The Labour candidate for Glasgow Kelvin had to wait for 45 minutes to be seated at the voting count at Emirates Arena after staff did not believe she was a candidate.
Pam Duncan-Glancy, the Scottish Labour candidate for Glasgow Kelvin was “shown a lack of respect” at the election count where she faced trouble being seated and was not believed to be a candidate among staff.
Duncan-Glancy, a disabled candidate who uses a wheelchair, told STV News she had to wait 45 minutes to be seated with other candidates at the Emirates Arena, where the vote is being counted. She also had trouble accessing the building with staff not knowing where to send her.
More notably, staff at the count also did not believe that Duncan-Glancy was a candidate for the election, telling STV News: “They said, ‘that’s not the right pass for today’. It is, it was, and it still is, and so that was quite difficult.
“Then several people later, we were trying to get information about where I should go. I wanted to sit with other candidates in my party and nobody knew where to send me because the candidates’ area is kind of on the sort of stared seating so nobody knew where to send me.”
She added: “I think it’s really important to have wheelchair users in elections and disabled people in elections, so it wasn’t how I wanted to start the day shall we say.
“And then you end up feeling like you’re just moaning or you’re just arguing all the time. In actual fact, I’ve had minimal sleep for the past six weeks, I did my best to keep my cool, to use all the resilience I have, but the fact is we shouldn’t have to do that.”
Annemarie O’Donnell, chief executive of Glasgow City Council, and the returning officer have both apologised to Pam Duncan-Glancy over the incidents.
