A guest post from Richard Laird. Richard is a Politics graduate from the University of Dundee and past parliamentary candidate for the Scottish National Party who tweets as @Richard_Laird.
Those of you who saw last night’s Newsnight Scotland will have seen Professor John Curtice raise the possibility of altering the system used to elect the Scottish Parliament. Specifically, Professor Curtice suggested changing the way regional MSPs are elected by replacing the D’Hondt formula with the Sainte-Laguë equivalent.
Named after French mathematician André Sainte-Laguë (left), and used in numerous countries as a form of proportional representation, the Sainte-Laguë method uses the same process as D’Hondt with one change: the formula. In Scotland under D’Hondt, regional seats are allocated to parties (or Independents) by dividing their regional votes by one more than the number of seats they have already won. Under Sainte-Laguë, the process is the same except the regional votes are divided by one more than double the number of seats won. In practice, this means that instead of the vote being divided by 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., it is divided by 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. Let’s look at a worked example.
Here is the (condensed) result from the West Scotland region in last week’s election:
| Con | Grn | Lab | LD | SNP | |
| Regional Votes | 35,995 | 8,414 | 92,530 | 9,148 | 117,306 |
| Constituencies | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0 | 6 |
This result meant Labour won three regional seats, the Nationalists won two, and the Conservatives also won two. If Sainte-Laguë had been used, here is how the count would have played out:
| Con | Grn | Lab | LD | SNP | |
| First Regional Seat | |||||
| Formula | 35,995/1 | 8,414/1 | 92,530/9 | 9,148/1 | 117,306/13 |
| New Total | 35,995 | 8,414 | 10,281.11 | 9,148 | 9,023.54 |
| Second Regional Seat | |||||
| Formula | 35,995/3 | 8,414/1 | 92,530/9 | 9,148/1 | 117,306/13 |
| New Total | 11,998.33 | 8,414 | 10,281.11 | 9,148 | 9,023.54 |
| Third Regional Seat | |||||
| Formula | 35,995/5 | 8,414/1 | 92,530/9 | 9,148/1 | 117,306/13 |
| New Total | 7199 | 8,414 | 10,281.11 | 9,148 | 9,023.54 |
| Fourth Regional Seat | |||||
| Formula | 35,995/5 | 8,414/1 | 92,530/11 | 9,148/1 | 117,306/13 |
| New Total | 7199 | 8,414 | 8,411.82 | 9,148 | 9,023.54 |
| Fifth Regional Seat | |||||
| Formula | 35,995/5 | 8,414/1 | 92,530/11 | 9,148/3 | 117,306/13 |
| New Total | 7199 | 8,414 | 8,411.82 | 3,049.33 | 9,023.54 |
| Sixth Regional Seat | |||||
| Formula | 35,995/5 | 8,414/1 | 92,530/11 | 9,148/3 | 117,306/15 |
| New Total | 7199 | 8,414 | 8,411.82 | 3,049.33 | 7,820.4 |
| Seventh Regional Seat | |||||
| Formula | 35,995/5 | 8,414/3 | 92,530/11 | 9,148/3 | 117,306/15 |
| New Total | 7199 | 2,804.67 | 8,411.82 | 3,049.33 | 7,820.4 |
As you can see, the Conservatives retain two seats while the Greens and LibDems each win one seat with Labour and the SNP losing out accordingly. A similar story transpires across Scotland producing a Parliament which looks like this:
| Region | Constituency | Regional | Total | Change |
| SNP | 53 | 11 | 64 | -5 |
| Lab | 15 | 19 | 34 | -3 |
| Con | 3 | 12 | 15 | ±0 |
| LD | 2 | 5 | 7 | +2 |
| Grn | 0 | 7 | 7 | +5 |
| Oth | 0 | 2 | 2 | +1 |
Because it removes the bias towards larger parties, Sainte-Laguë would have seen the Greens and Lib Dems benefit at the expense of the SNP and Labour. It would also have seen George Galloway elected in Glasgow. The reason for this is that Sainte-Laguë makes it easier for a smaller party to win a first seat, but increasingly difficult to win additional ones. Only Central Scotland would be without a Green MSP with the SNP losing its top-up seats in Mid Scotland & Fife and North-East Scotland. Overall, the regions would now look like this:
| Region | Con | Grn | Lab | LD | SNP | Oth |
| Central | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Glasgow | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| H&I | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Lothians | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| MS&F | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| North-East | 2 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| South | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| West | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
Obviously, the changes in membership would have ramifications for the functioning of the Parliament. The increase in Green MSPs would see the party given with a seat on the Parliamentary Bureau (which determines what business the Parliament will conduct) and would likely see the Greens and LibDems posing questions to the First Minister on alternating weeks, as the Greens and SSP did between 2003 and 2006. Crucially, the SNP would be one seat short of a majority and would require the support of at least one other MSP to get motions and Bills through. However, the balance of pro- and anti-independence MSPs would remain the same with five Nationalists swapped for five Greens.
