Coverage of elections down in England can often give the impression that results which are wildly different from the way people vote is just a fact of nature, or at most a strange quirk of the voting system, rather than a political choice.   

We saw that with the general election in 2024 and the local elections they have just had. But up here in Scotland, the decision was made at the founding of the Scottish Parliament that Holyrood should be Scotland in miniature, with the share of MSPs a party holds in direct relationship with their share of popular support. 

Since its inception, Holyrood has used the Additional Member System (AMS) to elect Members of the Scottish Parliament. Voters get two ballot papers, one for their constituency, which is elected using Westminster’s First Past the Post (FPTP) system, and the other for regional representation, elected using the closed list system. The system is designed to make the final shape of Holyrood broadly mirror the votes cast across the country on the regional ballots.

2026 Holyrood Election Results

As the results show, the SNP are the largest party once again. Their sweep of the First Past the Post constituency seats means that they didn’t need to pick up regional seats. The opposite is true for the Scottish Greens, Scottish Labour, Conservatives and Reform UK, who didn’t do so well in the constituencies and needed regional representation to make their share of MSPs closer to their share of the vote.

But the flaws inherent in First Past the Post that allowed this sweep of the constituency seats on 38.2% of the vote, makes it impossible for the List seats to properly make up the difference. 

In fact, the result was the most disproportional in the history of the Scottish Parliament. This can be measured with the political scientists Loosemore and Hanby’s Deviation from Vote score (DV Score): the lower the number, the closer the result to how we voted. This election saw a score of 17.8, while the average across the first 6 Holyrood elections was 10.7. 

The election also saw the highest ever over-representation of the largest party. The SNP was over-represented by 17.8 percentage points, while the average over-representation of the largest party across the first 6 Holyrood elections was 8.4 points. This was also the first time only one party had an overall seat share bigger than their List vote share.

Even with these records being broken, the results are still more proportional than every equivalent score at the seven UK General Elections in Scotland held between 2001 & 2024.  

As is the norm for the Scottish Parliament, no majority was received by any one party. As a result, it is likely that the SNP will install a minority government and continuously work with opposition MSPs from the Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, Scottish Greens, and potentially even the Conservatives to pass key bills.

What if Scotland had First Past the Post?

If the result were decided only using Westminster’s First Past the Post voting system, the SNP would have a huge parliamentary majority. Not because the majority of Scottish voters voted for them but because First Past the Post rewards coming first in enough places rather than winning overall support.

The SNP won 38.2% of the constituency votes, and 78% of constituency seats.

The consequences of this system are playing out in front of us. In Westminster, the Labour government in 2024 received two thirds of the parliamentary seats on only a third of the national vote share. Millions of voters were left without meaningful representation.

As we’ve seen AMS doesn’t eliminate these distorted results entirely – two thirds of the seats at Holyrood are still elected using First Past the Post – but the regional lists act as shock absorbers for these random results produced under First Past the Post.

Minority government is the system working

As mentioned, having ‘no clear majority’ is something not easily understood in Westminster but in Scotland – and Wales – it is the norm. This is because proportional voting systems do not gloss over reality and pretend that the general public are entirely unified in their political opinions.

As Holyrood uses a system that accurately reflects the way people vote, coalition and cooperation agreements in Edinburgh are the norm, and the result is a different kind of politics. Leaders are expected to work with their colleagues across the political spectrum. They negotiate and build agreement.

When compared to the government in Westminster, the difference is noticeable. Whilst the Labour Party won a huge majority, they have always struggled with legitimacy because they did not possess the support of the majority of the nation.

England’s growing mismatch

These results in Scotland are all the more important now as England is changing. The two-party system no longer exists, five-party politics looks to be there to stay. However, the voting system hasn’t caught up.

If we refuse to recognise that First Past the Post cannot keep up with these changes in voting patterns then our parliaments in Westminster will be even more random and governments will rely on even smaller shares of the vote and be even more fragile.

Scotland sets a different standard; voters have a range of views, and their government reflects that diverse range. The responsibility is on the politicians to work together in the best interests of the entire population, not to play one part of the country off another or claim a mandate that was never actually given.

The flaws of Scotland’s voting system make up the entirety of Westminster’s. Scotland’s system isn’t perfect, but it is recognisably fairer than Westminster’s. 

