'Forensic review' sought of election count hold-up

A call has been made for a "forensic review" into the time it took for two Scottish constituency results to be declared at this year's general election.

The outcome from Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale and Dumfries and Galloway had been expected by about 04:00.

Instead, the final declaration in Dumfries came at about 10:30 - among the last in the whole of the United Kingdom.

A motion has been tabled to Dumfries and Galloway Council calling for lessons to be learned from what happened in July.

The amount of time taken to deliver results was criticised at the time.

Conservative MP David Mundell, who retained his seat, said it was longest he could recall the count taking and it was "not satisfactory".

The council blamed the size of the region, the number of postal votes handed in on the day and low staff numbers due to holidays.

Now the Labour group on the local authority has called for all the preparations and contingency planning which was in place to be examined.

A motion tabled by Linda Dorward said they realised that a general election - especially one called at short notice - needed a "great deal of work" and the "capacity for stringent oversight".

However, they said there were "specific issues" which deserved closer inspection to avoid any potential repetition.

They want a review to be carried out and report back to the council before the end of the year.

A brief to councillors pointed out that the returning officer always carries out a "full and comprehensive" debrief as part of normal post-election processes.

It said this had already started and they would be happy to share its findings once it was completed.