Electoral law needs a major overhaul, clearer accountability to voters, with more flexible investigation powers and penalties to take on illegal fundraising, according to Scotland's chief elections adviser.

John McCormick, the member of the Electoral Commission with a special remit for Scotland, has spoken out about the confusion over responsibility when elections go wrong and votes are not properly counted.

His comments come in advance of a major report by the UK-wide commission setting out which lessons have to be learned for the whole of Britain's electoral system from the ballot paper and counting fiasco at last year's Scottish elections. Having recently taken on the commissioner role, the former controller of BBC Scotland told The Herald that election law is currently too fragmented, with 19th- century legislation being used to meet 21st-century technology and voter expectations.

"The individual voters shouldn't feel apart from the process and I don't think there's any evidence at the moment that they understand the process as we would like them to, in terms of public accountability. This is 2008. People owning up and taking responsibility is very important.

"There's been a lot of piecemeal legislation," he says. "Since 1998, there have been 45 pieces of primary legislation and 116 pieces of secondary legislation relating to Scottish elections. These are big figures."

Mr McCormick has found, in the early weeks in his role, that there is confusion about the Electoral Commission's function, with many thinking it runs elections. Instead, it advises on elections, seeks to boost turnout, and tries to ensure returning officers - independent council officials who are responsible through the courts - have common standards. Some returning officers are excellent and properly funded, he says, but there is inconsistency and "some you might describe as OK".

"The citizen, who should be at the heart of this, should be aware of who is responsible for their election, whether in Cupar, Inverness or my local town of Saltcoats".

One of the solutions could be a Chief Returning Officer for Scotland, and possibly for the whole of Britain on UK-wide elections.

The SNP administration also has plans to centralise that role, but is constrained by a lack of control over either Scottish Parliament elections, Westminster elections north of the border or the European vote, due in June next year. A Chief Returning Officer therefore, could have no role to play beyond local council voting.

John McCormick is not saying if he approves the idea: "It looks superficially, at first glance, as if it could be the solution to a lot of problems. You would have one, named person. But I'm a bit wary of looking for a glib solution in one part of the forest and then a forest fire starts somewhere else."

The challenge of finding clear accountability was highlighted also in the report by Canadian elections expert Ron Gould into the Scottish elections last year. He found voters were treated as an afterthought.

The former BBC man's early weeks in office were dominated by one of the Electoral Commission's other roles, acting as the long arm of electoral law on political fundraising. Wendy Alexander, Labour's leader at Holyrood, had taken a £950 leadership election gift from a Jersey-based businessman, which was against election law.

The Electoral Commission took a torrent of criticism for the length of its investigation and the lack of clarity of its ruling. Mr McCormick says he was also critical of the time taken, until he took on his post and saw the level of detail required. He now reckons eight weeks was reasonable.

His concern now with other potential cases in which the Electoral Commission has no powers to call evidence from individual or corporate donors. "The powers the commission has are quite narrow and unsatisfactory," he says. "And the sanctions for putting in late returns are the same for £5m or £5000.If you submit your return on time and omit information, there's no sanction. So we need a wider range of sanctions".

Mr McCormick's other retirement role is as adviser to public broadcasters in Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Nigeria, about media independence from state interference while helping the democratic process.

By such standards, he points out Britain's elections are "showing strains and in need of a safety net", but generally in good shape.

While 4% of votes did not count last year, and that was "unsatisfactory", he stresses 96% did count: "We've got a very high benchmark in this country, when you compare it to other countries. That is our expectation."