We wait with bated breath Mr. Younger for a response

...and when none is forthcoming...your resignation.
I am sure Gillian Swanson's excellent letter is the first of many pulling together the crass incompetence, inadequacy and ineptitude of the Electoral Commission.
John Elliott, Chairman of NESNO has agreed to co-operate fully after the result on 5th November in what should be avery uncomfortable time for Mr. Younger and his fellow Commissioners.
Judicial Review or disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act...whichever avenue is pursued, the net is closing.
Nice to see Dominic Cummings of New Frontiers descending on the North East every week-end to desperately hold NESNO's campaign together.

Address witheld
WHITLEY BAY,
Tyne & Wear,

22 October, 2004

Mr Sam Younger,
Chairman,
The Electoral Commission,
Trevelyan House,
Great Peter Street,
LONDON,
SWIP 2HW

Dear Mr Younger,
Conduct of the Electoral Commission in Relation to Referendum on Regional Assembly
Thank you for the reply dated 18 October to my letter of 29 September. I see that this has been written on your behalf by your Public Information Officer, Lisa Howse, and reproduces word-for-word most of the text of a previous letter, dated 28 September, written to me on your behalf by Doug Stewart of the Referendum Team.
Once more you have consumed several pages of good-quality, expensive writing paper while managing to avoid the specific issues I raised.
I did not ask what guidelines you were required to follow in making your decision, or for laboured interpretations of the perfectly clear English in which they were framed. I asked you to make the evidence upon which you based your decision public.
To be precise, I want to know what it was about NESNO’s application that convinced you that they, and not the well-established campaign led by Neil Herron, more adequately represented the outcome which those against an assembly sought. I know your job was to assess the extent to which it appeared that each applicant represented the full range of No arguments. What I want you to tell me are your reasons for concluding that a campaign which was hastily put together two months before you made your decision fulfilled that requirement better than one which had been representing grass-roots feeling in this part of the country for some two years.
I am sure that very good evidence led you to support NESNO’s appointment. The problem is that nobody bar yourselves has seen that evidence. Please tell us ordinary voters in the north-east of England exactly what, for you, tipped the scales in NESNO’s favour. You must understand that unless you and your fellow commissioners are completely frank with us, nasty suspicions of government manipulation or, at the very least, a snobbish contempt for ordinary, non-establishment people, must linger on.
Please do not ask one of your underlings to reply to this letter. As you yourself said, in a letter to the Sunday Telegraph, the Commission, and the Commission alone, was responsible for making the decision, and only the five of you are privy to the evidence on which it was based. Nobody else can be of assistance - neither Mr Stewart, nor Ms Howse, nor any other member of your staff. To convince us that there was no outside interference involved in your decision, therefore, you and your fellow commissioners must share your rationale with us. If it is as persuasive as you yourselves seem to believe, why hesitate? Put the evidence up on your website, or in our regional newspapers, so that we too may be persuaded by it.
No doubt you remember how your maths teacher at school was never satisfied if you just wrote down the answer to a problem. You were expected to show, step by step, how you arrived at that result. Likewise, it simply isn’t good enough to say "In the view of Commissioners, North East Says No Ltd represented to the greatest extent those campaigning for a ‘no’ outcome". We want to know the steps by which you reached this conclusion. Otherwise, we may suspect that you cheated, somewhere along the line.It seems to many of us in the north-east of England that we are being exceptionally ill-served by you and your fellow commissioners.
You have palmed us off with a postal ballot deemed unfit for use in any other part of the country. Even if no fraud took place up here at the time of the European elections, isn’t it likely that even we thick Geordies may have learned a thing or two about how to manipulate a postal vote from well-publicised incidents in Yorkshire and Lancashire? Perhaps the only reason that you failed to detect similar occurrences in the north-east was that we are not actually quite as thick as you think we are, and managed to cover our traces more successfully …
At any rate, your decision to impose upon us, and us alone, a system open to all kinds of abuse is indefensible. You have let us down badly and, whatever the outcome of this referendum, it will be difficult for anyone to believe that there has been no hanky-panky. Already Neil Herron has received no fewer that four voting packs at the house of which he is the sole occupant. A good thing that he, at least, is honest!
It is ridiculous to tell the public that they are responsible for handing in supernumerary voting packs. Most people, no doubt, will do the right thing; but the opportunities for fraud are abundant, and there is no way of knowing how many have succumbed to temptation.
Another failure on your part is your complete refusal to stop government ministers and other public figures prancing around our towns in their official capacity, touting for an assembly, in what were meant to be 28 days of purdah. The rules have been blatantly flouted, most notably by Peter Hain, John Prescott, Gordon Brown, and Rhodri Morgan. Did these people really pay all their expenses out of their own pockets, as private individuals, when they travelled north to influence the vote? Have they cost the public purse nothing in terms of security and police protection during these "unofficial" visits? The media, at any rate, make no bones about referring to their public roles. Where were you, when this abuse was taking place? Why didn’t you intervene?
It’s no excuse to say that the government will have taken legal advice, and must be in the right. Your job is not to kow-tow to the powerful, but to ensure fair play for those the powerful might just possibly wish to exploit. This you have miserably and consistently refused to do.
The drive for regional government is a non-issue pushed to the top of the agenda by professional politicians in the face of widespread public indifference. We should at least be guaranteed fair play in this referendum imposed upon us from above.
Why weren’t you there, fighting on our behalf, insisting on a private ballot, and sending arrogant politicians who disregard the rules back to Westminster with their tails between their legs? Why did you play into John Prescott’s hands and encourage a vote along party-political lines by awarding funding to the campaign that had official Conservative backing? Why didn’t you seek a fair outcome to the referendum by demanding that there should be a two-thirds majority of the total electorate in favour of an assembly before any drastic constitutional changes were made?
You have let us down again, and again, and again.
Please do not send me a third copy of your guidelines. I have no difficulty with them, only with the way in which you choose to apply them.
I look forward to receiving answers to all the points raised in this letter (in particular, why you recommended a postal ballot for the north-east alone, and why you did not stop government ministers’ blatant abuse of the purdah period), and to your frank and open presentation of the evidence on which you based your decision to fund NESNO as the official No Campaign.

