D'Hondt Say I Didn't Warn You...

I had always been a fan of the D'Hondt formula, the basis by which MSPs are elected to the Scottish Parliament.

It is just about as respresentative a system as you could hope for in a modern, progressive country such as Scotland.

But, sadly, it must be time for a change...


My reason? Well, aside from the fact that you get two levels of MSPs, the list MSPs and the other ones who actually do some work, you have a more pressing concern and a rather simple one at that.


Basically, it's about the clever use of the first and second vote. As any tactical voter will know, even a relatively low number of voters pushing the rules to the absolute limit in elections can be beneficial in getting the result they want.

Take Glasgow where, inexplicably, the cold dead hand of Scottish Labour have a stranglehold on the majority of the constituencies. Voters in this area shouldn't even waste the effort of ticking the second box for Labour as there will not be a Labour list MSP in this area until the SNP start making some serious gains (which, to be fair, could be as soon as the next election).

So, sensible voters will vote Green or SSP or Lib Dems. You know, one of the minor irrelevant parties. Or maybe they even vote Tory or SNP to try to squeeze the chances of a party they particularly dislike.

All pretty fair so far I would think.

Now imagine there was another political party on the voting sheet: Labour Plus, say.

Now, technically, Labour Plus are a completely separate party from Labour but they just happen to have a suspiciously similar outlook on how Scotland should be run. Voters would be free to vote for this party with their second votes and given there are no Labour Plus constituency MSPs, even if half of Glasgow's voting public worked out what was going on, they'd get about 3 MSPs in the one region. Not too shabby a return for very little effort...

To be honest, I'm amazed something like this hasn't happened yet. The SCCUP had a stab at it in 2007 by advertising itself as a prop up to the Labour Government:

Per the SCCUP website, now removed: "If all the Labour Voters were to vote tactically with their second transferable vote in 2007 for the SSCUP then there would be FIVE SSCUP candidates elected as MSPs in the Central region and even more importantly there would be only two other parties who could win the two remaining regional seats and this would reduce the opposition to the Labour Government by five seats because we in the SSCUP would be very comfortable voting with the majority party and with similar victories for us in the other regional lists we could replace the Lib/Dems as coalition partners with Labour.”


So, for me, as a tactical voter in favour of the SNP, you can see why I'm a little bit nervous!


But then, it could so easily work in 'my' favour.


The D'Hondt formula was used to ensure no one party got a cheap majority. That is, you'd need about 60% of the population voting for you before you could command the debating chamber.

But what if the SNP somehow managed to convince those in favour of independence to vote Green with their second vote at the next election. And the Green's decided to not stand in any First Past the Post seats.

It would take some doing but I reckon the Greens could take on average 3 seats in every region with nationwide SNP support which would give a grand total of 24 to start with. The SNP would then need to win 41 of the 79 constituency seats to command a coalition majority over everybody else. Of course, they could always pick up a few regional seats from SNP voters who didn't catch on what was going on. I guess if the Labour party are chock full of people who didn't understand the SCCUP ruse then the SNP probably have at least a few such numpties kicking around.

I may be making this up as I go along here but it's not completely unrealistic. If the SNP find they are continually banging their head against a brick wall with regard to getting an independence referendum on the go, then maybe an "all-in strategy" is just what they need, especially if Scottish Independence is as madly and deeply desired as many of the SNP's detractors would have us believe.


But, ultimately, as fun as this unsporting spectacle would be, all of the necessary pulling of the D'Hondt System from the sides leaves the entire formula in an unsightly mess. Voter confusion would be even higher than last year's debacle. The goal posts would have changed so often people may not even know what they're voting for when they get to the booths. If they even bother to turn up at all of course.


So D'Hondt has to go, even to save us from the outside chance of having John Swinbourne or Robin Harper as Deputy First Minister!