In his remarks on Newsnight, Professor Curtice addressed the fact that the SNP won a majority of seats on a minority of the vote and how the Holyrood electoral system was supposed to prevent this. His suggestion of a switch from D’Hondt to Sainte-Laguë would indeed have prevented this (just!), but would not have stopped pro-independence parties winning a comfortable majority. A move to Sainte-Laguë would improve the proportionality of Holyrood, but what really distorts the outcome is the existence of constituencies electing by First-Past-the-Post and the fact that these constituencies elect a majority of MSPs. If you want a purely proportionate parliament, change that instead.
#1 by Daniel J on May 11, 2011 - 8:18 pm
Excellent Idea 😉 Do we email Salmond or Cameron…
#2 by oldchap on May 11, 2011 - 8:20 pm
Does look a bit closer to me. I’m sure the layout of this will get mucked up, but the seat shares are much closer to the national vote shares:
dh seats sl seats share dh share sl share
SNP 69 64 44.00% 53.49% 49.61%
Lab 37 34 26.30% 28.68% 26.36%
Con 15 15 12.40% 11.63% 11.63%
LD 5 7 5.20% 3.88% 5.43%
Grn 2 7 4.40% 1.55% 5.43%
MM 1 1 0.90% 0.78% 0.78%
GG 0 1 0.40% 0.00% 0.78%
We can but wonder. I agree though – better would be to move to more like 50% of seats from the lists, or have a few more seats from an all-Scotland list (I read about a country that does that recently, it may even have been here…)
But what chance that the system would be changed?
#3 by Daniel J on May 11, 2011 - 8:35 pm
I imagine the closest possible change will be if Scotland votes Yes to independence, we can’t toddle along with our wee parliament and I assume we would have another Constitutional Convention as we did before Devolution.
#4 by Malc on May 11, 2011 - 8:36 pm
If we had a national list for the 56 list MSPs and still used D’Hondt, we’d see the following breakdown:
SNP 6 list (59 total)
Labour 20 list (35)
Conservative 13 list (16)
Liberal Democrat 5 list (7)
Green 5
Pensioners 2
Socialist Lab Party 1
Scottish Christian 1
BNP 1
Margo 1
UKIP 1
I’ll probably make a post out of this – I did it previously with the older results – but just thought it useful for comparison here.
#5 by oldchap on May 11, 2011 - 8:50 pm
That would work too (found your post on that quite interesting as well) but I meant an extra list on top of the region lists we have rather than replacing them all. So something like:
73 constituency msps
56 regional list msps
17 all scotland msps
– the all scotland list determined once the regions were sorted. Maybe a bit to complex though.
#6 by Richard on May 11, 2011 - 11:36 pm
As an aside, if all 129 MSPs were elected from a single national list by D’Hondt, the Parliament would have the same make-up as this list.
#7 by Dubbieside on May 11, 2011 - 8:31 pm
Wonderful
The present system was great up until Thursday last week. We never heard anything from Curtice now we need a new system.
Has anything changed? I must have missed it.
#8 by Malc on May 11, 2011 - 8:39 pm
I wondered about that too. The cynic in me says this is anti-Nat propaganda.
IF the system got broken (and that’s a big if – I’m not sold that it did get broken) then its down to how the public voted – NOT the SNP.
