| Non-motoring > Scottish Parliament Elections | Miscellaneous |
| Thread Author: Bobby | Replies: 1 |
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Mon 11 May 26 16:55
Scottish Parliament Elections - Bobby
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Mods - I just wanted to start a new thread regarding last week’s Scottish Election and to be different from the other election thread as it is more about the process. Scotland has a proportional representation voting system for Holyrood. We have 73 constituency seats (voted on by first past the post) and 56 regional seats (known as list seats) which are elected through a method of allocating seats called the “D’Hondt Method” en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Hondt_method The voting for constituency / regional seats allocated were SNP 57 +1 Tories 4+8 Greens 2+13 Labour 3+14 Lib Dems 7+3 Reform 0+17 So under a conventional first past the post system as seen in UK Parliament, SNP would have been well out in front and massive majority and Reform wouldn’t have a single seat. But you then throw in the regional seats and the whole dynamic changes. I definitely think that the PR system is the fairer way but this election has produced various strange outcomes. SNP got 38% of the constituency vote and got 57 constituency seats. They were also the highest on the regional vote with 27% but only got one extra seat as a result of the above formula. SNP and Lib Dems were the only party leaders to win a constituency vote, the others all getting a seat on the list (The list works by each party having a list of names and depending on how many list seats they get for each region then that is who is allocated the seat. When you cast a vote, your list vote is only for the party – there are no candidate names on the slip). Out of all 73 constituencies, Green party only stood in 6 of them, instead their campaign was about the second (regional vote). This won them 13 seats of people voting and not really knowing who they were getting. One of the Greens who won a regional seat was a Trans person from Nigeria over here on a student visa – apparently a couple years back the eligibility criteria was changed by Parliament and its only now folk are seeing the implications. Apparently student visa only permits 20 hours a week working……. So we have a Nigerian on a temporary visa now able to vote on laws to affect the country, getting paid a very sizeable salary but can only work 20 hours..... work that one out if you can! Murdo Fraser of the Tories has been in parliament since 2001. He got his seat when a Tory MSP resigned and Fraser was the next name on the list so he got it. He has then stood in every election since then in his constituency and has never once won. (Beaten by John Swinney every time). So in 6 elections, his constituents have not voted for him but he still gets through. And there are plenty of other similar MSPs in similar situations. Nicola Sturgeon’s first two terms were through list seats. I feel there should maybe be a limit of terms for list seats, maybe only can go on list once and then if your constituents don’t vote for you then you don’t get back? A sort of "apprenticeship" to see if you are up to the job? I don’t know the answer of how to remedy this, but I do think the whole list system needs looked at. By doing what Greens did and only standing in 6 constituencies, I daresay they saved a lot of money by focussing on national campaigns rather than local – but does it then lend itself to any rich benefactor deciding to fund a party to get seats without having to do too much (incidentally there was also a list party called The Independent Green Voice which is a far right party (holocaust deniers etc) but as they appeared on the slip before the Scottish Green Party, there is a good chance many of their votes received were in error. At least Reform, although they never got any constituency seats, did at least stand in them all. Anyway, that’s my ramblings for now, in many ways it is a fairer system rather than what the UK Parliament does, but I do think it could maybe be looked at further. |
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Mon 11 May 26 17:45
Scottish Parliament Elections - Bromptonaut
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Trouble is Bobby no PR system is perfect. The Scots system retains people elected directly for a constituency. The list members even up the numbers so as to deal with the unfairness in FPTP. I'm not convinced treating them as, in some way, second class MSPs moves you forward. To my mind the big issue is that the people on the list are ranked by their party. No chance of corruption/favouritism there!! Did I understand correctly that Wales' system involves multi member constituencies with all nominees from a list? |
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