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The 2024 General Election in Scotland was a one-sided affair. Scottish Labour won 35.3% of the vote in Scotland and 64.9% of the available seats. While the SNP came a narrow second place on 30% of the vote and won 15.8% of the seats. The polls may have shifted since then, but can we expect to see a similar result in the Holyrood election this May?

Thankfully, elections to the Scottish Parliament in Holyrood do not work the same way as in Westminster. The Additional Member System we use was designed to be more balanced, to reflect how people vote rather than just who comes first. And understanding how that works helps explain both the strengths and the limits of the system.

Two votes, two different jobs

At a Scottish Parliament election, every voter casts two votes. One is for a local constituency MSP, and one is for a party or candidate on a regional list.

There are 129 MSPs in total. Of these, 73 are elected in constituencies, while 56 are elected from regional lists, across eight regions.

The first vote works in a familiar way to Westminster. Each constituency elects one MSP using first past the post, so the candidate with the most votes wins, even if the majority didn’t vote for them. First Past the Post can lead to the kind of crazy results we saw in Westminster, so this is where the second vote comes in.

This vote is used to allocate additional “list” seats, designed to balance out the results and make them more proportional overall – so Scotland’s parliament more closely matches how Scotland voted.

How the list system corrects results

After constituency MSPs are announced, the list votes are counted. Seats are then allocated to make the parliament more closely match how Scots voted in the regional list contest.

This means that parties which have done well in constituencies are less likely to gain list seats, as they already won their fair share of seats in the constituency contest. Parties that have been squeezed out locally therefore have a better chance of representation through the list.

It is often described as a “top-up” system. And that is exactly what it is meant to do. But topping up only works if there is enough room to do it. With 73 constituency seats and only 56 list seats, more than half of the Parliament is still elected using first past the post. We’ve previously written about how this could be improved to better represent how Scots vote.

Getting the most out of your vote

What does this all mean? The key thing to remember is that this is not a Westminster-style election. Holyrood’s voting system wants you to be represented in Parliament.

The typical region contains nine constituency seats and seven regional ones. As a result, a party or independent candidate needs to win around 6% in a region to win a seat. As long as you vote for a party that has at least this level of support, you should win representation in parliament.

If you support a party that is very popular in your region, there is a chance they will win their fair share, or more, of seats in the constituency contest, so they can’t win any more from the second vote contest. Should you split your vote then, and cast the second ballot for a different party? It depends on your appetite for risk. If your preferred party doesn’t end up winning all the constituency seats you expected, your clever tactical game could backfire as they miss out on list seats, due to a lack of list votes.

As Scottish voters prepare to go to the polls in May, they can do so knowing that their vote will count and the parliament elected will be representative – a luxury most voters in England don’t have in their local elections on the same day. And now, after 25 years of fair elections in Scotland, surely it’s time Westminster caught up and ensured that voters in England could vote with the same peace of mind.

If you care about the quality of our elections, join the Electoral Reform Society today

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When the Scottish Parliament was created, it was built to be different to Westminster. A system designed to reflect how all Scots voted, not just who comes first in each area.

Scotland uses what is called the Additional Member System. You get two votes. One for a local MSP, decided by First Past the Post – just like down in Westminster. And one for a party, used to top up the result so Parliament better reflects how people voted. As people can feel forced to vote tactically under First Past the Post, the system tries to get parliament to match how people vote in the second, party ballot.

In total, there are 129 MSPs. But here is the key detail: 73 are elected by first past the post, and only 56 from regional lists.

First Past the Post still distorts Scottish politics

First Past the Post is a crude voting system. Candidates can win a seat even if the majority didn’t vote for them. The same share of the vote can see one MP lose their seat while a neighbour celebrates a victory. And millions of votes can end up making no difference at all.

We already see this clearly at Westminster, where the UK-wide Labour party won a landslide (63.2%) of the seats in 2024, on a third of the vote (33.7%). In Scotland, Scottish Labour won 35.3% of the vote and a whopping 64.9% of Scottish MPs.

Thankfully we would never see a result like this in the Scottish Parliament, as the Additional Member System works to even out results that ignore the will of the Scottish people. But here is where the balance matters, because the more seats decided by First Past the Post, the harder it is for the regional lists to correct unfair results.

