FRESH allegations of prominent pro-Union supporters appearing to have knowledge of postal vote trends before the independence referendum ballots closed have been received by police investigating possible breaches of electoral secrecy laws.
Police began an investigation last Friday on the instruction of the Crown Office into claims that pro-Union campaigners acted illegally by seeing and counting postal votes ahead of polling day.
It was sparked by complaints made about comments by Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, on a televised discussion that postal vote "tallies" had been taken in the weeks before the ballot closed at 10pm on September 18.
The allegations of illegal postal vote "tallies" raised concerns the information may have helped inform the No campaign's decision to issue the "vow" of more powers for Scotland from the three main party leaders.
Now police have confirmed they have received another complaint relating to separate comments made on television by John McTernan, a former Labour Party adviser on Scotland who supported Better Together.
In the interview four days before the polls closed, Mr McTernan, a political columnist and former communications director for ex-Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, said: "It's important to remember that probably about a fifth of the electorate, and that will be about a quarter of the total turnout, voted already. They have voted by postal vote. Those postal votes are running very strongly towards No. So there's a whole bank of votes in."
Mr McTernan, who was also director of political operations when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, told The Herald his conclusions about postal votes were just "a prediction" coming from "my capacious brain and ability to analyse trends that are clearly there in the electorate".
Writing on Twitter, Mr McTernan added: "A polite warning to the cybernuts who think I stole an election. A question about postal votes gets you blocked. For being boring. And mad."
Asked by The Herald how he reached his conclusions about postal votes, he said: "I'm a political commentator. I am able to make comment about what I understand is going to happen, because I can analyse voting patterns.
"I genuinely do not understand what the issue is about this. It was not a huge leap of science to say the people who voted by post were going to vote No.
"My prediction could have been wrong. It turned out it was right because I am good at my job.
"I am perfectly capable of making an intelligent informed assessment of what is going to happen in an election, and perfectly free to say it on television because there is free speech in the UK. That's it.
"There is no story in SNP cybernat trolls trying to bully and defame individuals on Twitter. I am a big guy, I understand these guys don't like me. They can do what they like. I am free to make comments as a journalist and commentator and I made them."
Scottish minister Humza Yousaf also made reference to indications from "postal ballot sampling", saying they were "positive for Yes" in an interview during referendum coverage two-and-a-half hours after the ballots closed.
"The intelligence we're getting is that in those die-hard, traditional Labour areas the Yes campaign is starting to break through quite strongly," he said. "That's initial postal ballot sampling, all the caveats thrown in, etc., etc.."
The SNP said Mr Yousaf was referring to sampling of postal votes after the ballot had closed.
According to Elections Scotland guidance, referendum and postal ballot agents present at the opening of postal votes "must observe the requirement of secrecy".
Failure to observe the rules is a criminal offence, and is punishable by up to a year in prison and/or a fine of up to £5,000.
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