Yours sincerely,

Gillian Swanson
Cc Members of the Electoral Commission, North-east media, warmwell.com, etc.

The Electoral Commission's response to the first letter is below...

Answer 2 from Electoral Commission, received 22 October, 2004
Dear Ms Swanson,
Thank you for your letter of the 29th September 2004 regarding the designation of permitted participants at the regional and local government referendum to be held on 4 November 2004. The Chairman has asked me to respond on his behalf.
Part VII of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) regulates the activities of individuals and organisations that campaign during referendums including those held under the Regional assemblies (Preparations) Act 2003. Under PPERA, the Commission may designate one permitted participant per outcome as the lead campaign organisation in a referendum.
Section 109 of PPERA requires the Commission to decide whether an applicant adequately represents those campaigning for an outcome to the regional referendum. PPERA states that an application must:
‘show that the applicant adequately represents those campaigning for the outcome at the referendum in relation to which the applicant seeks to be designated’. (PPERA s. 109(2)(a))
If only one organisation applies for designation on one side (and the Commission is able to designate on the other side), the Commission must designate that organisation unless:
‘they are not satisfied that the applicant adequately represents those campaigning for that outcome ...’ (PPERA s. 109 (4)(a)).
If more than one organisation applies on one side, and the Commission is not prevented from making any designation (as above), the Commission must appoint whichever applicant:
‘appears to them to represent to the greatest extent those campaigning for that outcome, unless they are not satisfied that any of the applicants adequately represents those campaigning for that outcome.’ (PPERA s. 109 (5)(a))
The Commission has produced explanatory guidelines which are available from the Commission’s website. However, I have summarised the approach outlined in the guidelines below.
"Those campaigning"
The Commission takes "those campaigning" for an outcome to include not only permitted participants, but also other organisations, and significant groups within such organisations. The Commission will take into account the extent to which these organisations themselves represent others.
"Represent"
As a general guide, the Commission takes "represent" to mean:
that a range of those campaigning for an outcome support the application (being either closely associated with the application organisationally, or not so associated, but nevertheless expressing support);
that the applicant’s intended campaign messages embrace a range of reasons for supporting the outcome; and
that the applicant has in place organisational structure and planning to allow it and those it represents effectively to deliver its campaign messages to the voters.
"Adequately"
The Commission must decide whether it appears that an application adequately represents those campaigning for the outcome the applicant supports. For this purpose, the Commission will need to assess the extent to which it appears that an applicant represents those campaigning for that outcome. As part of the assessment, the Commission will take into account the range of those campaigning who support the application and the range of reasons for seeking the outcome that is embraced by the applicant’s intended campaign messages.
"To the greatest extent"
If it appears to the commission that more than one applicant adequately represents those campaigning for the outcome it seeks, the Commission will designate (assuming it is also able to designate an organisation on the other side) the organisation that appears to the Commission to represent to the greatest extent those campaigning for that outcome. For this purpose too, the Commission will further consider the range of an applicant’s supporters, and the range of reasons for supporting the outcome that is embraced by the applicant’s campaign messages.
In the view of Commissioners, North East Says No Ltd represented to the greatest extent those campaigning for a ‘no’ outcome. This decision was made solely by Commissioners on 13 September on the basis of the process described in the designation explanatory notes. There was no involvement by Government or any body associated with government in their decision.
Yours sincerely,


Lisa Howse
Public Information Officer