The Additional Member System can be designed on a spectrum. Do you have two thirds First Past the Post and one third List? Or closer to half and half? The more First Past the Post seats you have, the less proportional the system becomes. The Scottish Parliament’s 73:56 split means the majority of seats are decided with First Past the Post.

When votes and seats don’t quite match

This shows up in real elections like 2011. The SNP won 44% of the list vote and 45% across the constituencies. But this gave them 69 seats in total – 53% of the total. It’s nowhere near a Westminster-style results, but it is still nearly 10 percentage points off.

That is not as wildly disproportionate as First Past the Post alone would have been. The SNP won 53 of the 73 First Past the Post constituencies in this election, nearly three quarters of the available seats on fewer than half the votes.

Smaller parties, meanwhile, rely heavily on the list system to gain representation. And when there are not enough list seats, that representation is squeezed.

In the Lothians, the SNP won eight of the nine constituency seats – and thus half of all the seats in the region – despite winning just over 39% of the list vote. Its proportionate entitlement was seven seats. The ‘extra’ SNP seat would otherwise have been won by the Liberal Democrats who, as a result, failed to secure any representation in the region.

The result is a Parliament that is far better at representing voters than Westminster, but still not fully reflective of Scotland.

A simple fix that would make a big difference

While I’ve previously highlighted the problems with the way seats are allocated and the impact of regional rather than national top up lists, the solution to the problem of too many First Past the Post seats is not complicated.

Increase the number of list seats. Reduce the number of first past the post constituencies.

All you need is to shift the balance to closer to half and half, to allow the “top-up” part of the system to actually do its job. You reduce the distortions caused by constituency results, but keep the benefit of each area having a single go-to MSP. And you bring seats closer in line with votes.

Other countries using similar systems already do this. In places like Germany and New Zealand, list seats play a much larger role in balancing the outcome. That is why their parliaments tend to reflect how people vote more closely.

Voters in the 1997 devolution referendum were voting on a promise of a parliament that was not like Westminster. That promise was delivered, but we can shift the balance further towards Scottish voters.

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Everyone knows that First Past the Post favours the largest party. At the last Westminster election, Labour managed to turn 34% of the vote into 63% of parliament – a full 29 percentage points more. Thankfully we don’t use this system in Holyrood, but even here the largest party still gets an uplift. In 2011, for instance, the SNP won 54% of the Scottish parliament on 44% of the vote – 10 percentage points more.

The Scottish Parliament is made up of constituency MPs elected under First Past the Post, and regional ‘additional’ members that are supposed to even out the distortions of the constituency results. So why does the Holyrood system still tend to favour larger parties?

After the 2011 Scottish election Professor Sir John Curtice and Dr Martin Steven looked at the results for our report The 2011 Scottish Parliament election In-depth. They found that there are three key features of the system that give rise to this tendency:

A regional, rather than a national, system of proportional representation

Scotland’s 56 additional members are not allocated in proportion to each party’s share of the list vote across the country as a whole. Rather, they are allocated separately in each of eight regions. The typical region contains nine constituency seats and seven regional ones. As a result, a party needs to win just over 1/17th of the vote, or 5.9%, in a region to be sure of winning a seat – and in practice is certainly likely to require more than 5%. Parties that cannot pass this de facto threshold remain unrepresented, leaving more seats to be allocated to other larger parties.

For example, in 2011, both the Liberal Democrats and the Greens struggled to win seats. In winning just over 5% of the vote the Liberal Democrats only managed to secure representation in four regions, leaving their vote elsewhere unrepresented. With only 4.4% of the vote this fate befell the Greens in six regions. Together with the fact that apart from the independent candidate, Margo MacDonald, in Lothian, none of the smaller parties or independent candidates managed to win any seats, despite collectively winning nearly 8% of the list vote across Scotland as a whole, a significant body of votes did not contribute to the election of any candidate, thereby leaving more seats to be allocated to larger parties including, not least, the SNP.

There are too many First Past the Post seats

Additional seats account for fewer than half the seats in all regions. As a result, if a party is particularly successful in winning constituency seats there may be insufficient additional seats for it to be possible to correct fully the disproportionality created by the outcome in the constituencies.