But yes – I don’t understand why academics like the esteemed Prof Curtice weren’t talking about the way the system could be “broken” before.
#9 by oldchap on May 11, 2011 - 8:55 pm
Cynical, maybe, but going by past experience there’s likely some truth in that. It is quite nice seeing the media utterly confused by a result they weren’t expecting 🙂
Anyhow, no system is perfect – voters will always find a way to vote tactically to improve the odds for their side.
#10 by Aonghas on May 11, 2011 - 9:16 pm
I always assumed it was supposed to favour the party that could win a lot of constituency MPs. It’s not like the system would have been an unknown quantity to whoever picked it, surely. It doesn’t rely on complex maths. Fishy…
#11 by DougtheDug on May 11, 2011 - 9:11 pm
Dubbieside, the SNP won a majority therefore the system is broken and must be changed to stop it happening again. Get a grip man, it’s obvious to anyone that the current system has proved an abject failure in ensuring the wrong party doesn’t win.
#12 by Dubbieside on May 11, 2011 - 11:29 pm
Sorry Doug I will try to keep up.
Something must have happened on Thursday that passed me by. An election? who won?
Did we upset the media and all the learned professors again?
How many more systems will they come up with till they get the result they want? Silly question, as many as it takes obviously.
#13 by setindarkness on May 11, 2011 - 10:27 pm
Well what changed was the SNPs tactics on getting #bothvotessnp to work. Whether this broke the system, I’m not sure. If you want smaller parties like the Greens, SSP and other independents in the parliament, then I’d think maybe it was broken, because you can be sure at the next election that it is going to be #bothvoteslabour and we’ll be left with 2 parties only in Holyrood.
Actually, can we be sure that Labour will wake up to this by the next election?
btw, I don’t think the SNP have broken the rules or anything. It is very clever campaigning
#14 by John Ruddy on May 12, 2011 - 12:16 am
There have been calls for changes to the system to make it more proportional in the past. These changes have all been suggested to make things a bit more portional than they currently are.
bear in mind most proportional systems are designed so that a single party cant gain a majority of seats on a minority of the vote, which is what the SNP have done.
Even as late as this year, I heard suggestions that the FPTP seats be changed to AV, so that we end up with a form of AV+ (with closed lists rather than open lists).
I’ve also had political anoraks dicuss having a larger number of seats, and do it not by increasing the number of constituencies, but the number of list MSPs in each region.
None of this is new – its just the first time its reared above the parapit of electoral anoraks and onto Newsnight..
#15 by Aonghas on May 11, 2011 - 8:55 pm
Hmmm.
I’d be reluctant to throw away our time-tested system – it’s served us well – in preference for this complicated foreign thing.
#16 by Malc on May 11, 2011 - 8:56 pm
I’m assuming “time-tested” is sarcastic? Actually, come to think of it, so is the “complicated foreign thing” no?
‘coz D’Hondt is such a Scottish sounding name…
#17 by Aonghas on May 11, 2011 - 9:10 pm
D’hondt? On de end ay yer airm.
I’ll get me coat.
#18 by Doug Daniel on May 11, 2011 - 11:54 pm
I’ve got D’Hondt it to you, that was a very good pun.
#19 by Graham on May 11, 2011 - 9:24 pm
“I don’t understand why academics like the esteemed Prof Curtice weren’t talking about the way the system could be “broken†before.”
He wasn’t advancing that argument before because the SNP hadn’t broken the rules by winning a majority. He is only advancing it now, precisely because they have.
#20 by aonghas on May 11, 2011 - 10:14 pm
2007: Labour + SNP got 72% of the seats on 60% of the list vote.
2003: Labour got 43% of the seats on 29% of the list vote.
1999: Labour: 43% of the seats, 34% of the vote.
Amazing nobody noticed this before.
#21 by John Ruddy on May 12, 2011 - 12:19 am
Actually, they have. Its really because the system discriminates against the smaller parties. The Greens, for instance end up with 1 MSP or half a dozen, the margin between getting elected and not is that thin.
