To give you an example, I live within a ten minute walk of the Scottish Parliament, where I work. I live in the seat of Edinburgh Central for Scottish Parliament elections and Edinburgh East for Westminster, at least for now.

The Boundary Commission for Scotland is in the final stages of its review of Scottish Parliament seats, and with a stroke of Michael Moore’s pen, I will be moving into the new Scottish Parliament seat of Edinburgh Eastern for next year’s Scottish Elections where my choice will be either Labour’s PPC Ewan Aitken, or the beleagured yet bumptious Kenny MacAskill. Because the boundaries are changing, so will the polling stations and I may find that come the 4th May, I not only have to go to a different polling station than I’m used to, but two…

The basic fact is this; Scotland has 59 MPs and 73 constituency msps. The boundaries are not co-terminus – not even nearly – and that’s before the Westminster boundaries are reviewed again!

One of the problems with the AV referendum – and there are many – is that it would have to be held on Westminster boundaries whilst the country votes for its Scottish parliament representatives. Two different polling cards, two different ballots papers, potentially two different polling stations and three crosses to mark. A logistical nightmare – for voters yes, but much more so for the bureaucrats behind the scenes.

And don’t forget, the pressure to have a smooth Scottish Parliament election next May is very great indeed.

In May 2007, Scottish voters were asked to vote for their councillors and their MSPs on the same day. Instead of 58 wards – Edinburgh moved to 17 multi-member seats to be elected by STV for the first time.

Two different elections taking place on the same day with three different voting systems. Each voter asked to elect four councillors and eight MSPs for their area resulted in over 100,000 spoilt ballots.

The top line from that debacle was not a statement about how “stupid” Scots must all be to have made so many mistakes, but how democracy itself had been undermined.

Labour returned 46 MSPs that night, down just four from 2003. The SNP won the election with 47 MSPs, just one seat more than Labour. That seat was arguably North Ayrshire and Arran where Labour’s Allan Wilson lost to the SNP’s Kenny Gibson by just 47 votes. 47 votes with over 1500 spoilt paper.

Scotland doesn’t hold an irrational fear about overly complex elections, we’ve experienced it. Labour lost power and the country lost a degree of faith in democracy itself. As the UK Government considers redrawing the Westminster boundaries again, Labour needs to think hard and fast about not only its position but how it articulates it.

In my view, Labour should complain less about the number of unregistered voters and do more to get them signed up. But as a party, we should also challenge the basic assumption that boundaries are drawn on registered electors. Next year will not only see an election in Scotland, but a census also. Would it not be wise for the boundary review to follow the preliminary head count results of that?

Having recently written about the need for “Non-Voter” ID days, I asked Edinburgh City Council to provide me with a list of all the unregistered properties in Edinburgh East so that I could kick start a voter registration drive. I was refused that list on the basis that it was too big.

There were 8,800 “void” properties in Edinburgh East. That’s properties – not even people. At least 10,000 people who could be registered that aren’t currently.

What about EU nationals? They may not be allowed to vote for their Member of Parliament but that does not preclude them from accessing their services. And that’s really at the heart of what Labour should be saying throughout this debate.

Immigration advice, benefit problems, housing advice. If we’re brutally honest, the bread and butter of an MP’s caseload very often involves helping people who don’t vote and who, for the purposes of Nick Clegg’s boundary review, don’t count.

Redrawing boundaries based on electors could see an inner city Labour MP’s register exceed 75,000 but it’s adult head count total 100,000.

The lowest turnout in May was 45.7% and it came from Alan Johnson’s seat of Hull West & Hessle where just 31,500 people voted. The Highest turnout was 77.8% in East Renfrewshire, where over 51,181 people voted.

Nearly 20,000 more people turned out to vote in a seat of similar size – does that not demonstrate some sort of democratic deficit? Why not base constituency size on the turnout from the previous election!? Introduce a perpetual cycle of boundary reviews based on how many people bothered to vote!? It’s about as logical as basing it on the number of electors…

Arguments like these only go to demonstrate that constituency size is not and never can be an exact science. That’s why Labour needs to argue that a functioning and fair democracy cannot be weighed – it can only be valued.

And the people who assess its worth should not be the politicians, but the people who rely on it, regardless of whether or not they voted.