Vote for change

The system used to elect MSPS has been called into question by the head of the Scottish Parliament, who admits its “hard to understand.”

We need an independent investigation into how well things have been run, if we are getting value for money and if it has been worth it, seeing how it has been used to divide Scotland. Then we need a vote on shutting down the failed experiment.

Mike Lowery The late, great Donald Dewar, the architect of the first Scotland Act, based the Holyrood voting system on the Mixed Member Proportional electoral system, which replaced first past the post ( FPTP), and has been used at General Elections since 1993.

Samuel Coldstream It had nothing to do with Dewar, the electoral system ( De Hondt) was deliberately

chosen by the Scottish Convention to keep any party – but particularly the SNP – from gaining a majority. Thankfully it didn’t work that way. Nobody understands the thing, it is neither proportional nor entirely FPTP.

Gustav Gustavsson I favour Single Transferable Vote, STV, as the fairest system, certainly in urban areas. After all, Holyrood chose it for local elections, why not for themselves? The advantages I see are – more accurate proportionality, and potentially, a bigger say for voters as to which candidates get elected, even within a party.

Toosh

Never mind the voting system, the vast majority of MSPS are hard to fathom!

Max Mad the Pavement Warrior Green MSPS are there holding the balance of power when they’ve not even won the seats. According to the wiki explanation of this overly complicated system: “Regional party list seats are allocated to try to make sure each party has as fair a share of seats as is possible.” As fair a share? I don’t think that’s what Scotland’s voters think they’re voting for.

honeysuckle3 Scrap the list MSPS – we want to know who we are voting for, not some person selected by a party and put at the top of the list.

Aberdeenshire Why does Scotland ( pop. 5.5m) need more MSPS than the US ( pop. 265m) has Senators?

Paul Holyrood It’s pretty simple and straightforward. Every proportional system has an element of ambiguity in order to make it work but the simplest alternative is 1st past the post.

Ever Here