As we approach the next Scottish parliamentary election, there’s a familiar narrative creeping into the conversation: that the system of proportional representation used in Holyrood is somehow ‘designed to stop a majority.’ It’s a catchy line, but it’s thinking about it upside down.
Saying that Scotland’s parliament is designed to stop a majority is like saying flat shoes are designed to stop you being tall. The shoes don’t subtract inches; they just don’t add them like heels do.
What the system actually does
Scotland uses the Additional Member System, or AMS, a mix of First Past the Post constituencies and regional lists. It’s not about blocking a party from winning outright. Instead, it doesn’t give out the kind of artificial boost that we saw in 2024 in Westminster, where a party with 34 percent of the vote took 63 percent of the seats.
That happens in First Past the Post systems like Westminster, where the rules favour parties that can narrowly win a lot of seats.
It’s important to note, though, that AMS isn’t perfectly neutral. It gives a modest lift to larger parties and those that do best in the constituencies. In 2011, the SNP benefitted from this, turning 44% of the vote into a slim majority at Holyrood. Current polling does show that SNP will benefit even more in 2026 from this winner bonus. This could be addressed with a minor change in the way votes are counted from D’Hondt to Saint Langue and a better balance between the constituency MSPs and regional MSPs.
Inverting the “designed to stop a majority” idea
When we frame Scotland’s AMS as a mechanism to “stop” anything, we misunderstand both its intent and its effect. AMS doesn’t prevent parties from winning if they genuinely earn it. It simply keeps the translation of votes to seats more proportional, more fair, and less chaotic than First Past the Post.
We can watch the results unfold with the knowledge that a majority is never off the table. What matters is how voters show up, which parties connect, and which messages resonate. The system shapes outcomes gently – it doesn’t dictate them.
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