The Fall Out Continues - thread 6

[TheShadowyFeminist]

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@StatisticallyChallenged

To me this is targeting two groups

• disenchanted (or plain disenfranchised) pro indy voters who are, for whatever reason, not very enamoured with the SNP
• any pro indy voter who either already understands d'hondt, or is interested enough to listen to a slightly technical explanation

I'd need to run some more figures but the ones I did for Glasgow suggest that you could end up with unionist voters being very poorly represented. It could well end up being no better than a straight up FPTP system. Might be better in more mixed areas like South of Scotland

I'm very interested in your number crunching on this 👍

twitter.com/action4indy

More names revealed.

I think we need a super sized spreadsheet of some kind. Or a Carrie from Homeland 'wall of crazy' to map this all out.

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I never knew Tories had a sense of humour

😂

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I'm torn between disappointment that it's likely to mean a more pro Indy parliament and glee at Patrick Harvie and Ross Greer potentially losing their seats if the pro Indy list votes go to Alba instead.

Think how much better the parliament will be without PH and RG?!?!

Scottish politics is just one shock after another at the moment.

Those 2 have arrogantly lectured women for the past few years & I will sing with joy if they both end up on their arses.

The only thing that will give me more pleasure is seeing Lesley Evans get her comeuppance.

There's a chance both events will happen. 🍾

@StatisticallyChallenged can I just say, your analytical skills are a joy to me.

As you were.

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@Graffitiqueen

I'm torn between disappointment that it's likely to mean a more pro Indy parliament and glee at Patrick Harvie and Ross Greer potentially losing their seats if the pro Indy list votes go to Alba instead.

Think how much better the parliament will be without PH and RG?!?!

Scottish politics is just one shock after another at the moment.

I hear you! I'm not so sure it will hurt the greens badly; those voting green probably already have a bit of an understanding of the second vote and are already contributing to maxing the indy. The target is mostly SNP voters.

This is smart, but I can't say it's helping with my sense of being politically homeless and dispondent.

Most “fair minded people” accept the verdict of the jury, Alex says on C4 News. Wonder if that will succeed as a line...

Well he may be a sleaze but he was tried and acquitted by a jury so..
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Can those who understand the d’Hondt system here give me a primer on “splitting the vote”?

It seems to me that because Alba are only standing on the list that isn’t the case but KGM pushed the line quite hard in his interview with Salmond.

@Graffitiqueen

I'm torn between disappointment that it's likely to mean a more pro Indy parliament and glee at Patrick Harvie and Ross Greer potentially losing their seats if the pro Indy list votes go to Alba instead.

Think how much better the parliament will be without PH and RG?!?!

Scottish politics is just one shock after another at the moment.

This how I feel too - desperately hoping we might get a parliament that doesn’t actively hate women low bar & yet...

I’m hoping for a homeland wall of crazy

So the unionist parties are Con, Lab, LibDem, Alliance for unity...any others?

The Indy parties are SNP, Green, Allba, and the Tommy Sheridan one...any others?

how many parties are on the list?

I've forgotten how the list works? As someone who is pro union (but not got a particular party at the moment), if, just for talking sake, I put on the list - labour, con, lib dem, alliance for unity at the top in that order, who is more likely to get a seat?

ISP & Scotia parties for Indy too.

I suspect there's a few will fold or merge before the deadline for the ballot. So that should narrow it down a bit by then.

@Happinessisawarmcervix

Can those who understand the d’Hondt system here give me a primer on “splitting the vote”?

It seems to me that because Alba are only standing on the list that isn’t the case but KGM pushed the line quite hard in his interview with Salmond.

I can try...

D'hondt is meant to give an approximation of proportional representation. Effectively what happens is

• constituencies are grouped in to regions. Glasgow, for example, covers 9 constituency seats.
• the list results can only be calculated once the constituency results are known.
• the seats are then allocated one by one but the votes are divided by the seats already held by the party (+1)

So seat 1 in Glasgow you have the count of list votes for each party. SNP holds all 9 constituencies so their vote gets divided by 10. All other parties get divided by 1.

So last time the Glasgow votes for the list were
SNP 111101
Labour 59151
Conservative 29533
Green 23398
Lib Dem 5850
UKIP 4889

Due to the dividing this meant that Labour got list seat 1 - as SNP's 111k is divided by 10 so effectively becomes 11k

For seat 2, the denominator has changed. Labour is now divided by 2. That then makes the Labour vote for seat 2 29,575 so they win list seat 2 as well

When we get to seat 3, SNP is divided by 10, and Labour is now divided by 3. Everyone else is still 1. So the Tories get the next seat.

And so on until all 7 seats are allocated.

SNP at the moment only have a very small number (4?) of list seats because in most regions they end up in the same sort of situation as Glasgow - the vote is divided by such a high number that it's basically wasted as 11k is fewer than the number of votes needed to win a seat. So not giving SNP your second vote in Glasgow isn't really splitting it at the moment.

That's different in areas where SNP are not so dominant, like South Scotland. There votes for Alba/AFI/ISP do take away seats from SNP potentially, but an individual vote for the smaller parties is still effectively more valuable than one for SNP as SNP holds 4 constituency seats so the list vote starts out being divided by 5, whereas the smaller parties are divided by 1.

Does that make sense?

[quote RonSwan]@StatisticallyChallenged can I just say, your analytical skills are a joy to me.

As you were.[/quote]
Me too, thanks

Thanks @StatisticallyChallenged! I will read that a few more times but it feels that “splitting the vote” really doesn’t apply in this much more complex territory?

Disappointed that C4 News didn’t make more effort to understand/point out the different electoral system. KGM seemed more interested in shouting “are you going to apologise?”

who could the women be who are apparently joining / standing for Alba?

If JC isn't one of them (or maybe still deciding)?

Makes sense now how outspoken Chris McEleney has been on Twitter recently. I was a bit baffled by how unbothered ha was about toeing the party line. Thought he would end up being ejected from the SNP.

Sorry, I've just spotted a blooper in my spreadsheet - that's what I get for doing it in a rush.

Recalculated numbers.

Glasgow - Indy vote split roughly 50% SNP, 15% green, 10% AFI, 5% ISP, 20% Alba gives you list seats of
SNP:0
Labour: 3
Conservatives: 2
Green: 1
Alba: 1

Which is one more indy seat than now (taken from Labour)

In South Scotland with same percentages it ends up
SNP:0
Labour: 2
Conservatives: 3
Green: 1
Alba: 1

Which is one fewer indy seat (taken from SNP)

This basically shows the impact of splitting the vote. In areas where the SNP vote is basically pointless (Glasgow for example) then a pro indy list vote is better somewhere else. But in a region where the constituency vote is more diverse then splitting the vote between the smaller indy parties is a hindrance rather than a help.

I have a feeling South Scotland may end up being an exception, I think it's the only region where SNP currently have 2 list seats.

@fandabbydoozy

who could the women be who are apparently joining / standing for Alba?

If JC isn't one of them (or maybe still deciding)?

What about Joan? She would be at risk of losing her seat

good point, there's a lot of SNP women bumped down the list in favour of self declaring candidates.

AFI are standing down all their candidates due to the Alba party launch. 😮