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CHAPTER ONE BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
1.1 Background
- The Scottish local council elections taking place in May 2007 will use the Single Transferable Vote ( STV) electoral system for the first time
- multi-member wards with either three or four seats will be used for these elections and each party will therefore be able to nominate a maximum of three or four candidates per ward
- the STV system and multi-member candidature requires a ballot paper that allows the electorate to vote for more than one candidate from the same party - or different parties - as well as accommodate independent candidates
- four possible STV ballot designs were developed for the purposes of this research, the designs adopt the following formats:
Design 1: alphabetical listing by candidate name
Design 2: alphabetical listing by candidate name with party details in a column to the left of the candidate name
Design 3: alphabetical listing by party name, then by candidate name within party groups; independent candidates listed alphabetically at the top
Design 4: alphabetical listing by party name (in an additional column to the left of the candidate names), then by candidate name within party groups; independent candidates listed alphabetically at the top
- A similar research exercise, utilising the same methods, was carried out in July 2006 on behalf of the Electoral Commission to test possible design options for the Scottish Parliamentary election ballot papers 1.
1.2 Objectives
- research was commissioned by the Scottish Executive to test the above ballot paper designs and identify which is best suited for use in the May 2007 local council elections
- to examine responses to each of the ballot paper designs with regard to:
- overall clarity and comprehension
- usability: how easy they make it for voters to express their preferences
- layout and format
- different permutations of the design formats
- clarity and value of instructions on how to use the ballot
- possible improvements
- differences in response by demographics (age, gender, socio-economic class), locality and whether or not participants identify with a particular political party
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