Scottish Parliamentary 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; one for a Member of the Scottish Parliament
(MSP) for your Scottish Parliamentary constituency and one for the
seven regional MSPs for your region of Scotland.
How to vote
Always read the instructions for filling in the ballot paper
carefully, even if you have voted before.
You have two votes, the ballot paper
has two columns, one for your constituency vote and one for your
regional vote. You must place an X (a cross) in each of the
columns.
The left-hand column is a vote for a
party or independent candidate competing for the seven regional
seats for your region of Scotland. The ballot paper lists political
parties and independent candidates.
Simply put an X (a cross) next to the
party or independent candidate that you wish to vote for.
The right-hand column is a vote for
your constituency MSP. The ballot paper lists the name of each
candidate along with their party name and party logo.
Simply put an X (a cross) next to the
one candidate that you wish to vote for.
At the same time you may also be asked
to vote on another ballot paper for your local councillors – see
the section Local government elections in
Scotland for further information.
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 53 constituencies, each represented by one MSP. 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 8 regions, each
electing 7 regional MSPs. There are therefore 56 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
seats (constituency and regional) already gained in that region
+1.
So, for a party with no seats the
number of votes received is divided by one, and so stays the same.
If the party already has one seat in that region then its number of
votes is divided by two, if it has two seats in that region it is
divided by three, and so on.
This means that the more seats you
have already won, the harder it is to gain extra seats, so the
overall allocation of seats is proportional to the number of votes
received. The number of seats each party has includes any
constituency seats won in that region and regional seats already
awarded.
The first regional seat that a party
wins goes to the first person on its list for that region, the
second seat to the second person, and so on, until the party has
either not won any more seats or has run out of names on its list.
An independent candidate is treated as though he or she were a
party with only one name on its list.