Voting Systems

There were 3 voting systems in operation at the elections held on Thursday 3rd May 2007.

Electors’ Regional votes are used to elect 56 regional MSPs – seven MSPs from each of the electoral regions via the Additional Member System (AMS). Each elector votes for a political party, or individual candidate, with party candidates elected in order from the top of the party list. The political parties decide the order in which their candidates are ordered on their own party’s list. Regional seats are allocated proportionally according to the number of votes cast for each party and individual candidate across the region, and the number of constituency seats won by each party in the region (using the D'Hont calculation). The detailed working of the calculation can be found here.

The elector’s Constituency vote is used to elect one of the 73 constituency MSPs using the First Past The Post (FPTP) system. Each elector votes for a candidate in the constituency where they live. The candidate who receives the most votes wins the contest.

In regard to the Highland Council election, a new voting system called “Single Transferable Vote” (STV) was used.  Voters in each ward indicated their preference of first, second, etc candidates.  A quota and formulae system then decided who was elected, based on the preferences as indicated by the voters. The detailed working of the STV system can be found here.