Holyrood needs electoral reform: 2026 was Scotland’s least representative election

This week’s Scottish election must be a wake up call to the serious flaws underpinning the Scottish Parliament. The Additional Member System is a massive improvement on First Past the Post, and was proposed by the Scottish Constitutional Convention to deliver proportionality, but this week the voting system produced a parliament with a major mismatch between seats and votes.

Seats did not match votes in 2026

The SNP will return to government on a reduced count of 58 seats – that’s 45% of seats available on 27.2% of the list vote (which is meant to determine the overall representation of the parliament) and 38.2% of the constituency vote. That big mismatch between votes cast and seats won is not being given the attention it deserves.

In fact, if seats matched list votes (which again are meant to shape parties’ overall representation in parliament and correct constituency overrepresentation) the SNP would have won 40 seats, according to analysis by Ballot Box Scotland.

And if we look at how the Additional Member System is supposed to work, whereby regional seats act as a counterweight to overrepresentation on the constituency ballots, the SNP are seriously overrepresented in 2026.

Overhangs occur when a party wins more seats than it should be entitled to if seats were allocated purely on the list vote in each region. On this metric, 2026 is Scotland’s least representative election: the party now 18 overhangs, and the election has the highest ever Gallagher Index (13.7), a good measure of proportionality, with the high being more unrepresentative. In contrast, in 1999 and 2003 there were seven overhangs each won primarily by the then dominant Scottish Labour and previous elections have had Gallagher scores far lower.

Were results proportional within each region as intended, the result would be:SNP: 40 (-18)Reform: 23 (+6)Labour: 21 (+4)Green: 20 (+5)Conservative: 14 (+2)Lib Dem: 11 (+1)If that'd happened it have been first time with any more than two parties on at least 20 MSPs! Big, big difference.
— Ballot Box Scotland (@ballotbox.scot) 2026-05-10T11:52:09.820Z

We avoided the nightmare for democracy scenario

Thankfully the SNP did not win an unrepresentative majority on similar votes shares to what ended up being the case, a result that would have been worthy of First Past the Post, but we’re still left with Scotland’s most disproportional election yet.

Whatever your political persuasion, whatever party you support, and whatever your constitutional views, this is wrong. And the same would be said for any party in a similar situation. Here, the SNP benefitted at the expense of Reform, the Greens, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Scottish Labour used to benefit in the early days of the parliament although not to this extent. In the future, any other party, such as Reform, could unfairly benefit from this.

The Additional Member System needs reform

I’ve long been banging the drum on the systemic design weakness of Holyrood’s elections, which threatened itself with the potential distortion from Alba’s planned Scottish independence majority in 2021. Thankfully, that didn’t materialise. But the drum still needs to be banged. The warning signs have been around for a long time. And yet here we are.

Scotland’s new MSPs should recognise that the way they were elected, while all fair and proper in the process-sense, goes squarely against the principles defining this voting system.

Why the Additional Member System isn’t working

The main problem shaping this major mismatch in seats and votes is the imbalanced ratio of constituency seats to list seats (73 (57%) to 56 (43%)), bringing with it all the disadvantages of FPTP. The list seats, fixed at 56, only go so fast in limiting disproportionality.

In 2026, this was exposed by the SNP’s dominance in winning constituency seats, bolstered by them being the only party standing in most constituencies on one side of a political divide that defines Scottish politics (independence). The SNP aren’t that far ahead of other parties but their success in constituency seats is significantly beyond a fragmented unionist opposition and is advantaged by the limited Scottish Green presence and a four-way split among unionist parties.

Options for reform

At a minimum, this should be addressed perhaps by adding additional seats in each region to even out the ratio (an additional two seats per region would take the total seat-count to 145 MSPs, arguably more reflective of a parliament with additional powers). This would go some way to fixing the problem, but wouldn’t be perfect (the SNP won four overhang seats in the North East of Scotland). Or else by introducing levelling seats to address overhangs (where parties win more constituencies than they would be entitled to on a purely proportional system) like in New Zealand.

But problems extend beyond this flaw, the other big problem being that lists are closed, limiting voter power over individual candidates.

The answer to this unrepresentative outcome is a serious review of Holyrood’s electoral foundations and its eventual reform, leading to a modified Additional Member System or the adoption of a system such as the Single Transferable Vote (if designed well) or even Open-List Proportional Representation with levelling seats. STV is already used successfully in Scottish local government while Open List PR would be an upgrade on Wales’ new system, which has abolished its First Past the Post element.

This election should be a wake up call for Scotland’s politicians. The route to change is a two-thirds majority, a hefty mountain to climb but not insurmountable. The 2031 election must be held under a fairer system.

Making the case for electoral reform at Holyrood elsewhere

I’ve been writing extensively about the flaws of the Additional Member System in Scotland in a series of outlets since the election.

These will be listed here.