]
Dexter St. Clair wrote:Ward: 5 - Govan
Candidate
Party Elected Number
of First
Preferences
Elected ADAMS, James Scottish Labour Party Yes 1,727
ARCHIBALD, Finlay Pirate Party Scotland 51
BACH, Jesper Scottish Green Party 229
BUTT, Shaukat Glasgow First 398
Elected DORNAN, Stephen Glasgow First Yes 603
DRUMMOND, Joyce Solidarity – Scotland’s Socialist Movement 60
FLANAGAN, John 644
HUGHES, Alan Scottish Unionist Proudly Scottish Proudly British 143
HUNTER, Allison Scottish National Party (SNP) Yes 1,460
MACKIE, Jonathan Scottish National Party (SNP) 443
MOHAMMED, Tahir Scottish National Party (SNP) 356
MURDOCH, Harriet Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party 219
Elected THOMAS, Fariha Scottish Labour Party Yes 504
YOUNG, Chris Scottish Liberal Democrats 87
I confess, shamefully, that I hadn't fully realised how the voting system worked until after the polls closed. I think I still had a subconscious notion that it was sort of like proportional representation with added opportunity. It's nothing of the kind.
I may still have this wrong (because I've gone for the wrong quota allocation formula - I haven't seen it stated which formula was used, so I'll go for the more usual), but here's how I now understand it works.
A councillor is elected when they reach the 'quota'. This is the number of votes cast, divided by the number of seats +1, plus an additional 1 vote, so in the example above, the constituency has four seats, so it's (total votes / 5) + 1. In Govan, this meant 6924/5 + 1 = 1386 per seat.
Vote counting goes in rounds, till we have all seats filled. Your first preference carries on until it either wins or is knocked out (by the candidate finishing bottom in the 2nd or subsequent round).
So round 1 here, we have Adams and Hunter elected straight off.
2nd round : now comes the bit I hadn't grasped. The
excess votes for Adams and Hunter are transferred to the 2nd preference of folk who voted for the already-elected councillors,
in proportion to those second votes. Everyone else's 1st preference carries on to the 2nd round.
Excess votes meaning the ones over the 1386 quota for election. And in proportion meaning the percentage of each second preference vote of the folk who voted for Adams (for the sake of example) in the first round.
In this case, the excess votes were Adams 342 and Hunter 75. So, if half the folk who voted for Adams in the first round went for Butt (again, for the sake of example) as 2nd preference, then Butt adds 171 to his 1st round total. If no-one hits the quota in this round, the lowest-scoring candidate is knocked out, and the 2nd preferences of their voters transfer to the next round. And so on. This explains the advice issued by the major parties on voting order preference - it's almost preferable for your 2nd and 3rd candidates to get 0 votes on round 1, as long as all your votes go to candidate 1.
If no-one has hit the quota by the end of this process, the highest remaining candidate(s) get the remaining seat(s).
So, a supporter of a Major Party could theoretically end up electing all four councillors. For a "I'd like minority candidate A to win, but if they don't then I really want major candidate 1, 2 and 3 to win' voter, it gets way more complicated. You have to judge the chances of your minority candidate being eliminated in each round before putting them 2nd or 3rd, and of the harmful effects on your major candidates of putting the minority candidate first (i.e. your major candidate vote might not kick in till the last round, or at all).
