The 2011 Scottish Parliament Election In-Depth Report 5 May 2011 | Prof John Curtice & Dr Martin Steven and Analysis Acknowledgements
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The Scottish Parliament The 2011 Scottish Parliament election In-depth Report 5 May 2011 | Prof John Curtice & Dr Martin Steven and Analysis Acknowledgements The authors are grateful to Returning Officers and their staff in each of Scotland’s 32 local authorities for providing details of the election results in a helpful and efficient manner. They would also like to acknowledge the generosity of Stephen Herbert of the Scottish Parliament Information Centre (SPICE) and Prof David Denver of Lancaster University in supplying information and advice. Prof John Curtice & Dr Martin Steven. Contents 2 Introduction 8 Participation 14 Proportionality 22 Using the System 28 Representation 36 Conclusion The 2011 Scottish 2 Parliament election Introduction One of the primary reasons the then UK into seats won? And what kind of person be- Labour government created the devolved came a member of the Scottish Parliament Scottish Parliament in 1999 was to ward off (MSP). We address these questions by analys- the apparent threat to the party’s electoral ing the election results themselves. In so doing, hegemony – and ultimately Scotland’s mem- we aim to contribute to the continuing debate bership of the United Kingdom – posed by about the merits of different electoral systems, the Scottish National Party (SNP). Devolution a debate that we anticipate will continue in the would demonstrate that Scotland’s distinctive UK despite the outcome of the referendum on needs and aspirations could be met within the introducing the Alternative Vote in elections to framework of the UK (Curtice and Seyd, 2009). the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the proposal to elect the new parliament via a form of proportional represen- We begin in this introductory chapter by pro- tation stacked the odds against the possibility viding an explanation of the mechanics of the of the SNP winning an overall majority in the particular system of proportional representa- new institution. tion in use in Scotland. We then provide a brief overview of the outcome of the 2011 election However, the outcome of the 2011 Scottish before outlining the issues that are addressed Parliament election – only the fourth to be in the remainder of this report. held since the institution was created – blew these presumptions apart. After a narrow one- seat lead at the previous election in 2007 that The Additional resulted in four years in power as a minority government, in 2011 the SNP not only re- Member System corded what was by far its highest share of the vote ever in a parliamentary election, but man- Scottish Parliament elections are held using aged to secure an overall majority of seats in a version of the Additional Member System, the 129-seat chamber (see Table 1.1. below). otherwise known as the Mixed Member As a result, it now seemed inevitable that some Proportional System (Shugart and Wattenberg, kind of referendum on independence would 2003). The broad principle behind this system be held during the course of the new parlia- is that some seats are elected using the First ment, whose life had been extended from four Past the Post – or more accurately, single years to five following the decision of the UK member plurality – electoral system, in indi- Parliament to fix the date of the next Commons vidual constituencies. Other seats, in contrast, election for May 2015. are allocated to party lists, such that the total number of seats won by each party, both con- Our aim in this report is not to account for the stituency and list, is as proportional as possible SNP’s remarkable success (see Curtice, 2011), to the share of the vote won by each party. but rather to assess what lessons we should Thus although the overall outcome in constitu- draw about the health and effectiveness of encies may not be proportional, the final tally certain key aspects of the devolved electoral for each party should be. process in Scotland. In particular we are inter- ested in how well the electoral system worked. In Scottish Parliament elections 73 seats We ask whether voters were able to participate are elected by First Past the Post, while 56 effectively? How were votes cast translated additional seats are allocated from party lists. Introduction The 2011 Scottish Parliament election 3 To facilitate this process, voters have two two. The eight regions comprised the eight votes – one for their individual constituency constituencies (each consisting of complete MSP and one for a party list. Voters need not Westminster constituencies) that had originally vote for the same party on the two ballots, been intended for use in the 1999 European and parties are not required to stand on Parliament election until the decision was made both ballots.1 The order of the names on to conduct that election by a party list system the party lists is determined by the parties rather than First Past the Post. themselves and cannot be altered in any way by voters. A list may or may not include the However, any system of boundaries requires names of persons who are also standing as periodic review in order to ensure that it con- a constituency candidate in that region.2 For tinues to reflect the geographical distribution of the purpose of allocating list seats, Scotland voters. After the 2007 election, the Boundary is divided into eight separate regions, each Commission for Scotland set about the task of which contains between eight and 10 of redrawing the boundaries of both the con- constituencies, in each of which there are stituencies and the regions to be used in future seven additional list seats to be allocated. Scottish Parliament elections. These were used for the first time in the 2011 election. However, Those list seats are allocated in proportion to this creates some difficulties for an exercise the number of list votes won by each party in such as this that is based on an analysis of the region, using the d’Hondt highest average the constituency level results, for it means that formula. First of all the number of list votes current results in a constituency cannot be won by a party is divided by the number of compared easily with those of previous years. constituency seats it has won in that region, Fortunately, however, Professor David Denver of plus one.3 The first of the seven list seats is Lancaster University was commissioned by the allocated to the party with the highest average major broadcasters and the Press Association vote after this calculation has been made, while to construct estimates of what the outcome of the denominator used to calculate its highest the 2007 election would have been on the new average is increased by one. The second of constituency and regional boundaries (Denver, the list seats is then allocated to whichever 2011), and where necessary we have used party now has the highest average vote, and these estimates in our analysis. Readers should 1. Independent candidates are its denominator is accordingly increased by note, however, that this means a potential de- allowed to stand both on the constituency one. This process continues thereafter until gree of imprecision in any statement we make in and list ballot. In the case of the latter they eventually the seventh and last list seat has this report about the change in a party’s share simply become a one- person list. been allocated. of the vote or in the turnout in any individual constituency or group of constituencies. 2. In this respect the position in Scotland is different from that in devolved elections Boundaries in Wales where, since 2007, individuals The Result have been barred from standing as both When the Scottish Parliament was first elected constituency and list candidates. in 1999, the 73 constituencies used to conduct It is not uncommon after an election for there to the First Past the Post elections were the seats be some discrepancies in the detailed results 3. The plus one is required because that were already in place for elections to the reported by different sources. In the case of the the vote of a party that has not yet won House of Commons, except that the constitu- 2011 election, this was particularly true of turn- any seats cannot be divided by zero. ency of Orkney and Shetland was divided into out, defined as the proportion of the electorate Introduction The 2011 Scottish 4 Parliament election that cast a valid vote. This initially was reported just across the eight regions. by the Scottish Parliament to have been 50.4% on the constituency ballot and 51.1% on the Summary details of the votes cast in the list (Herbert et al., 2011), by the House of election, following our enquiries, are to be Commons as 50.3% and 50.4% respectively found in Table 1.1. Please note that although (Sandford and Hardacre, 2011), while the slightly fewer valid constituency votes than figures that both organisations reported for list vote were cast, the turnout to one decimal individual constituencies were consistently at place was in fact 50.4% on both ballots. odds with those stated by the BBC. As a result Otherwise, although the total numbers of votes we have systematically compared the detailed cast for each party are in some cases slightly results reported by these three sources, both different from that reported by other sources, with each other and with the details provided the share of the vote won by each party to by returning officers on their local authority one decimal place is as has consistently been website. In some instances, not least because reported elsewhere. on occasion apparently contradictory informa- tion was present on local authority websites, The outcome saw many a record fall.