Scottish Elections: How I’m voting (3/3) – Regional MSP
Posted by: Richard in Glasgow, Personal, Politics, Scotland, Scottish elections, UKLast but not least, my regional vote (Council and Constituency details here). This is for the additional members to the Scottish parliament, on top of the constituency MSP’s we elect.
The idea is that these MSP’s are allocated to ensure that each region has MSP’s from parties in proportion to how they vote. Thus is ALL of the constituency MSP’s happen to come from Party A, but 1/3rd of the votes are for Party B and another 1/3rd for Party C, the additional MSP’s come from Party’s B and C to ensure the total representation for the region matches the populist vote. Each party puts forward a list of candidates, in order, and unless the candidate already has a constituency seat, they are through based on the additional member system. Here’s a worked example.
To cut a long story short, I’m probably going to vote Liberal Democrat at the regional list. This is the party I generally find myself supporting. I could give my reasons for not voting otherwise, but I’ve already beaten that issue to death. I’m still giving a Green vote some consideration, but I’ve a view to coalition discussions after the election and of course the Liberal Democrats are likely to be the ‘king makers’, and have themselves talked about more powers to the parliament, which I support. Some of the more radical policies so far to come from Holyrood are as a result of the Liberal Democrats.
That’s it for now. It’s a beautiful evening, and I’m just in the mood for a gentle stroll down to the ‘Polling Place’ (For some reason they’re not called ‘Stations’ up here, as they are in England) to make my marks. Then it’ll be back for dinner, and feet up ready for the election results.
And yes, I’m the sort of political junkie who’ll be staying up to soak up the election coverage. Oh, and probably try and get plenty of Piano practice in the waiting!
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May 3rd, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Thanks for your very informative coverage. I too have been amazed at the lack of information on candidates available on the web. Your site has been a great source of info for a fellow Govan resident – much more so than the votescotland website which I found really uninformative!
I do hope the parties pay attention to the feedback on the lack of information. I for one have been significantly swayed by what I have found out about individual candidates on the web (and mainly via links from your pages), much more so than the endless ‘party political broadcasts’
Thanks again.
Brian
May 4th, 2007 at 4:03 am
[...] Leyton — Liberal Democrat; Lib Dem, Green, Conservative; [...]
May 4th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
So, its not quite all over bar the shouting yet. But I am glad your pleased to have voted for Nicola Sturgeon and that you are on the ‘winning side’ for the first time.
I do so hate how people put ’spoiled’ votes down to voter ignorance. Maybe people spoil them on purpose because there is no column on the ballot paper which says ‘I don’t like any of you’.
Also pleased to note you are still practising the piano. I was wondering as you have not mentioned it in a long while.
May 5th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
re: Polling Places/Stations
The difference is not a Scotland/England thing AFAIK. The polling ‘place’ is the actual location i.e. the school or local halls being used. The polling ’station’ is the section of the ‘place’ where you actually cast your vote.
My local polling ‘place’ had three separate ’stations’ divided by street name alphabetical order, where the ’stations’ were trestle tables with woefully under-trained polling clerks
May 6th, 2007 at 10:14 am
Mavis said, “I do so hate how people put ’spoiled’ votes down to voter ignorance. Maybe people spoil them on purpose because there is no column on the ballot paper which says ‘I don’t like any of you’.”
The returning officer at a count does his utmost to avoid rejecting ballot papers – the whole exercise is designed to determine the will of the electorate, after all. Within any batch of ballot papers, there will be some where the mark is uncertain, or someone has scribbled out a mark and made another one, or the ballot paper is blank, or there are too many marks. Therefore, ballot papers can be rejected for being blank, for being uncertain, or for over-voting. Election officials cannot read the mind of the voter, they can only try to read the ballot paper and, wherever humanly possible, allocate the vote to a candidate or party.
Where ballot papers are uncertain, there is an adjudication process that takes place which is open and transparent to all the candidates, their agents and other observers.
So, to come back to Mavis’s point, if the majority of the regional/constituency papers which were rejected were done so on the basis of over-voting, the problem must lie with the actions of the voter. The proximate cause of over-voting was the design of the voting sheet, with the two ballots side-by-side. The ultimate cause is that, generally, the Scottish electorate don’t understand the basis on which their MSPs are elected and that the regional vote is the one that determines the number of seats that parties have in Parliament. Evidence considered by the Arbuthnott Commission makes that clear.
It is clear that Scots, like any other nation in the world, can understand new electoral systems and STV worked very well. It is also clear that the problems arose because not enough effort was put in to explaining the existing system for electing MSPs.
Yes, the design of the ballot paper has something to do with it (see a recent post on my blog for comparison with a ballot paper designed for New Zealand which overcomes these problems), but the Executive must explain to the voters in Scotland how the parliamentary elections really do work.
Ignorance? – hard word, but probably accurate in this case.
May 6th, 2007 at 10:16 am
I forgot to mention that there are very few ballot papers where the voter genuinely appears to have spoilt it deliberately. Occasionally you’ll see the whole list crossed out or even “all twats” written down the boxes, but these deliberate spoils are far rarer than people think.
May 9th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
I am fed up of being able to vote being down to a postcode lottery:
Twice in two years, I have not been able to vote because I have not received all/any of the paperwork in the post.
I am registered to vote by post and live in the E11 area.
To whom should I write to complain? The returning officer?
May 9th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Kerrie, Were there definitely elections in your neck of the woods this time? Reason I ask, E11 is a London postcode, and there weren’t elections in most of London. But I’m afraid I’m not familiar with East London (I share my surname with it though, which might be why you found my site?!
If there were elections, then I agree you really should have received papers. The person you need to contact in the first case is the Electoral Registration Officer in your local council. The returning officer is a post that is filled when an election takes place, and doesn’t exist outside of elections or get involved with maintaining the electoral list. Failing that, local councillors may be able to help?