Gimme three steps
Early last month the Scottish Government released their Programme for Government for 2018-2019. It includes a smallish part about electoral reform.
One issue is conspicuously absent here: changing the electoral system itself. The electoral law is a devolved matter but changing it requires a two thirds super-majority in Scottish Parliament. Which obviously does not exist and that is reason enough for the Scottish Government to avoid addressing it as it would end up in yet another controversy that would yield sweet fuck all.
But of course the matter can still be discussed and some alternate scenarios can be proposed. It is common knowledge that the current Additional Member System (AMS) is far short of truly democratic. It was designed to make sure than no party (and especially not the SNP) would ever get a majority and Scotland would forever be ruled by Labour-led coalitions.
The system failed as the SNP got a majority in 2011 and came out only two seats short in 2016. And the way it works does not deliver actual additional members to allow a fairer representation of the electorate's choice. Instead it is rigged to allocate 'compensatory seats' to the losers of the constituency vote and several options exist to make it more representative.
To be on solid ground I will discuss these options as 'what ifs' based on the actual 2016 results. As a reminder here are the vote shares and the Scottish Parliament this election delivered.
Step One: from AMS to MMS
The first option is to replace AMS with a basic Mixed-Member System (MMS) as exists in Germany. But it would have to be adapted to the Scottish context to avoid the unnecessary complexities that exist in the German system such as the bizarre combination of overhang seats and leveling seats.
The method is simple: seats are allocated based on the regional vote and using the D'Hondt method. Only you don't factor in the constituency seats so each party starts from scratch with no FPTP handicap and the result reflects directly the votes each party received in each region.
And this would deliver a massive majority for the SNP, reflecting both a dominant position on the constituency vote and a fair showing on the list vote.
Major feature it that this allocation favours the parties whose votes are close to evenly spread across all regions, which would be the case for the Conservatives and SNP. Conversely parties with an unevenly spread vote, especially the Greens, are at a disadvantage.
With seven seats per region, this would raise the de facto threshold for a seat from about 6% to about 12%. The opposition would then see this as unfair as it would increase the number of wasted votes dramatically. For example Greens won seats in every region except Central and North East, meaning about 28k wasted votes out of 150k. But with MMS they would get seats only in Glasgow and Lothian, making it 92k wasted votes.
Furthermore MMS would allocate 50% of the list seats to the SNP on only 42% of the list vote, which would trigger more outcry from the opposition. Not that it is an unexpected result anyway. For example at the 2013 German election, the CDU-CSU bagged 49% of the seats on 41% of the list vote with a quite similar system, and the German people were perfectly happy with it.
Step Two: 56-seat national list
Second step for a more representative result is to scrap the electoral regions altogether and elect the 56 additional MSPs on a single national list. This way the de facto threshold goes down to about 2%, which is lower than the legal threshold imposed in some countries that use proportional representation.
As expected, the single national list allocates a few more seats to the smaller parties, including UKIP getting their first MSP on 2% of the vote. But the way D'Hondt works, like all highest averages methods, also favours the larger parties compared to what a largest remainder method would deliver. In this specific case largest remainder would switch one list seat from the SNP to the Greens.
Step Three: 73-seat national list
Of course 73 constituency seats plus 56 list seats is not an actual mixed-member representation. Being true to the concept requires the same number of MSPs being elected on FPTP as on PR. With 73 seats on the national list and using D'Hondt, here is what the 2016 vote would have delivered.
Again this method would deliver a strong SNP majority, which is what it is designed to do while still giving the other parties a sizeable representation. In this scenario, switching from highest averages to largest remainders would oddly switch one seat from the SNP to UKIP but still nothing spectacular.
Step Four (or not): full proportional representation
Then you might want (or not, depending on your perspective) go all the way to full Proportional Representation (PR) with all MSPs elected from a single national list. Which is the way MEPs are elected in most EU member countries.
On full PR there is of course no need to increase the number of seats to ensure equal representation between FPTP and PR seats. But I tried the 146 seats option too here to see what impact, if any, a larger Chamber could have on the results for the smaller parties. And also tried the usual technical options within PR: highest averages or largest remainder.
For this I assumed a full PR system would deliver the same votes as the actual 2016 regional vote, which would probably not happen. It is likely a change in the electoral law would also trigger a change in voting patterns but the 2016 results are the only data we have.
With all these caveats, full PR would fail to deliver a majority. Which comes as no surprise as it is exactly what it is designed to do. Actual results in other elections outside the UK show that a party would need roughly 47% to 49% of the popular vote to secure a majority of seats, depending on how the other parties do.
But it still remains an option to be considered as it has many supporters in the UK. Though obviously it wouldn't be my preferred choice.
To sum it up
Below are the shares of seats each party would get under the different systems. 2016 AMS are the actual shares at the last election and the FPTP shares are how the 73 constituencies went, which shows the usual high distortion that's built into FPTP. And obviously full PR is where you get seats shares closest to the popular vote.
But any of the PR options would have delivered nothing better than a split Chamber with the need for a coalition. I am not in favour of coalitions, especially when there is a risk they might evaporate overnight. Like in having the Scottish Greens as the junior partner, who have made it a habit of not thinking through an issue before casting a vote. And there is always the remote possibility of PR delivering a wobbly Unionist coalition even on the 2016 votes, united by nothing more than 'Git SNP Oot'.
So my choice is clearly one of the true MMS options, which deliver both a strong majority for the first party and sizeable representation for the opposition(s). Bear in mind that a fair electoral system does not imply that the opposition should be able to block the Chamber from doing its day job. Elections are also here to make sure the country can be properly governed.
After all we've already seen the SNP win 95% of the seats on 50% of the vote and the Earth didn't start spinning backwards, or did it? Huge majorities on just a plurality of the vote are not uncommon in the UK, Canada or the USA to name a few. And you don't even need FPTP to achieve this, just look at what happened in France last year: 55% of seats on 28% of first round votes for La République en Marche.
What if?
Finally I ran simulations of what the results would have been under my preferred method: MMS with a 73-seat national list. Unsurprisingly this would have delivered a Labour majority in 1999 and a Labour minority strong enough for government in 2003. 2007 would have been the odd one out with Labour holding a plurality of seats thanks to their good showing in the constituencies. So this would likely have ended with the only occurrence of a Lab-Lib coalition instead of the first SNP government. Though a SNP-Lib coalition (which Alex Salmond tried to negotiate at the time) would also have been a feasible outcome.
Oddly this method would also have delivered a better result for the SNP in 2016 than in 2011. Here too the FPTP component would have played a big part with the SNP bagging six more constituencies in 2016. Also in 2011 left-wing independents and the SSCUP did well enough to secure seats on the hypothetical national list and so cut down the SNP share of PR seats a bit.
But this system would have worked better than AMS, delivering an outright majority at three out of five elections instead of just one. Thus leaving less room for post-election compromises and allowing the winning party better opportunities to fully deliver on their manifesto. Which ultimately is all democracy is about.
Then we already know true electoral reform won't happen in Scotland anytime soon even if all parties know the system is one of the worst possible. All opposition parties, and possibly the SNP too, have a vested interest in it not changing. And it's one of these deadlock situations anyway: you don't have the votes to change the system and you would need to change it first to get the votes.
So just food for thought. For now.
Saor Alba Gu bràth
© Calum Macdonald, Rory Macdonald 1989
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