Business and Constitutional Relations wrote: "Eh ?? Surely not as voting twice would be a criminal offence.

Nicola Sturgeon's response to Jackson Carlaw's 'blunder' (Twitter)

"Whereas tweeting something that isn’t true for electoral effect is just crass and dishonest…"

But Carlaw hit back, claiming he had cast two proxy votes on behalf constituents, both of which were cast for Paul Masterton.

He said: "Even I thought Michael Russell was better than this insinuation.

"I cast two Proxy Votes this morning on behalf of constituents. Will he and Nicola Sturgeon be as quick to publicly apologise?"

East Renfrewshire incumbent Masterton is attempting to fend off Labour’s Carolann Davidson, Lib Dem Andrew McGlynn and the SNP’s Kirsten Oswald.

The constituency is a three-way marginal held by Labour until 2015 before Masterton won in 2017.

It comes as the UK holds its breath to see if Boris Johnson will be returned to Downing Street with his "Get Brexit Done" message ahead of Jeremy Corbyn.

All eyes will be on the . The first actual results won’t be declared until around 11pm.

You can follow all the action throughout the night on our live blog here .

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