Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Conservative election fraud confirmed

Post Thumbnail

Universities are places of learning, where students expand their academic knowledge while also making life mistakes.

The Conservative Party will be hoping their student committee at St Andrews University is getting it all out of their system now, after it was found guilty of electoral fraud.

It follows reports in June of large-scale wrongdoing in the UK party. The Electoral Commission has launched an investigation into those claims.

In Fife, the university’s students association upheld allegations made against the St Andrews Conservative and Unionist Society committee.

It had been claimed that people who had not paid membership fees, and were therefore ineligible to vote, had cast ballots after being invited by the young Tories to do so.

Pia Szabo, the students association’s societies officer, told The Saint student newspaper: “There were some accusations of election fraud and it ended up being true. So, in short, people were… stacking candidates, having people vote for candidates – and those people hadn’t been members [of the society].”

He added: “There was evidence of people being invited to the [AGM] who were not paid members and weren’t even being charged membership fees so obviously that was not OK.”

Ms Szabo also confirmed that the society had been told to re-hold the AGM, this time under closer scrutiny from the students’ association.

Earlier this year, a member of the Conservative Society committee told The Saint that the committee had been “cleared of all wrong doing.”

Ms Szabo said this claim was “not correct.”

The executive committee of the Conservative Society said: “The correspondence from The Saint was the first the society had heard of the existence of any such investigation or its conclusions.

“The association has not been contacted by the union regarding this matter since May.

“We were greatly surprised that the students’ association had seen fit to inform a student newspaper of its decision without making any contact with the society in question.

“We have since contacted union who have subsequently confirmed that they had come to this decision and they have also apologised for this miscommunication.

“While we feel it is unjustified, we respect their right to request that an affiliated society hold a new AGM.

“We shall set a date for the new AGM in due course and will work closely with the students’ association to ensure that the process is transparent.”

The Scottish Conservatives declined to comment.