Scottish Parliament

Voting System for the Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament is elected using a voting system called the 'Additional Member System' (or AMS for short). AMS is a type of proportional representation - in other words, the voting system will mean that the share of seats each party receives in the Parliament reflects as closely as possible its level of support among voters. The system still allows each constituency to have its own representative in the Parliament - in the same way every constituency has its own MP in the UK Parliament at Westminster.

At a Scottish Parliament election each voter has 2 votes.

The first vote is used to elect a constituency member. These are elected in the same way as members of the UK Parliament. Voters choose between candidates standing in their constituency. These candidates may stand on behalf of a party - or they may stand independently of any party. The candidate winning the largest number of votes will gain the seat. (This is sometimes called 'First Past The Post').

The second vote is for a political party, or for a candidate standing as an individual, within a larger electoral area called a Scottish Parliament region.

There are 8 Scottish Parliament regions. Each region covers a group of constituencies and have 7 additional seat in the Parliament. The members chosen to fill these additional seats are known as 'regional members'.

So the total number of seats a party has depends on the number of constituents it has won, plus the number of additional seats it wins in the region.

Within each region, the number of votes each party has received in the second part of the election (the regional ballot) is counted and compared with the number of constituency seats it has won.

A party may win some constituencies - but not enough to properly reflect its share of voters in the regional ballot. That party can gain one or more of the additional seats - depending on how well it has done in the regional ballot;

or, a party may have significant support within a region - but not been able to win any constituency seats. AMS makes it possible for that party to be represented in the Parliament, because it may gain one or more additional seats, on the strength of the regional ballot.
A party may gain no additional seats - because it already has enough constituencies to reflect its share of votes in the regional ballot.

As well as political parties, a candidate can stand as an individual in the regional ballot. A candidate standing in this way - sometimes called an independent - can gain one of the additional seats in his or her own right, if he or she wins enough votes.
In practice, parties (or candidates standing as individuals) will generally need to win at least 6-7 per cent of votes in a particular regional ballot in order to have a chance of gaining an additional seat.

The example below shows how additional seats might be allocated in a region to produce a result where the total seats won better match the share of votes cast.

Each political party seeking election in a regional ballot will put forward a list of candidates. The list will be shown on the regional ballot paper. Only people shown on the list submitted by a party can take up additional seats in that region on behalf of that party. Candidates included on a part's list can also stand for election in a constituency.

The names on a list will be shown in a fixed order. The first person on the list will take the first additional seat a party wins, the second person will take the second additional seat, and so on - unless he or she has already won a constituency seat - in that case that person is simply passed over.

A candidate standing as an independent may take one of the additional seats, depending on how many votes he or she receives.

The number of votes cast for each party in the regional ballot is divided by the number of constituency seats gained plus one - this allows parties which have not won any constituencies to be included in the rest of the calculation.

After that calculation is done the party with highest resulting figure gains the first additional seat. In this case it is Party 4, which won no constituency seats.

To allocate the second to seventh additional seats the calculation is redone, but each time any additional seats gained are added in - so second time round, the vote for Party 4 is divided by 2, rather than 1.

By the end of the calculation the ratio of votes to seats for each party has been made more even.

Scottish Parliament Election Count

The Counting of Votes for the Scottish Parliament Election for the Ayr Constituency and the Carrick and Doon Valley Constituency will take place on Thursday 3 May 2007 at The Citadel Leisure Centre, South Beach Road, Ayr.

Admission to The Citadel will be by accreditation from the Returning Officer. Accreditation for press and media may be obtained by contacting the Election Office.