National Assembly for Wales elections
The voting system
The Additional Member System (a combination of first past the
post and closed list proportional representation).
Who am I voting
for?
You have two votes; the first vote is for a constituency member
and the second vote is for regional members. Each constituency in
Wales is represented by one Assembly Member (AM) and each region is
represented by five AMs.
How to vote
Always read the instructions for filling in the ballot paper
carefully, even if you have voted before.
You will be given two ballot
papers.
The first is for your constituency AM.
The ballot paper lists the name of each candidate along with their
party name, party logo and their address.
Simply put an X (a cross) next to the
one candidate that you wish to vote for.
The second ballot paper is a vote for
a party or independent candidate attempting to gain the four
regional seats within your region in Wales. The ballot paper lists
political parties and independent candidates. Under each party name
is a list of candidates who wish to represent that party.
Simply put an X (a cross) next to the
party or independent candidate that you wish to vote for.
If you make a mistake then you can ask
the polling staff to give you another ballot paper.
You may also be voting in other
elections on the same day.
Who is elected?
There are 40 constituencies, each represented by one AM. In each
constituency the candidate with the most votes is elected; they do
not need to get more than half of the votes cast. If there is a tie
then a candidate is selected by the drawing of lots (i.e. a method
of selection by chance such as tossing a coin or picking a name out
of a hat).
There are also 5 regions, each
electing 4 regional AMs. There are therefore 20 regional seats;
these seats are awarding using a quota system. The quota is the
total number of regional votes received by a party or independent
candidate divided by the number of constituency seats already
gained in that region +1.
So, for a party with no constituency
seats the number of votes received is divided by one. If the party
has secured one constituency seat in that region then its number of
votes is divided by two, if it has two seats in that region it is
dived by three, and so on.
This means that the more constituency
seats a political party has won, the harder it is to gain any
additional seats through the regional list system, so the overall
allocation of seats is more proportional to the number of votes
received.
The regional seats each political
party wins are filled by the candidates in the order they appear on
the regional ballot paper, this order is decided by the political
party. An independent candidate is treated as though he or she were
a party with only one name on its list.