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The National
a day ago
- Politics
- The National
SNP must treat the Holyrood lists as the most important votes
The interface between psephology and mathematics is an unlikely place to look for an inspiring political discussion. But it is an area we need to get into. Scotland's additional member system is a hybrid of two different methods of election. There are 73 individual constituencies which elect a single MSP by first past the post (FPTP). The country is also divided into eight regions in each of which seven MSPs are elected from a party list. READ MORE: Poverty levels in Scotland below UK for 20 years, graphs show The list representation is quite deliberately intended to compensate parties who do badly out of the FPTP contests. It makes the numbers of MSPs from each party more in line with the votes cast for them. From the start, the system was a cop-out, accepting the gross and unfair distortions of FPTP, but preferring to put a sticking plaster on it rather than change it. It never ceases to amaze me that while on paper there is a massive cross-party majority against FPTP, the Scottish Parliament, unlike its Welsh counterpart, has never seen fit to change the electoral system it was given by Westminster. In theory, there is no reason why you could not allocate additional members through making a calculation of the votes already cast in constituencies. But we don't. Instead, voters are asked to make a separate vote on a different ballot paper. It is that vote, and only that vote, which is used to calculate what share of seats parties should have. These two votes are intended to be part of a single process of determining representation. But I'm pretty sure most people see them as two quite separate choices. Those electors who are still fairly strongly aligned to the party of their choice will probably vote the same way on each ballot. But a growing number of people are not strongly aligned to one party, they swing between them. A lot of them regard the regional vote as an invitation to make a second choice. Now that you've voted for your MSP, which other party would you like to see in the parliament? It feels like they are expressing a preference, giving the system their first and second choices. But it doesn't work like that. In reality, if you vote for a different party on the list, you may effectively cancel out your first choice. So, without your knowledge or intent, your actions may prevent the party you wanted elected from winning. In elections where one party dominates the constituency ballots, this might not be that much of a problem since the biggest party will be hard placed to get seats off the list anyway. But when the electorate's will is volatile and six-party contests make outcomes uncertain, a system in which one vote unwittingly negates the other is a democratic problem. READ MORE: Kenny MacAskill: Do Scots really want to dance to Keir Starmer's military tune? Scotland's political parties have themselves reinforced the illusion that voters are being asked to rank more than one preference. The best example being the 'second vote Green' strategy. But even 'both votes SNP' tells people there are two different votes and implies there's an option of making different choices in each. The SNP have been the decisive constituency victor in the past three elections. In consequence, the party has come to see regional contests as less important. Lists are made up of the same candidates that are fighting the constituencies. For them, it's a belt and braces approach to getting elected. But for some voters, this increases the chance of their vote going elsewhere. They can't see the point of voting for someone on the list who they've already backed with their constituency ballot. Even now, the party has had all its constituency candidates in place for two months and has not begun the process of choosing regional ones. There is almost an acceptance that nothing can be done about the gap in voting intention between constituency and regional ballots. John Swinney speaks at an SNP event which saw the party confirm all its constituency candidates for the 2026 elections (Image: PA) This is a mistake. The only way in this system to get a majority is by winning in both constituencies and lists. And the best way to do that is to drive up the share of support in the regional ballot. Increased shares on the list will drag up votes in the constituencies. It doesn't happen the other way round. So that means a national message must be central to a winning campaign. High-profile teams of candidates not running in individual constituencies need to campaign on a wider terrain. The choice on the list must be presented as the most important, not seen as an afterthought. If anything, it's your main decision. Decide who you want to lead the government first and having done that now choose your local representative. The SNP tried to do this in 2011 with the slogan 'Alex Salmond for First Minister'. It was the only time the party won a majority. We should learn that lesson.
Daily Mirror
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
Farage's Reform UK reached a 'tipping point' - and it's worrying news for Labour
Analysis of the local election results by the Electoral Reform Society shows Reform getting an almost 10-percentage point 'winner's bonus' in their haul of council seats last Thursday compared to their vote share Reform UK have reached a 'tipping point' where Britain's electoral system works for them rather than holding them back. Nigel Farage's party has long opposed the First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system which holds back challenger parties. But analysis of the local election results by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) shows Reform getting an almost 10-percentage point 'winner's bonus' in their haul of council seats last Thursday compared to their vote share. Across 22 of the 23 councils contested last Thursday, Reform won just under 31% of the vote but garnered just over 40% of the seats, leading to a 'winner's bonus' of 9.8 points. In the 2013 local elections - when Ukip got its strongest vote - the party got just 5% of the council seats available, despite winning 20% of the vote. The ERS analysis shows that just a 12.2-point increase in Reform's vote share in 2025 compared to UKIP's in 2013 has resulted in a huge 35.5-point increase in council seat share. Darren Hughes, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said: "It is clear from these results that UK elections are turning into a random lottery to see which party will get the 'winner's bonus' under First Past the Post. " But in worrying news for Labour, Keir Starmer's party suffered the greatest electoral penalty from the FPTP system at the local elections, seeing a difference of -8.2 points, with its 14% vote share yielding just 5% of council seats. Labour benefited from the system hugely in last year's general election, turning a slim lead in votes to a huge commons majority. The FPTP system saw Labour win a landslide 63% of the seats in Westminster on just 34% of the vote [2], leading to the most disproportional parliament in British history. Mr Hughes added: "At these local elections we again saw that people are voting in an increasingly multi-party way and our two-party voting system is simply unable to cope. "That is why it is throwing out distorted results that don't represent the way people voted with parties winning majorities on councils on just over a quarter of the vote. "This just underlines the need to move to a fairer, proportional electoral system for town halls, as well as Westminster, that accurately reflects the way people vote in the seats parties receive. "Rather than gifting different parties massive electoral bonuses that don't represent the votes they won, the only bias the electoral system should have is to the voters."
Express Tribune
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Express Tribune
Ballot box representation
Listen to article Barely a quarter of all directly elected members of the National Assembly won more than 50% of the total votes cast in their constituencies, raising new questions about the mandates of our parliamentarians. Without delving into any rigging allegations, the data not only reflects the deep political divisions in society, but the unrepresentative nature of our current first-past-the-post (FPTP) election system, where a politician can, in theory, win with even less than 10% of the vote. Should such a victory constitute a legitimate mandate? Data from Free and Fair Election Network (Fafen) underscores the need to take a long hard look at major election reforms to ensure that the winning candidate is at least generally popular in their own constituency. One change suggested in several FPTP systems is a runoff system, where low vote-getters are eliminated and fresh polls held until somebody reaches a certain threshold, usually 50% of the vote. However, runoffs can be prohibitively expensive as they can require several stages of polling. This makes ranked choice voting - which lets people vote for several candidates while attaching a weightage to each name - more doable. This leads to an instant runoff, ensuring that the winner has at least some support from an outright majority of voters. It can also ensure that a generally unlikeable candidate with a strong base cannot win a split-vote election, and makes 'seat adjustment' between parties unnecessary. Some countries also have proportional representation, where votes are cast for parties, not candidates, and seats are allocated based on parties' own priority lists. But while this leads to strong governments, it opens the door for undemocratic parties to take regressive measures, making it a hard pass for Pakistan, where most major political parties lack internal democracy, and some have authoritarian leadership. Whatever the solution to better elections, it certainly is not FPTP in its current form.
