No party can be considered blameless for the Scottish parliamentary election fiasco that saw nearly 150,000 wasted votes and a complete failure to put the needs of Scottish voters first, a leading polling expert said last week.

Ron Gould, the Canadian elections expert in charge of the official report into the botched election, wrote to the Electoral Commission last week to emphasise that, while the responsibility for the May elections “lay with the Scotland office and Scottish executive” all political parties were guilty of “pursuing potential political advantage.”

Mr Gould sent the letter after many of the political parties used his report - The Scottish Elections Review - as a basis for laying blame solely on the shoulders of the Westminster government over their handling of the poll.

The report’s findings have given rise to fierce rows in Westminster. Gordon Brown was told to use more 'temperate' language at Question Time last week, as the Conservatives called for the responsibility for elections to be removed from Douglas Alexander, the Scottish Secretary and organiser of the Scottish parliamentary elections.

Mr Alexander, a close ally of the Prime Minister, has faced strong criticism from all the major parties.

The Liberal Democrat Shadow Scotland Secretary, Alistair Carmichael, said: “Douglas Alexander must explain his actions to Parliament. If he is unable to come up with a convincing explanation, he will have no alternative than to go.”

Mr Alexander would have been in charge of Mr Brown's abandoned general election campaign, had it been called.

In response to this political finger pointing, Mr Gould has stressed that “all political parties in Scotland were involved in the debates, contributed to the final decisions and shared in the failure to prioritise the interests of the voter.”

The report was initiated by the Electoral Commission in response to around four per cent of the votes cast being spoiled, a marked rise from the 0.6 per cent of votes which were rejected in the previous Scottish election.

While Mr Gould has been keen to point out that all the parties were at fault, the report does state that what was “characteristic of 2007 was a notable level of party self-interest evident in ministerial decisions”.

The May elections saw a number of new measures, including the use of a new ballot paper layout for the parliamentary vote, the introduction of the single transferable vote system (STV) for local government elections and the use of electronic counting.

Research into the draft parliamentary ballot, carried out before the election, also produced around a four per cent rejection rate. Such evidence left the Commission’s investigation to conclude that the problems of the May elections should have been foreseen.

The findings claimed there was “very little evidence” to support the argument that the higher rejection rates was caused by the simultaneous local government election or the use of electronic counting. Rather, it stated: “There is very strong evidence to suggest that the combined Scottish parliamentary ballot sheet was the main cause of the problem.”

The report also criticised the use of slogans in the place of party names on the ballot paper, which it believed was a source of confusion. It accused the SNP of using “a party description to achieve a higher position on the ballot paper.” This was done by using the phrase: “Alex Salmond for First Minister” rather than “SNP”, which meant that the party appeared top of all, but one, regional list.

Such actions are part of what Mr Gould has termed the “self interest” of political parties with regards to the arrangements for the elections, which led to voters being considered as an “afterthought.”

Despite such comments and further statements by Mr Gould concerning the shared responsibility for the fiasco, Alex Salmond has hailed the conclusions of the Gould report as “a damning indictment” of the Scottish Office and previous Scottish Executive.

In a letter to Gordon Brown, Mr Salmond has asked that Scotland be allowed to run her own elections. This would be a change from the current situation where the task of organising elections is shared between the Scottish Parliament and the Westminster run Scotland Office.

The Gould report recommends that a single body should be responsible for this role. Like Alex Salmond, the report suggests that the Scottish Parliament would be the ‘logical institution’ for such a task. The Liberal Democrats are in agreement with the SNP executive on this matter.

Nicol Stephen, the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, commented: “Organising the Scottish Parliament elections was one of the few significant tasks that the generously resourced Scotland Office has had to do over the last few years and yet the majority of the failures highlighted in this report were within its remit.”

In response to the report, the current Scottish Secretary Des Browne - while not agreeing with “every aspect” - has acceded to separate ballots for the parliamentary elections and to the “decoupling” of local and national elections.

The Electoral Commission is due to make a response to the report later this month.