Scottish Parliament and Local Government Elections

73 members are elected by the existing "first past the post" system in constituencies. 56 regional members are elected from eight regions. Seven members will be elected in each of them.

How do the Constituency Candidates get elected?

The constituency representatives are elected in the normal way - whoever has the most votes on the PURPLE ballot paper wins.

How do the Regional Candidates get elected?

The Returning Officer for the Region (the Regional Returning Officer) is told by the Consituency Returning Officer who has won each of the Constituencies in the Region and how many votes have been cast for each Party or Individual Candidate (if there are any) on the PEACH ballot paper (the regional ballot paper).

The Regional Returning Officer totals the number of valid Regional votes for each Political Party and Individual Candidate and divides it by the number of Constituency seats they have won plus 1. If a Political Party or Individual Candidate has not won a Constituency seat then their votes are only divided by 1. Whoever has the highest number of votes after this division is made is then allocated the first of the seven Regional seats. Every time a Party wins a Regional seat its total regional vote is divided by 1 more. This process continues until all seven Regional seats have been allocated. This system, calculated by the d'Hondt method (so named after its Belgian inventor), is called the Additional Member System and is a system of proportional representation commonly used elsewhere in the world.

The seats each Political Party is entitled to are filled by the candidates in the order in which their names appear on a list of up to 12 names prepared by that Political Party and printed below the Party name on the PEACH ballot paper.

Registration of Political Parties

Recently Parliament decided that Political Parties should be registered if they wished to put forward lists of candidates under their Party name. The Registration of Political Parties Act allows Political Parties to register their name and up to 3 emblems with the Registrar of Political Parties at Companies House. Consequently it is likely that one of each Party's emblems will appear on the ballot papers. This will apply also for all future elections.

Electoral Administration

The administration of these elections has also changed. There will be a Constituency Returning Officer for each of the 73 Scottish Parliamentary constituencies and a Regional Returning Officer for each of the eight Regions. There will, as usual, be a Local Government Returning Officer for the Local Government elections.

The Constituency Returning Officer will act as the "Primary" Returning Officer. They are responsible for the combined functions common to the Scottish Parliament and Local Government elections.

Purpose of this Guidance Manual

The purpose of this manual is to provide Presiding Officers and Polling Clerks with information on the election procedure and to promote good practice in the polling station. It is not intended as a comprehensive guide to electoral legislation.