The 2024 General Election in Scotland was a one-sided affair. Scottish Labour won 35.3% of the vote in Scotland and 64.9% of the available seats. While the SNP came a narrow second place on 30% of the vote and won 15.8% of the seats. The polls may have shifted since then, but can we expect to see a similar result in the Holyrood election this May?
Thankfully, elections to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood do not work the same way as in Westminster. The Additional Member System we use was designed to be more balanced, to reflect how people vote rather than just who comes first. And understanding how that works helps explain both the strengths and the limits of the system.
Two votes, two different jobs
At a Scottish Parliament election, every voter casts two votes. One is for a local constituency MSP, and one is for a party or candidate on a regional list.
There are 129 MSPs in total. Of these, 73 are elected in constituencies, while 56 are elected from regional lists, across eight regions.
The first vote works in a familiar way to Westminster. Each constituency elects one MSP using First Past the Post, so the candidate with the most votes wins, even if the majority didn’t vote for them. First Past the Post can lead to the kind of crazy results we saw in Westminster, so this is where the second vote comes in.
This vote is used to allocate additional “list” seats, designed to balance out the results and make them more proportional overall – so Scotland’s parliament more closely matches how Scotland voted.
How the list system corrects results
After constituency MSPs are announced, the list votes are counted. Seats are then allocated to make the parliament more closely match how Scots voted in the regional list contest.
This means that parties which have done well in constituencies are less likely to gain list seats, as they already won their fair share of seats in the constituency contest. Parties that have been squeezed out locally therefore have a better chance of representation through the list.
It is often described as a “top-up” system. And that is exactly what it is meant to do. But topping up only works if there is enough room to do it. With 73 constituency seats and only 56 list seats, more than half of the Parliament is still elected using first past the post. We’ve previously written about how this could be improved to better represent how Scots vote.
Getting the most out of your vote
What does this all mean? The key thing to remember is that this is not a Westminster-style election. Holyrood’s voting system wants you to be represented in Parliament.
The typical region contains nine constituency seats and seven regional ones. As a result, a party or independent candidate needs to win around 6% in a region to win a seat. As long as you vote for a party that has at least this level of support, you should win representation in parliament.
If you support a party that is very popular in your region, there is a chance they will win their fair share, or more, of seats in the constituency contest, so they can’t win any more from the second vote contest. Should you split your vote then, and cast the second ballot for a different party? It depends on your appetite for risk. If your preferred party doesn’t end up winning all the constituency seats you expected, your clever tactical game could backfire as they miss out on list seats, due to a lack of list votes.
As Scottish voters prepare to go to the polls in May, they can do so knowing that their vote will count and the parliament elected will be representative – a luxury most voters in England don’t have in their local elections on the same day. And now, after 25 years of fair elections in Scotland, surely it’s time Westminster caught up and ensured that voters in England could vote with the same peace of mind.
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