In the Lothians region in 2011, the SNP won eight of the nine constituency seats – and thus half of all the seats in the region – despite winning just over 39% of the list vote. Its proportionate entitlement was seven seats. The ‘extra’ SNP seat would otherwise have been won by the Liberal Democrats who, as a result, failed to secure any representation in the region.

The d’Hondt method favours larger parties

The regional seats are distributed using the d’Hondt method. This method tends to favour larger parties, making it particularly difficult for a party to win its first seat. Alternative methods are available that do not have this property. In particular, the Sainte-Laguë method treats both large and smaller parties equally.

The use of the d’Hondt system clearly favoured the larger parties and made it more difficult for smaller parties to secure representation. Taking the West of Scotland region as an example, both Labour and the SNP would have won one seat less, while both the Liberal Democrats and the Greens would have secured a seat instead of being left without any representation.

West of Scotland Region

For the sake of clarity, votes for smaller parties have been excluded.

Forming a more perfect parliament

Put together, each of these features played some role in generating the disproportionality in 2011. No electoral arrangement is perfect, and if there are improvements to be made, we should not be afraid to make them. While a full upgrade to the ERS’ prefered system, the Single Transferable Vote, is one option. Improvements can be made to the current system by changing the balance of seats, electing members nationally, or using a fairer voting formula. Either way, Scotland should look again at how its parliament is elected. Further reform would help make Holyrood more democratic, more representative, and better able to serve everyone in Scotland.

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Scotland’s Parliament has always been better at representing the political makeup of Scotland than Westminster. A parliament where votes mattered more, where power was shared, and where the political map reflected how people actually voted.

The regional list system is the way this happens. It balances out the warping effect of the constituency results and corrects the unfairness. But the way we count those regional votes matters just as much as the fact we have them.

Right now, Scotland uses the D’Hondt method to allocate regional seats. There is another option, Sainte-Laguë, that would do a better job of matching seats to votes. For the voter, the process would be exactly the same as it is now, but the results would be a better match to how Scotland voted.

How D’Hondt and Sainte-Laguë work

Named after their inventors, D’Hondt and Sainte-Laguë are ways of sharing out seats between parties. Each region elects a group of representatives. To decide who they are, they count up how many votes each party gets and the party with the most votes gets the first seat. Each time a party wins a seat, its total number of votes is divided by a number. The party with the biggest remaining number gets the next seat, and the process repeats.

The difference is the number we divide by. With D’Hondt, we divide by 1, then 2, then 3, and so on. This means big parties stay near the front of the queue for longer. With Sainte-Laguë, we divide by 1, then 3, then 5, then 7. That gives smaller parties a fairer chance.

D’Hondt’s method favours the biggest parties

While D’Hondt’s method is far fairer than First Past the Post, in practice, D’Hondt often over-rewards parties that have already done well in constituencies. That weakens the purpose of the regional seats, which are meant to balance things out.

You can see this clearly in Scottish Parliament history. In 2011, the SNP won a slim majority on 44% of the vote. That result was driven by constituency success, but D’Hondt limited how much the regional list could correct the imbalance. 

What Sainte-Laguë would change

A change to Sainte-Laguë’s method would spread seats more evenly and makes sure regional votes do what voters expect them to do. Countries like Norway, Sweden and New Zealand use Sainte-Laguë or close versions of it. These are stable democracies with strong parliaments and high public trust.

Sainte-Laguë would mean that the regional lists would do a better job at balancing out the distorting effect of the first Past the Post constituencies, and reduce the gap between the vote share and seat share of the bigger parties.

In 2011, polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice looked at what happened in the West of Scotland region, and what could have happened if we had used Sainte-Lague.

Source: The 2011 Scottish Parliament election In-depth Prof John Curtice & Dr Martin Steven. For the sake of clarity, votes for smaller parties have been excluded.

A small change with a big impact

This is not a radical redesign. It is a technical fix that honours the spirit of devolution.

Scotland chose a proportional parliament because it wanted cooperation, diversity and fairness. The Sainte-Laguë method fits that vision better than D’Hondt ever has.

If we care about making every vote count, we should care about how we count them.

Sometimes democracy improves not through grand reforms, but through getting the details right.

