CFE Democracy The Single Transferable Vote

STV: how it works Voting in STV elections is easy. Voters rank the candidates 1,2,3 etc depending on how many are on the ballot paper. The voter doesn’t have to use all his/her preferences and can just give a first preference.

LARGER, MULTI-MEMBER CONSTITUENCIES In STV, constituencies (or in this case, council wards) are larger and, depending on the population, have several candidates elected.

Example: Inverkeithing and Dalgety Bay, Fife Council

Scottish National Party In this ward The Scottish National Party stood two candidates. It asked you to vote twice, putting a 1 and a 2 next to their candidates, Helen Todd and Alice McGarry.

Scottish Labour Party The Scottish Labour Party stood two candidates. It asked you to vote twice, putting a 1 and a 2 next to their candidates, Gavin Yates and Lesley Laird.

Scottish Conservative Party The Scottish Conservatives stood just the one candidate. They asked you to vote just the once, putting a 1 next to their candidate, Dave Dempsey.

The result?

STV. Why? In 2003, in order to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, Labour had to concede to the Liberal Democrats' demands for the STV to be introduced to local council elections. STV was adopted for Scottish local elections as part of the Local Governance (Scotland) Act, passed in June 2004. Had Labour won an overall majority in the 2003 Scottish Parliament elections, STV would not have been brought in. Labour is not dead, far from it. But, the party has to work a lot harder to win elections than it did under FPTP. Maybe not a bad thing.

Proportional results STV is supposed to deliver proportional results. It does. In the 2007 and 2012 Scottish local council elections, parties won council seats much more in proportion to the percentage of the vote they received.

STV should increase turnout? UK General Election 2010 FPTP Scottish local councils 2012 STV Scottish local councils 2007 Scottish Parliament 2011 AMS European Parliament 2009 D’Hondt Party List Voter Turnout 65.1% 39.7% 52.1% 50.4% 34% STV is supposed to increase turnout. This is because there are no safe seats and no “wasted” votes. But voters haven’t responded to STV. Or maybe they just don’t respond to local government elections. Turnouts for the two STV local elections have been low. It hasn’t. The type of voting system, on its own, would not appear to be the decisive factor in encouraging voters to turn out and vote. UK voters do, though, appear to see the General Election as the most important, despite its much criticised First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system.

STV should end one party politics? It does, most of the time. The majority of councils in Scotland - 23 - are "hung councils“, with no one party in overall control. The Labour/SNP coalition in Edinburgh is perhaps the most interesting. At a national level, the parties are avowed enemies. But if you took the independence issue away, and local councils can’t make Scotland independent, there is often little to separate SNP and Labour councillors. They can work together in Edinburgh. City of Edinburgh Council 2012 Party Number of Councillors Scottish Labour 20 SNP 18 Scottish Conservatives 11 Scottish Greens 6 Scottish Liberal Democrats 3

Multi-party local government Number of Councillors SNP 424 Scottish Labour 394 Independents 201 Scottish Conservatives 115 Scottish Liberal Democrats 71 Scottish Greens 14 Scottish Socialists 1 In 2012, the SNP once again became Scotland’s largest party in local government. But the STV helped to deliver multi-party politics in most of the country. Parties have to co-operate with each other rather than indulge in “yah-boo” politics. 2012 council election results

Coalitions STV doesn’t have to result in coalition government. Sometimes it does e.g. East Renfrewshire, sometimes it doesn’t e.g. Glasgow. But it is more likely too than other voting systems. Are coalitions unfair as voters cannot vote for a coalition? Or do they lead to grown up decision making?

STV should increase empower voters This is a real advantage as under STV, voters can choose between candidates of the same political party. All elected councillors have to work with their constituents so they will be elected next time round. They cannot rely on being elected on “the party ticket” So, STV has ended the days when local councillors had a “shoo-in” safe seat.