..Scotland and Wales Voting System

..Mayoral Elections Advisory

‘TOP-UP' SYSTEM TO EVEN THE VOTES SCORE

By Chris Mead, PA Elections Editor

Voters in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections will use a two-stage proportional representation system.
This keeps traditional first-past-the-post constituencies, linking Members directly with their electors, but also provides for further seats to be filled to "top up" parties who fare disproportionately badly in the winner-takes-all contests.

Welsh FPP seats will have new boundaries in line with proposals for Commons seats. There are also significant changes to two of the principality's top-up constituencies

Those in Scotland are unchanged, the same as the Westminster seats prior to the major alterations before the last General Election, except that Orkney and Shetland have one seat each.

Electors will have two ballot choices.
The first will be to directly elect a Member in a FPP constituency - 73 in Scotland and 40 in Wales.
The second will be cast for parties - not candidates - in ‘top-up' regional constituencies. Scots will choose 56 Members in eight constituencies for an overall total of 129.

In Wales 20 will be elected in five regional constituencies, making a grand total of 60 seats in the Assembly.
Parties will be required to submit lists of those they wish to be returned in the regional constituencies.
They will also put them in their preferred order. If a party is entitled to a seat the candidate which is top of its list will be declared elected.

In Scotland if that person has already been elected in a FPP constituency, the top up seat will go to the next on the list. In Wales candidates are not allowed to stand for both a first-past-the post constituency and a PR one. 

The votes score for each party has to be divided by the number of FPP seats it has won plus one. The party emerging with the highest figure - likely to be one scoring badly in the direct election - is then allocated the first additional seat.

The exercise is repeated with figures for each party being divided by the number of their directly elected seats plus the number of those already allocated under topping up plus one.

This process continues until all of the top-up seats are filled.
As an example, in the Scotland South constituency, at the 1999 Scottish Parliament election, six Labour, two Liberal Democrats, one Scottish National Party Member and no Tories were returned for the nine first-past-the-post seats.

The votes cast in the top-up constituency were Labour 98,836 (31%), SNP 80,059 (25.2%), Tory 68,904 (21.6%), Lib Dem 38,157 (12%). The remainder of the votes went to minor parties none of whom polled more than 13,887 votes.

The party figures have to be divided by seven - six plus one - for Labour, three - two plus one - for Lib Dems, two - one plus one for SNP - and one - zero plus one for Tories.

The result is Conservative 68,904, SNP 40,030, Labour 14,119, Lib Dem 12,719. Tories have the highest figure so they take the first of the top-up seats.

The exercise is then repeated but with the Tory vote having to be divided by two to take account of the one top-up seat they have won.

The result is SNP 40,030, Tory 34,452, Labour 14,119 and Lib Dem 12,719 with the SNP taking the second top-up seat.
Its vote is now divided by three, giving Tories 34,452, SNP 26,686, Labour 14,119 and Lib Dem 12,719 with Tories taking the third top-up seat.

This process continues until all seven top-up seats have been filled, giving Tories four and SNP three. These seats are filled from lists provided by those parties.

This puts the total of directly elected and top-up seats for each party at Labour six, SNP four, Tories four, Liberal Democrats two.

Labour ends up with 37.5% of the 16 seats, Tories and SNP 25% each, and Liberal Democrats 12.5%.
This more closely matches the share of the votes cast than just the seats won in the first-past-the-post constituencies where Labour had an overall majority.

If there are any queries, contact Chris Mead on 0870 830 6731 or through PA News main switchboard on 020 7963 7000 or PA Customer Services on 08701 202095.
From 1900 Thursday May 4: 0870 830 6731