Tag: STV

Yet another poll shows Scotland on track for an unrepresentative election due to AMS

By Richard Wood

A new poll suggests that the Scottish Parliament is on track for a highly unrepresentative election despite Holyrood’s supposedly proportional voting system.

The Ipsos Scotland Political Pulse poll for STV puts the SNP first in terms of list votes, constituency votes and projected seats.

PartyConstituency %List vote %
SNP36%26%
Labour20%19%
Green7%16%
Reform UK19%14%
Conservatives9%11%
Lib Dems10%10%

In a properly proportional system, seats should broadly match votes cast. But seat projections for this poll indicate a staggering mismatch between seats and votes.

PartySeat countSeat %
SNP6046.5%
Labour2015.5%
Green1612.4%
Reform1310.1%
Conservatives107.8%
Lib Dems107.8%

The biggest divergence between seats and votes here is with the SNP. Support for the party has fallen dramatically to 26% of list votes and 36% of seats. But projections indicate they are on track for 60 seats – almost half of those available.

READ MORE: Dual mandates ban passed unanimously in Scottish Parliament

The main driver behind this mismatch is driven by the dominance of First Past the Post seats used in Scotland’s Additional Member System, an imbalanced ratio of 73 to 56. This makes it theoretically possible for a party to win a majority on constituency seats alone.

The SNP is doing better than other competitive parties on the constituency ballot, and due to their success, they are on track to win the vast majority of constituency seats and close to a majority of seats overall.

The SNP is set to win more seats than they are entitled to if Holyrood had a mechanism to address parties winning more seats than they proportionally should on the constituency vote. In fact, Ballot Box Scotland estimates that the poll puts them on a staggering 22 seats more than what they should win if seats were determined by the proportional ballot alone in different Scottish regions.

Ipsos 19-25 Feb seat projection (vs last poll / vs 2021 on new boundaries); AMS Ideal seats:SNP ~ 60 (nc / -3); 38Lab ~ 20 (+1 / -1); 25Grn ~ 16 (-1 / +6); 22RUK ~ 13 (-4 / +13); 18Con ~ 10 (-1 / -21); 14LD ~ 10 (+5 / +6); 12(Projection caveats: ballotbox.scot/projections)

— Ballot Box Scotland (@ballotbox.scot) 2026-03-04T12:14:19.995Z

Scotland’s new Parliament is likely going to be highly disproportionate. Holyrood’s new MSPs should address this with electoral reform.

Full details of the poll from STV can be read here.

READ MORE: Scotland must follow Wales on four-year terms

The USA is moving towards Proportional Representation – one step at a time

By Richard Wood (Founder of Upgrade Holyrood, electoral reform campaigner)

The big stories of this year’s US elections were the Republican wave failing to materialise – thanks to the Democrats holding the Senate – and a razor-thin win for Republicans in the House. But November 2022 should also be remembered as a significant time for electoral reform in the USA.

Before getting into the details here, it’s worth framing the nature of electoral reform in the US. American reform movements by and large make the case for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). In the case of single-member districts, RCV is simply the Alternative Vote (used in the Australian House of Representatives) whereas multi-member RCV districts are simply the Single Transferable Vote (used for Scottish local councils, as well as elections in Ireland, Malta and the Australian Senate).

Fair Vote USA (a 30-year-old organisation) and new campaign Fix Our House both advocate for proportional US elections.

READ MORE: Canada’s 2021 election – the striking failures of First Past the Post exposed

The biggest win for Proportional Representation in November 2022 was the outcome of a referendum where people voted to adopt proportional multi-member Ranked Choice Voting.

Voters in Portland, Oregon backed wide-ranging proposals to reform the city’s charter including a provision to abolish First Past the Post voting and instead introduce multi-member districts with candidates ranked in order of preference. In 2024, the city of around 650,00 people will now have its first elections conducted under proportional Ranked Choice Voting. This is a massive win for better democracy campaigns and credit should be given to the Portland for Change campaign group who backed the reforms.

On top of that, on the other side of the country Portland, Oregon’s namesake Portland, Maine (with a population of 68,000) also voted for STV.

It’s also worth highlighting that other places voted to replace First Past the Post with RCV in single-member districts. The Alternative Vote is far from perfect for electing multi-member bodies but in the American context this is an exciting development. According to Fair Vote USA, the places that did this are: Nevada; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; Multnomah County, OR; Fort Collins, CO; Evanston, IL; Portland, ME; and Ojai, CA.

The USA is unlikely to adopt Proportional Representation at a national level any time soon, but progress is being made in the right direction. That the US’ 26th largest city voted in favour of PR should not be underestimated.

READ MORE: Scotland’s STV council elections show England a better way of doing local democracy

READ MORE: Quebec’s 2022 election – First Past the Post strikes again

Image from Pixabay (source)