Will the Scottish Parliament change its voting system?

By Richard Wood

Concern is growing ahead of the 2026 election that the result after 7 May will be the most unrepresentative Scottish Parliament vote ever.

Proportionality was one of the founding principles of the design of Scotland’s Additional Member System. It’s not perfect, but since 1999 seats have broadly matched votes. Now, due to a combination of the imbalance of constituency to list seats (73 to 56) and one party expected to do well in constituencies despite falling well short of a majority of the constituency vote, the next Scottish Parliament is likely to fall well short of the proportional standards expected.

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Are MSPs able to abolish the Additional Member System?

If election projections come true, the next parliament must seize the moment and find consensus to fix Holyrood’s creaking voting system.

The way to do this is through a Bill passed with a supermajority in Holyrood. That’s two-thirds of MSPs. Therefore any change requires broad consensus from multiple parties to meet the magic number of 86 MSPs.

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Is change likely?

The possibility of electoral reform in Scotland depends on what happens after the election. The bigger the disproportionality, the more pressure there will be on MSPs and ministers to act.

The SNP, Lib Dems and Scottish Greens all support Proportional Representation. And together, they are likely to have a two-thirds majority, but finding agreement on the type of reform will be the challenge – not to mention conflicts in the SNP about maintaining the status-quo for their own advantage versus their commendable party stance on the issue.

There are certainly issues needing ironed out. But there is precedent for this in the devolution era. In Wales, Labour and Plaid Cymru came together to abolish the Additional Member System ahead of their own 2026 vote, and in Scotland, the Lib Dems convinced their coalition partners Labour to introduce STV for Scottish local government.

Holyrood is turning 30 in the next parliament. It’s time to review Scotland’s democratic foundations and reform the voting system once and for all.

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