Support the Electoral Reform Society

As momentum builds for electoral reform, your support is more important than ever. Members support our work in parliament, in the press and at conferences like this one – making the case and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system.

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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.

If you care about the quality of our elections, join the Electoral Reform Society today

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This summer, I visited Folkemødet, Denmark’s annual democracy festival held in the coastal town of Allinge on the island of Bornholm. It’s a place where citizens, politicians, NGOs, and businesses gather in a relaxed, open-air setting to engage in democratic dialogue and debate.

What struck me most wasn’t just the scale – over 2,500 events and tens of thousands of participants – but the tone. Disagreements were aired, but rarely did they descend into hostility. The environment – sunshine, sea breeze, and informal spaces – seemed to soften the edges of political conflict. It made me wonder: does the setting shape the spirit of our democratic conversations?

In Scotland, our democratic spaces are often formal, adversarial, and disconnected from everyday life. Trust in our institutions – parliament, government, political parties – is in decline. Westminster’s electoral systems distort representation, and many feel unheard. But Folkemødet reminded me that democracy is not just about structures, it’s about relationships, rituals, and place.

Lessons for Scotland

1. Democracy Needs Place
   Folkemødet is rooted in a physical space that invites openness. Could we imagine a Scottish equivalent – perhaps on one of our islands – where citizens and leaders gather annually to talk about the future? A “Scottish Folkemødet” could be a civic ritual to reconnect people with politics.

2. Trust is Built Through Proximity
   When politicians sit beside citizens on hay bales rather than behind podiums, something shifts. We need formats that break down hierarchy and foster genuine dialogue. Scotland’s Citizens’ Assembly, launched in 2019, was a step in this direction, and now we are working with others to see if local assemblies like the one we are piloting in Dunfermline could become part of the everyday fabric of governance.

3. Electoral Reform is Only Part of the Puzzle
   The Electoral Reform Society has long argued for proportional representation, and rightly so. But we also need civic infrastructure, such as festivals, assemblies, and forums, that make democracy feel real and inclusive.

4. Responding to Distrust Means Reimagining Democracy
   A major study from the University of Southampton shows that trust in representative institutions is falling across democracies, including the UK. Yet, support for democratic ideals remains high. This suggests that people aren’t rejecting democracy, they’re rejecting how it’s currently practised.

Looking Back to Move Forward

Scotland has a proud history of civic mobilisation. The Scottish Constitutional Convention, formed in 1989, brought together parties, churches, and civic groups to shape the framework for devolution. It was messy, imperfect, but it worked – because it was rooted in dialogue and shared purpose.

Folkemødet offers a modern echo of that spirit. It’s a reminder that democracy can be joyful, messy, and deeply human. In Scotland, we have the creativity, the community spirit, and the hunger for change. Maybe it’s time we built our own spaces—literal and metaphorical—where democracy can grow and flourish.

Find out more about the Dunfermline New City Assembly

Discover more about the project

Last week, Dunfermline took another confident stride toward becoming a beacon of democratic innovation in Scotland. On Tuesday, Public Finance Minister Ivan McKee visited the Abbeyview Community Hub to meet with local councillors, Fife Council officers, and our team at ERS Scotland to hear firsthand how this is happening. At the heart of this progress is the Dunfermline New City Assembly, a pilot Citizens’ Assembly designed to give residents a real say in shaping the future of their city.

The Minister’s visit was more than symbolic—it was a recognition of the growing momentum behind community-led decision-making. As he put it:

“Empowering local communities to play a greater role in key decisions in their area is vital to increasing democratic engagement.”

We couldn’t agree more.

A new model for local power

Citizens’ Assemblies are not just talking shops. When done right, they offer a structured, inclusive space for people to deliberate on the issues that matter most—housing, transport, climate, local services—and to propose real solutions. The Dunfermline pilot is part of a broader Scottish Government commitment to community empowerment and democratic renewal, and we hope will provide loads of learning on how to upgrade local democracy so that peoples hopes and fears are heard and responded to.  This could be a crucial technique in helping people to run their own place and so rebuild trust in democracy.

At ERS Scotland, we’ve been working closely with Fife Council and local partners to ensure the Assembly reflects the diversity and lived experience of Dunfermline’s residents. That means outreach, listening, and co-designing the process with the community as well as using the tried and tested method of ‘Sortition’ to ensure those on the assembly are a good representative sample of Dunfermline as a whole and includes voices that are too often unheard.