I’ve always felt that the system could be improved (are we really that conceited to suggest we got it 100% right first time?), and that as the work of MSPs grows, then surely we need more members to handle that effectively? About 150 sounds right to me – half in constituencies, half on top-up lists (I’d prefer open lists myself).
#22 by Malc on May 12, 2011 - 8:35 am
I’d be happy with a 50:50 split as well – proportionality is key for me – and I think around 150 MSPs is about right. And yes – we discussed on BN the idea of AV instead of FPTP for the constituencies (though quickly moved on).
But as has been pointed out previously, its only because the SNP got a majority that this has become an issue – and even then, its only academics and journalists looking for someone to blame for a Nat majority. Where was the outcry when Labour were taking 56 seats (43%) on 38% of the vote? In Wales, Labour have 50% of the seats on 42% of the vote. Do we hear pro-Labour commentators complaining there?
That is what is annoying – especially to the SNP.
#23 by James on May 12, 2011 - 8:41 am
Realistically, there seems little prospect of electoral reform for Holyrood – the Scotland Bill won’t deliver it, and I can’t see the SNP favouring it for an independent Scotland (or involving others enough in the process for it to happen then).
#24 by Malc on May 12, 2011 - 8:48 am
Why change a system when it has delivered you into power? I agree – but I think they might consider it at some point. They know this was a “freak” result – ie, D’Hondt shouldn’t deliver a majority. But – if they had control over the electoral system for Holyrood – I think they’d favour STV. Not sure where I get that – but that has always been their preferred method.
#25 by Indy on May 12, 2011 - 10:24 am
yes the SNP supports STV for all elections and that policy will not change.
It’s totally unfair to assume that we will change our policy simply because of one election. It also suggests we are stupid enough to assume we can repeat the feat of getting such a large majority again. No-one assumes that.
#26 by Jeff on May 12, 2011 - 10:27 am
Just to jump in on that, I also think it’s pretty ridiculous that there’s a furore over the SNP getting slightly more MSPs than its share of the vote in one single election when Labour regularly gets, what, 70% or more of MPs with about 40% of the vote in Westminster election after Westminster election.
#27 by Malc on May 12, 2011 - 10:58 am
Agree entirely.
#28 by John Ruddy on May 12, 2011 - 5:18 pm
And I am firmly in favour of electoral reform for Westminster, as are many others in the Labour party. Please dont think that dinosaurs such as John Reid, David Blunkett etc speak for the Labour party.
#29 by Jeff on May 12, 2011 - 5:29 pm
And please don’t think the Labour party are purely in favour of electoral reform while they have Reid and Blunkett speaking for them 😉
#30 by Malc on May 12, 2011 - 10:57 am
Sorry Indy – my comment wasn’t really aimed at the SNP. It was more a dig at the Tories at Westminster…
And I don’t think for one second that the SNP will fall into the trap of believing this is how Holyrood elections will work out in the future.
I’ll be interested to see how things proceed towards STV – if there are any moves towards it.
#31 by Doug Daniel on May 12, 2011 - 9:14 am
Yep, that would work. Although perhaps even a bit more than that – 170? It has always seemed a bit strange that they didn’t start off with a 50:50 split in the first place rather than having a bias in favour of constituencies – the more cynical among us might think that was to give a built-in advantage to parties that were thought to have a permanent grip on some constituencies, perhaps in.. oh, I don’t know… the Central belt?
#32 by Aonghas on May 12, 2011 - 10:11 am
“are we really that conceited to suggest we got it 100% right first time?”
Right. But let’s not kid ourselves that this is some flavour of unintended consequence. Whoever settled on d’Hondt knew fine well it favoured larger parties.
This revelation can be found in the first paragraph of the relevant wikipedia article and it’s demonstrated in every single scottish parliament election result.
#33 by Aonghas on May 12, 2011 - 10:14 am
I found the explanation for all the confusion and surprise – wikipedia was created «after» the scottish parliament! 🙂
#34 by John Ruddy on May 12, 2011 - 5:21 pm
I think its difficult to predict the outcome of a particular form of electoral system, as a lot depends on the make up of the different parties, how many there are etc.
