Miscount casts doubt on Equity election procedure

Published Thursday 9 October 2008 at 11:35 by Alistair Smith

Equity’s presidential election - in which incumbent Harry Landis was defeated by Graham Hamilton by a margin of 11 votes - has been thrown into doubt after it was revealed that 13 ineligible ballot papers were mistakenly counted.

While the scale of the miscount was not enough to alter the outcome of the contest - Hamilton received six non-eligible votes, Landis four and the third candidate Nicholas Smith, three - it is feared that the mistake could leave the union open to a legal challenge. The organisation is taking urgent steps to overhaul its electoral process - if a successful challenge were made to the results and the union was forced to re-run the election, it could cost up to £35,000.

Under Equity’s current procedure, all members are sent voting papers. But only those members who are still in benefit - that is, have paid their subscription - are eligible to have their votes counted. After ballot papers are submitted, votes made by people who are not in benefit are eliminated.

It has emerged, however, that as part of both the council and presidential elections this year, this process did not occur. Equity staff discovered the potential error last month and called in Electoral Reform - the independent body which oversees the election process - to recount the votes.

General secretary Christine Payne told The Stage: “As soon as I was made aware of the problem, I made sure that we arranged for our independent IT consultant to provide the appropriate data to Electoral Reform - our independent scrutineers - for them to recount the ballot. Electoral Reform has confirmed that there is absolutely no reason why Equity should not accept their report on the election and that any error in its administration are ‘de minimis’ [level of risk too small to be concerned with].

“We are considering a change in our rules that would bring our balloting procedures into line with the practice in other unions, so that such a circumstance can never happen again. The cost of re-running the ballot was never a factor in any of the decisions made.”

The adjusted results have been put to the union’s ruling council, which voted in favour of accepting them. It decided that while the union had been “potentially” in breach of its rule book, the recount showed that the names returned for both the president and the general council remained the same and in the same order, so the result could be accepted as valid.

It is understood that not all members of the council are happy with this position. One source told The Stage: “If there has been some mistake then it should be done [investigated] by a neutral source - I don’t think Equity should be looking into its own mistakes.”

It is now possible that the decision of the council could be referred to the Certification Officer for Trade Unions and Employers’ Associations, if any of the parties involved decide to challenge the result.

When contacted by The Stage, Landis said: “While I investigate my options, I’ve got nothing to say.”

In the meantime, council has decided to refer the union’s voting procedure to its forthcoming rule change conference. Currently, due to the necessity of discovering which voters are not in benefit, the ballot is not 100% secret - Equity cannot identify voters, but Electoral Reform can - and the union has been warned this could leave it open to legal challenges.