Council faces questions over delays in declaring election results

Highland Council has been asked to explain why it took 16 hours from the start of counting before it was able to declare the final results of the Scottish election.

The local authority was expected to declare its three constituency results by late afternoon on Friday, and the regional list vote by early evening.

Instead, the first constituency result came through at 18:50 and it was 01:20 on Saturday morning when the region's final tally of MSPs was announced.

Highland councillor Isabelle Mackenzie described the situation as "shocking" and has called for a review of the handling of Highland and Islands counts.

Derek Brown, constituency and regional returning officer for the Highlands and Islands, said Highland Council had worked "extremely hard" over the last 12 months to ensure its count processes were "robust".

The Electoral Commission said its initial assessment of the count was that it was transparent and produced accurate results.

Mackenzie, a Scottish Conservative councillor for Inverness and Millburn, said it was the second time in two years a Highland count had taken longer than scheduled.

In the July 2024 general election, Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire was the last seat in the UK to declare its result after votes were counted three times.

The delay was blamed on a discrepancy between the verified votes total and the provisional number of counted votes.

Mackenzie said action had to be taken before local authority elections take place in a year's time.

"There has to be a review going forward, we can't let this happen a third time," she told BBC Scotland News.

Mackenzie added: "To be honest it's shocking that other authorities across Scotland, and rest of the UK, were able to come in with their results in a timely fashion.

"It's just not a good look for the Highlands."

She said she felt sorry for the counting staff, and said there were times they had to "sit around' and then other times when they were "under pressure" to count votes.

The councillor said more staff might be needed in future.

Mackenzie discounted the geography of the region as a factor because she understands that all the ballots had arrived on time for verification and counting.

Rhoda Grant, a former Scottish Labour regional MSP who was at the count to support candidates, said it had been an "exhausting" situation for all involved.

She told BBC Naidheachdan: "It was incredibly slow.

"It must have been a really long day for staff working at the count."

She said at one point staff were sent home before having to come back in. She also said there appeared to have been a delay caused by a "printer error".

Grant said she appreciated Highland Council had to be very careful in counting votes, but believed there were periods when regional votes could have been counted sooner.

Highland Council said more than a thousand staff were involved in delivering the election, more than 260 of them in the count itself.

Derek Brown, constituency and regional returning officer for the Highlands and Islands, said: "The Highland Council has worked extremely hard over the past 12 months to ensure our electoral count processes are robust.

"This was especially important as we were implementing a new count process, known as the mini-count model, which is widely used by local authorities across Scotland."

Brown said the priority was to "protect the integrity of the count" through clear, accurate, and transparent processes.

He said procedures were continually reviewed.

The Electoral Commission said: "From our observation of the count and engagement with administrators, our initial assessment is that it was conducted transparently, produced an accurate result, and that the relevant processes were followed.

A spokesperson said the commission would publish a report, and any recommendations, on the Scottish elections in the autumn.

Counts for the Scottish election were held from 09:00 on Friday, rather than overnight after polls closed as has been done in the past.

In the Highlands, votes were counted at a sports centre in Inverness.

The result for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross was known at about 18:50 and Inverness and Nairn just after 20:00.

Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch was declared about 30 minutes later.

Counting then started on the Highland and Islands regional list votes, with ballots submitted electronically from Shetland, Orkney, Western Isles and Argyll and Bute.