THE city's returning officer today warned that holding council and Holyrood elections at different times may lead to mid-term "protest votes" against the Government.
Edinburgh's most senior council official, Tom Aitchison, said moves to "de-couple" the two elections could divert the focus away from local issues, and result in voters sending a message to the ruling party at the Scottish Parliament.
The Scottish
Government is considering the change in the wake of confusion over ballot papers last May, where voters were faced with two different systems for council and Holyrood elections.
The proposed changes mean Scottish voters face an election every year from 2009 onwards as European, Westminster, Holyrood and council-chamber votes are held at different times.
Mr Aitchison said he recognised that de-coupling has a "significant level of support", but called for "further discussion" before the Government reached a conclusion.
"This option has a potential downside for local government, in that it could become the focus of a mid-term protest vote against the Scottish Government and Parliament, rather than a focus on local government issues," he said.
"There are benefits and difficulties raised under each option. For example, too short a time period between elections could prove difficult to arrange administratively. Moving the elections would inevitably result in increased costs for the administration of elections, for political parties and the council."
Mr Aitchison added that because many councillors hold ambitions to be MSPs, holding Holyrood elections during a council term could also result in more local government by-elections.
And he said that electronic counting, which caused major problems last May, should not be ruled out for future elections.
"It is important to re-build confidence in electronic counting and other electoral processes," he said.
The proposed changes, which have the backing of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla), would push the next local-government elections back to 2012. A further five-year term after that would take local authority polls to the mid-point between Scottish Parliament ballots, and they would then revert to four-year terms.
Tory MSPs have been long-standing critics of holding two elections on the same day.
However, Labour Councillor Andrew Burns – a member of the council's elections consultative group – said today: "I used to be of the view that it was better to de-couple elections, but I've changed my mind. I think it would be a mistake and would result in a 20-to-25 per cent drop in turnout, because people do get weary (of too many elections]."
A Scottish Government spokesman added the consultation was under way and they looked forward to "analysing the responses".
The full article contains 453 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
