One of the big stories from last night's elections is the massive number of rejected ballot papers. It seems that as many as 100,000 people in Scotland who tried to vote might have lost their chance. In a small country with a population of 5 million - and a 50% turnout - that's disgraceful.

So how did it happen? How hard can it be to put a cross in a box?

For those not in Scotland, here's a summary of the process we went through yesterday:

We had three votes to cast at the same time, on two ballot papers. One ballot paper was for the Scottish Parliament. On the left hand side we had to put a single cross to choose a party from a long list, the results of this vote being decided by "top up" proportional representation (PR). On the right hand side of this paper we had to put a single cross to choose a party candidate from a much shorter list, the results of this ballot being chosen by first-past-the-post. The other ballot paper was for the local council elections. We had to place numbers against a long list of party candidates (most parties having two candidates) with the results decided by single transferrable vote (STV). Oh, and then we had to put each ballot paper a different ballot box.

No wonder people were confused. I'm a political geek and I was confused!

Does it matter? Well, in some constituencies the number of rejected ballot papers was greater than the winner's majority.

The decision to run simultaneously two elections with three different voting systems probably made life easier for politicians and officials and probably saved money. But it made a laughing stock of Scottish democracy.

democracy Scotland Scottish elections UK politics ukpolitics