Scotland’s voting system has come under fire on our Letters Pages, with one correspondent arguing that the fact that it has led to two members of the minority Scottish Green Party entering government shows that it is manifestly unfair.
Today, however, a reader explains why he believes it to be much superior to the first past the post system used for Westminster elections.
James Gilmour of Edinburgh writes:
Bob Hamilton suggests that elections to the Scottish Parliament are no more fair and no more representative than they would be if we elected our MSPs by the first past the post (FPTP) voting system we use to elect MPs to the UK Parliament at Westminster.
At the last UK General Election the Conservative Party won 43.6% of the votes, for which the FPTP voting system gave it 56.2% of the seats: an 80-seat majority over all other parties. The FPTP constituency results from the 2021 election to the Scottish Parliament show just how fair and representative our parliament might have been if we had elected it that way. The SNP won 47.7% of the constituency votes, for which the FPTP voting system gave it 84.9% of the seats: a crushing majority over all other parties.
Fortunately, the Additional Member System we use to elect the Scottish Parliament provided a corrective rebalance. With 47.7% of the constituency vote and 40.3% of the regional vote, the AMS voting system gave the SNP 49.6% of the seats, one seat short of an overall majority. Later, the SNP decided to form a majority coalition with the Greens; together the two parties had 49% of the constituency votes and 48.4% of the regional votes.
The Additional Member System is not the best voting system, but it certainly delivers fairer and more representative results than first past the post alone.
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