Falkirk South will go the polls this week to elect a new councillor.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is on the campaign trail in the ward this week, visiting local businesses as he aims to get the vote out.

Voters will have their say on Thursday, but in the meantime here's what you need to know.

Why has the by-election been called?

Euan Stainbank was elected as the MP for Falkirk in this summer's general election, and therefore resigned his seat as a councillor.

He was elected at the 2022 local elections, receiving 1,364 first preference votes in the first round behind Lorna Binnie of the SNP and Sarah Patrick of the Conservatives.

By the fifth round he reached the 1,527 to be elected.

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How does the voting work?

Local council elections in Scotland use the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.

Voters rank the candidates in order of preference, with a minimum percentage needed to be elected.

If no winner can be found in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their second preference votes are re-allocated, with the process repeating until there is a winner.

Should a seat be taken in the first round, that candidate's 'excess' votes are redistributed to their second preference.

The total needed to be elected is the total number of votes divided by the numbers of seats available plus one, +1 vote.

A ballot box

So, in 2022 in Falkirk South there were 6,106 votes cast for three seats. That number is therefore divided by four meaning it was 1,527 votes necessary to be elected.

The SNP and the Tory candidate both achieved that in the first round, with their votes going to second choices in the second and third rounds.

The independent candidate was then eliminated, putting Mr Stainbank on 1,524 and just shy of election.

He was able to pass the threshold and beat a second SNP candidate when the Scottish Green candidate was eliminated.

On Thursday there's just one seat available, so the margin to win will be 50% + 1 vote.

Who is standing?

There are seven candidates on the ballot.

Claire Aitken is standing for Labour to replace Mr Stainbank, with Carol Ann Beattie for the SNP and David Grant for the Conservatives.

Aside from them there's Sean McCay for the Lib Dems, Tom McLaughlin for the Scottish Greens, an independent candidate named Sharron McKean and a Reform candidate, Stuart Martin.

Who will win?

Labour will be confident of retaining the seat.

There wasn't much in it between them, the SNP and the Tories in 2022 and both those parties struggled at the general election.

Ms Aitken probably won't get the 50%+1 she needs in the first or even second round but will expect to triumph on second preferences.

In 2021 a by-election Falkirk South took until the fourth round to elect an SNP councillor.

What will it tell us?

Probably not a lot.

Turnout was just  46.3% in the 2022 local council elections in this ward, and in a previous by-election in 2021 it was only 32.5%.