As I said during the Minister’s visit:

“The opportunity to have the people who live here address how the growth and change of their city can best serve them is a nationally important test of how to make democracy work for everyone.”

What Happens Next?

Over the last year we’ve been laying the groundwork – raising awareness that this is happening, beginning to explain to the community how the assembly will work, what might be possible and what might not be, designing the Assembly’s structure, identifying key themes, and ensuring inclusive participation.

In October, a letter will go out to tens of thousands of Dunfermline households asking them if they would like to take part, those that are interested will be put into a structured lottery designed so that we will be able to invite a representative group of residents to take part in the Assembly,  it will convene over three weekends in January and February 2026. These lucky selected citizens will all receive an honorarium payment for their public service.
It will be a chance for a representative group of Dunfermline citizens to deliberate, reflect, and propose recommendations to the City of Dunfermline Area Committee. It’s democracy in action—local, participatory, and rooted in lived experience.

Join the Movement

If you live in Dunfermline or care about the future of local democracy, we invite you to sign the Dunfermline Declaration. It’s a simple but powerful way to show your support for a more participatory and community-led approach to decision-making.

As Cllr James Calder, Chair of Dunfermline Area Committee, put it:

“Dunfermline New City Assembly will give residents a real voice in shaping the future of our city.”

This, it is becoming true and clear to see, is what will give people a renewed confidence and support for democratic local governance. We know how important this is and are determined to make it a success.

Find out more about the Dunfermline New City Assembly

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Sometimes it is useful to take some time to digest an event fully, and come to some considerations about it. A few weeks ago, on April 26th, the Electoral Reform Society Scotland collaborated with a range of civic organisations, democracy campaigners and academics to bring together a conference titled: A Scottish Spring – Building a democracy fit for the 21st Century.

Taking place against a backdrop of political polarisation, institutional alienation and rising anxiety about the future, the event sought to discuss a variety of topics, seeking answers to some big questions. How could we enhance and encourage a culture of debate and consensus building? How can we take the debate about Scotland’s constitutional future forward in an inclusive and constructive way? After 25 years of devolution, what next for the Scottish Parliament? What is the role of civic Scotland in politics and society today? How can local democracy be more responsive to local communities? How can we overcome performative policy, and address the implementation gap?

In the heart of Edinburgh, people from across Scotland packed into The Great Hall in Nicolson Square to join the debate. The day started with Willie Sullivan, ERS Senior Director, in conversation with Professor Nicola McEwen, Director of the Centre for Public Policy. They set out the broad issues confronting democracy today, and set an open and discursive tone for the event. We also wanted to ensure that we were able to assess the public mood, and commissioned exclusive polling for the event to aid in this process. In the next session, Mark Diffley of Diffley Partnership who conducted the survey, provided an overview of some of the most important findings. These findings reached the front page in the Herald on the eve of the conference.

This was followed by a fascinating discussion on the constitutional divide, and the post-2014 landscape. Dr Lynn Bennie, co-author of Parties, Movements and the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum: Explaining the Post-Referendum Party Membership Surges, joined Ben Macpherson, SNP MSP and Katy Clark, Labour MSP. The panel invited a range of interesting questions from the audience, and there was a sense that while Scotland was entering a post-referendum era, there had also to be an inclusive and non-tribal approach to the Scotland’s constitutional status.

Building on these themes, we then moved into a Question Time style format to appraise the Scottish Parliament, the role of civic Scotland and the state of local democracy. Esther Roberton, former Coordinator of the Scottish Constitutional Convention; Alison Payne, Research Director, Reform Scotland Think Tank; Craig Dalzell, Research Director, Common Weal; and Pauline Smith, Development Trusts Association Scotland provided a wealth of experience and expertise on these subjects, and again we were not short on pressing questions from the floor.

