Guardian News and Media/Edinburgh
By mid-afternoon Monday the number of names on change.org had topped 87,000. “We the undersigned demand a re-vote of the Scottish referendum, counted by impartial international parties,” reads the petition, which goes on to cite “countless evidences of fraud” documented during last Thursday’s poll on independence.
At 38degrees.org.uk, a second petition had more than 62,000 signatories. “Investigate the vote counting procedures,” it demands. “Allow an independent recount of all votes.”|
“I have (seen) videos that look like cheating and also (too) many Yes voters for the result to be No,” wrote one signatory, Zoe M.
The First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, may have called on his supporters to “accept the democratic verdict of the people of Scotland” on Friday, but for significant numbers of people, accepting that the poll was fair and its result a rejection of independence has proved impossible.
On Twitter and YouTube, in blog posts and Facebook groups, sceptics have been amassing what they believe is evidence the referendum was rigged. Many refer to a snippet of video in which a counting officer at the Dundee polling station appears to lift votes from a Yes pile and place them under No.
Another widely circulated photograph from the Clackmannanshire count appears to show a Yes vote, bundled with others, sitting in the No pile.
Others refer to footage they claim shows a counting officer in Edinburgh writing on a ballot paper. For many, the fire alarms that caused the brief evacuation of the Dundee count, and the fact that a Russian observer had claimed the ballot was fixed , were taken as further causes for suspicion.
Jim Sillars, the former deputy leader of the Scottish National party (SNP), used Twitter to distribute a video titled “Exposed!” and call for an inquiry. There was a faintly exasperated air at the office of the chief counting officer in Edinburgh.
All of the apparently suspicious evidence could be easily explained, said a spokeswoman, pointing out that the Yes campaign itself had intervened on Twitter to reassure voters that there was nothing awry with the Dundee footage. At times, uncounted ballots would be placed on tables that had Yes or No signs attached before being sorted, she said.
And piles that didn’t reach round numbers would be wrapped in a piece of paper on which the total number of votes would be written, explaining the Edinburgh footage. In a statement, the chief counting officer, Mary Pitcaithly, said she was “satisfied that all counts throughout Scotland were properly conducted and scrutinised by thousands of people representing both the Yes Scotland and the Better Together campaigns, as well as international election observers, media and police. None of these people raised any concerns during the verification, counting and adjudication stages.”