For instance, predictions that AV would permanently deliver a tory government/Labour Government/coalition government were just wild stabs in the dark. As can be seen from the fact that no one could agree on what it would deliver!
We’ve had a few elections now, so we have some experience of what happens, and how people vote. I think I would prefer a system which allows more minority voices in our parliament. 2003-7 parliament was quite good in that respect.
#35 by rlemkin on May 11, 2011 - 10:16 pm
For the record I’ve been advocating for more proportional systems since I discovered what FPTP was..
On a side note does being a member mean our comments aren’t moderated?
#36 by douglasmclellan on May 11, 2011 - 10:19 pm
Looks that way.
#37 by Malc on May 11, 2011 - 10:32 pm
Yep – but please behave. Otherwise we’ll have to go back to “the way things were”.
#38 by setindarkness on May 11, 2011 - 10:29 pm
New comment system is working perfectly. Now, would anyone like to buy a scone from my online scone business at scone.com ?
#39 by Brian Nicholson on May 11, 2011 - 11:41 pm
You miss the obvious response to this change. The major parties run candidates in the constituencies only and support sister parties in the lists. Assuming that nationalist voters would have voted the same The SNP would still have won 53 and its sister, lets call it SFFM, would have taken the majority of the list seats as well.
Either you accept a full proportional system or you accept that distortions are going to happen.
#40 by Stuart on May 12, 2011 - 8:24 am
I still think STV would be the best option because it would rid us of a 2 tier MSP system, where have local and regional/national MSPs.
Lists are also controlled more by the parties. It should be noted that SNP used this to ensure they got good quality MSPs in to office, while to Labour it was an afterthought.
#41 by Malc on May 12, 2011 - 8:37 am
I’m not sure the second part of that statement is true. The SNP’s lists are democratically elected by their membership in OMOV elections. They’ve lost some good MSPs that way (Andrew Wilson, Margo MacDonald) – effective de-selection. The order in which the candidates are listed is probably not how the central party would like them to be ordered…
#42 by Doug Daniel on May 12, 2011 - 9:19 am
It’s about time Andrew Wilson made a return actually, although having said that your post a couple of days ago highlighted just how much strength in depth the SNP already has at the moment. I wonder if folk like Derek Brownlee and Jeremy Purvis will be lost to Holyrood forever in the same way? I hope Shirley-Ann Somerville isn’t lost forever too.
#43 by James on May 12, 2011 - 9:39 am
I’m with you on Brownlee and Wilson at least.
#44 by Doug Daniel on May 12, 2011 - 2:30 pm
Oh yeah, just to be clear: I wasn’t necessarily saying it would be a bad thing if Purvis never returned to Holyrood. If nothing else, I always found his voice rather irritating. Too much saliva, I think.
Still, he wasn’t as bad as Mike Rumbles…
#45 by John Ruddy on May 12, 2011 - 5:23 pm
Which is exactly how Labour’s lists were selected. However, there could be an argument for pre-selection, ie making sure the candidates offered to the membership were of a high enough caliber.
If you want an example of a high-caliber Labour list MSP, you should look no further than Jenny Marra – new into parliament and I think will be an excellent MSP.
#46 by Gryff on May 12, 2011 - 3:06 pm
I never liked the idea of two tier MSPs, but in practice I am not sure that it is too big a problem, in some ways it seems liek a good compromise which both allows for MSPs with a reasonably small geographical/population focus, as well as giving people more options in terms of who should represent them.
The idea that List MSPs be elected by party members seems to me a no brainer, might occasionally mean odd results, and the accidental deselection of good candidates, but I like the extra element of democracy.
#47 by Keith Roberts on May 12, 2011 - 9:19 am
Anti-Nat propaganda, from Professor Curtice! Surely not, when did that begin?
#48 by Indy on May 12, 2011 - 10:21 am
Well the SNP supports STV for all elections which is, i understand, the most proportional system available and also enables the electorate to vote for individual candidates rather than a closed list.
If the other parties can agree maybe we should just change the system to STV rather than just tinker about with this one?
#49 by James on May 12, 2011 - 12:14 pm
Yes please.
