Candidates and voters have 21 days following the results to apply to the Election Petitions Office in order to challenge the outcome.

Dr Heather Green, an independent researcher on election law who tweets at VotingRules, told The Herald: “A losing candidate or disenfranchised voters could claim that non-receipt of postal votes affected the result.

“In a close result, it might be possible to persuade the court that the missing postal votes would have tipped the result.”

Dr Caroline Morris, reader in public law at Queen Mary University of London, said: “If, on the numbers, the Election Court found that the ‘wrong’ candidate was elected, the court can either declare someone else elected or declare the election in that constituency void and require a new election to be held.”

Dr Morris added that individual challenges could also be made under the Human Rights Act “on the basis that their right to vote has been denied”.

First Minister John Swinney called for the timetable for general elections to be reviewed.

In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, he wrote: “The problem has been caused by a combination of your selection of an unsuitable date for the General Election, and the timetable for UK Parliament elections, which has little room in it to address issues arising, such as the reported delays at the printers.

“In this case, the deadline for applying for a new postal vote being on June 19 meant that some postal packs had to be issued at a time when some Scottish schools were already on holiday.

“As well as establishing the facts about what happened during this election, a review into both the timetable for UK Parliament elections and how decisions are made about their timing needs to be held urgently after the General Election.”