If you accept an offer to pay for the ERS to run the election this time, what happens next time when there are no offers to pay, and yet the precedent has been set?
The accounts of the party are already audited in accordance with current legislative requirements. The same applies for such corporate bodies which are associated with UKIP, including Ashford Employment Ltd. With the exception of the Electoral Commission complaint regarding donations (which in reality is a compliance, not an accounting issue), there are no problems, legal or otherwise with the accounts, except for ill-informed or deliberately misleading speculation such as that which you peddle. UKIP has been late in presenting accounts, but this has not resulted in its failing to do so.
As regards the Ganley stuff, it is possible that any negotiations will not result in an outcome until the day nominations close, so delaying until the deal is announced would prove problematical. Also, delay pending a resolution to the negotiations would also neatly signal to the EUrophile opposition the precise day when a deal was reached, greatly aiding their own campaigns and strategy. We have a leader for this sort of thing, and the point of having a leader is that we trust their political judgement, surely, otherwise what would be the point? I am confidant that Nigel will reach the best resolution possible in the prevailing political circumstances. You can't negotiate by committee.
As for the 'maldistribution' of votes, how are they maldistributed? Those 'maldistributed' to one of the candidates in question are simply removed from the equation, and everyone below them moves up one place, exactly as they would have done had the candidate in question not stood at all. The 'maldistribution' you are talking about appears to only occur in a specific set of circumstances, ie where you would vote Andreasen (say) 3rd if she was only standing in the SE, but 7th because she isn't, and would have voted for different people between 4th and 7th dependent upon the circumstances.... hardly the sort of nitpicking to make a huge difference in any case.
I don't know whether the rules of the election were sent out individually to every member, but if not, then one assumes the internet is where they can be found, and posting dual candidacies there meets the same requirement as that which makes the rules public. Regardless, the idea of suspending the election, reissing the ballots and informing each member individually for something of such minor import is nonsensical. Of course, it would have been better to have met incontrovertibly the exact letter of each rule, but these things happen, largely because nobody noticed until it was too late: this is generally the cause of such things. In 2004, nobody noticed we didn't have a manifesto until 3 days before its launch, which is how I came to write it in about 30 mins lol
Of course, it's all far more exciting to ascribe ****-ups to conspiracy theories within the leadership, but the reality is as I posted in my previous message: the few managers are overworked and understaffed, reliant upon inexperienced volunteers of often dubious quality. But no-one wants to comment on that, do they, because it spoils the fun.
M