To finish we were treated to a fantastic panel composed of Mark Drakeford, the Former First Minister of Wales; Eddie Barnes, Director, John Smith Centre and Lena Swedlow, Compass Campaigns Manager. Lena spoke in the most inspiring way about the involvement of young people in democracy, and her own experiences of campaigning to make our institutions more responsive and accountable. Eddie made the case for the virtue and importance of being able to “disagree agreeably.” This is a cornerstone of a vibrant democracy. Mark provided an outline of his thinking in a deeply thoughtful key-note speech about a union of nations based on social solidarity, and about the role democracy can play in creating a society in which people from all backgrounds can thrive.

The event was the first public outing after a period of roundtable discussions with the speakers and organisations involved. In the coming months there will be further opportunities for such an approach, as Scotland enters into key set of Holyrood elections, which will see the entry of new parties, new challenges and new opportunities in democratic space.

Support ERS Scotland

As momentum builds for electoral reform, your support is more important than ever. Members support our work in parliament, in the press and at events like this one – making the case, and backing it up – for how we can fix Westminster’s broken system.

Become a member today from just £2 a month

On March 7th voters in Hillhead in Glasgow will be heading to the polls for a council by-election. Among those standing are candidates from the Scottish Greens and Independent Green Voice (IGV) – plenty of choice for environmentally-minded Glaswegians, you might think. But Independent Green Voice is far from what you might expect from the name. 

Independent Green Voice has been called a ‘Fascist front’ by the Scottish Greens. While labels are sometimes thrown around excessively, in this case, IGV’s candidate in this by-election was thrown out of UKIP for questioning the use of gas chambers in the Holocaust. 

 It’s not the first time they have run candidates, in fact in the last set of Scottish Parliamentary elections they ran candidates in the regional list vote, in five Scottish regions. They didn’t release a manifesto, but their candidates won 9,756 votes across Scotland – not enough to get near to having anyone elected, but assuming these voters were confused by the party’s name, enough votes to deprive the Scottish Greens of two extra MSPs. 

We can’t say for sure what the 9,756 voters thought they were doing, or the true nature of Independent Green Voice. But it does remind us of the reason you can’t just call your political party anything you like in the UK.  

The Literal Democrat 

In 1994, the country was getting ready for the European Parliamentary Elections. Back then, elections for the European Parliament were conducted with First Past the Post. In the Devon and East Plymouth constituency, the Liberal Democrats were excited about picking up the seat, but it would be a close-run thing against the Conservatives.   

On a turnout of 236,335, the Conservative candidate won by 700 votes. Glancing down the results though, 10,203 people had voted for Richard Huggett, described as the Literal Democrat.  

The result was the eventual passing of the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998, banning party names designed to cause confusion with voters. The Electoral Commission evidently decided that Independent Green Voice was a sufficiently different name. 

It’s a trick that’s still used around the world though. In 2021, Russian opposition candidate Boris Vishnevsky found that he was standing against two other Boris Vishnevskys, both that looked suspiciously similar to him. 

To split the vote, you need some votes to not matter 

In Devon and East Plymouth, and in the Scottish regions, these small parties with similar names drew sufficient votes away from established parties to cost them seats. 

With First Past the Post, this is because you don’t need to win a majority to get elected, just be the party with the most votes. To get the most votes you can try and win more votes yourself, or try and reduce the amount of votes of your main competitor. But you don’t need to win these votes yourself – as long as your main competitor loses them, it doesn’t matter where they go. 

In Scotland’s regional list election, significantly more votes matter for the end result, as they use proportional representation. But it’s still possible to split the vote, as long as the votes go to very small parties. In any election, even with proportional representation, there are going to be parties that get so few votes that they can’t win representation. 

Are voters set for a repeat in Hillhead? 

So, will voters in Hillhead have to study their ballot papers with more care than usual? Thankfully elections to Scottish councils are conducted via the Single Transferable Vote. The Single Transferable Vote is a system of proportional representation, but with an added benefit. Voters directly elect candidates (rather than voting for a party) by numbering the candidates in order with their favourite at number one, and second favourite and so on. 

If a candidate has so few votes, they will never win election, the candidate is excluded and votes that are sitting with them are transferred to the voter’s second favourite candidate. So rather than the voter wasting their vote, it can come back into play and still make a difference to the result.  

Voters shouldn’t have to spend their time trying to avoid electoral tricks and traps. We need electoral systems that work for voters, not systems voters have to work around.

Do you think we should have a fair and proportional electoral system in Westminster?

Add your name to our call to scrap First Past the Post