Why reform?

Problems with the current system

There are many problems with the First-Past-the-Post voting system.

In each ward, there will usually be three or more candidates. So it is very common for the winner to be elected with the support of less than half of those who voted. In the 1999 election, nearly half of Glasgow’s 79 councillors were elected with only such minority support.

Many votes do not help to elect a candidate. In recent Scottish local elections, nearly half the votes – around one million votes – were cast for candidates who were not elected.

Voters do not get much choice because they can only vote for the single candidate already selected for them by each party. Electors who voted for candidates other than the winner often feel they are not represented properly, despite the fact that most councillors try very hard to represent everyone in their wards.

Across the council area, the results from each ward do not add up to give each party its fair share of the seats. Examples from the 1999 elections show every party sometimes unfairly benefits from this distortion: Labour in Midlothian (94% seats for 46% votes), SNP in Angus (72% seats for 47% votes), Liberal Democrats in East Dunbartonshire (42% of seats for 27% votes), Conservatives in Stirling (41% seats for 27% votes). In addition, some parties, despite having significant support across the council area, have no councillors at all.

Councils are often dominated by one party that won only a minority of the votes. In May 1999 this happened in 12 of our 32 councils.