So long as we don’t have three-seat constituencies. I’d say that thirding the regions, roughly, would give pretty sensible blocks of the country to represent with mostly 5 and some 6 seaters.
#50 by Gryff on May 13, 2011 - 10:41 am
I know this is a detail, but how would you handle the island seats with this? I can see that electors in Shetland might feel a bit miffed if they had to share their representation with Orkney and the mainland.
#51 by Davie Park on May 12, 2011 - 10:37 am
Malc wrote:
They know this was a “freak†result – ie, D’Hondt shouldn’t deliver a majority.
The issue folks is, or at least should be, proportionality. Why shouldn’t a party who receives a majority of votes also get the majority of parliamentary seats?
It’s interesting that, in some quarters, there seems to be a presumption against the idea of majorities in the Scottish Parliament.
Is this legitimate or just political gerrymandering? (rhetorical question)
Why, if parliamentary majorities are such a bad idea, did the Labour Govt not introduce a strictly proportional electoral system at Westminster?
It’s clear that the SP was designed to be a talking shop with no teeth – a side show to be dismissed with a contemptuous sneer.
Why would we attempt to legitimise that ‘vision’?
#52 by Jeff on May 12, 2011 - 10:50 am
Uh, you do know that the SNP didn’t get a majority of the votes, right Davie?
#53 by Gregor on May 12, 2011 - 11:06 am
A great post Richard, and some great discussions! Love it.
Where does the tinkering end though? Big parties do well on the current system, this system would be fairer, what next… triple the seats in the formula and really help the wee guys?
I still think it’s crazy to have four different voting systems for our four sets of elections. How does that help improve accessibility?
#54 by Davie Park on May 12, 2011 - 1:21 pm
Jeff wrote:
“Uh, you do know that the SNP didn’t get a majority of the votes, right Davie?”
Yeh Jeff, on reading back my comment I could see how you might think I didn’t.
What I was getting at (trying at least) is that there seems to be, among some, a view that the pochling of the electoral system at Holyrood to proclude the possibility of a parliamentary majority is a legitimate, desirable even, thing to do.
#55 by Jeff on May 12, 2011 - 1:27 pm
Oh, sorry Davie, I get you now. And I agree, if a party wins a majority of the votes then it is fair that they receive a majority of the votes. Those who disagree should just have to do their best to campaign such that no one party is too popular.
In one respect d’hondt did fail though as the SNP won a majority with a mninority of the vote. A majority won fair and square of course.
#56 by Davie Park on May 12, 2011 - 2:14 pm
D’hondt did indeed fail, Jeff. A strictly proportionate system may well have produced your (and my) preferred outcome of SNP / Green coalition.
#57 by Danny1995 on May 12, 2011 - 3:02 pm
I calculated something this morning, based on the 2011 result if we used a national list to elect list members EXACT proportionality would be achieved.
I like the STV idea, how about losing one MSP(Or perhaps an Ireland type thing where the PO is returned automatically) then have each council elect 4 MSPs using STV.
#58 by Gregor on May 12, 2011 - 3:08 pm
’cause 4 would be a bit high for Clackmananshire Council or Comhairle nan Eilean Siar, but faaaaaaaaaaaaaar too low for Glasgow 🙂
#59 by Danny1995 on May 12, 2011 - 3:21 pm
Hmm fail point.
#60 by Lordie, lord lord on May 12, 2011 - 4:55 pm
Had Labour won a majority we would not be hearing anything about French mathematicians.
#61 by Malc on May 12, 2011 - 4:57 pm
Or Belgian ones for that matter!
#62 by John Ruddy on May 12, 2011 - 5:26 pm
That would depend on whether it was won on a minority of votes. I, for one, would still say that the system needed looking at.
#63 by rlemkin on May 12, 2011 - 7:24 pm
Agreed, I think questions would be raised by some!
Dear SNP, please tell me what an independent Scottish Parliament will be like 😉
#64 by John Ruddy on May 13, 2011 - 7:15 pm
If nicola Sturgeon’s appearance on Newsnight is to be beleived, they wont bother to work those things out until after we’ve voted yes in a referndum.