IN the last few weeks, The National has published a number of letters about the potential use of an additional Yes party on the regional lists for next year’s Holyrood election. One interesting (but depressing) aspect of this is that it has revealed significant misunder-standing of the voting system.

For instance, a letter on February 28 stated: “it makes sense in most areas to give the second vote to a Yes candidate. Further to this, it is unwise to try and punish the colonialists by putting them third, fourth and fifth. Votes can be transferred, so better to ignore them. That is how a Tory was elected in Easterhouse!”

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Third and subsequent preferences occur only in council elections in Scotland, which use the Single Transferable Vote system, in which it makes perfect sense to “vote till you boak”; lower preferences cannot affect higher ones, but they have the potential to exclude undesired candidates.

Holyrood elections, however, use the Additional Member System – sometimes referred to as Modified D’Hondt. No transfers take place in this system, and ballots with votes for more than two candidates or using numbers rather than a single cross will be invalid.

Referring to the regional vote as a “second” vote (or worse, a “second preference”) risks misrepresenting its purpose. The proportion of seats per party overall in the Parliament is determined by the percentage obtained on the list, calculated by region and taking into account the number of constituency seats (if any) obtained in that region using first-past-the-post. So while the pro-Union parties receive around 50% of list votes, they will be allocated approximately 50% of the 129 seats (including any constituencies).

The only way to reliably reduce the number of Unionist MSPs is to convince people not to vote for them! Any other method might work – or might not; only with hindsight can it be calculated what distribution of votes would have achieved a particular outcome.

Having said all that, I of course acknowledge that “both votes SNP” leads to “wasted” votes – though not in the south of Scotland where I live. It is perfectly reasonable to discuss whether there are alternative strategies, but I do think this needs to be done in the context of knowing how the voting system works!

S Fisk
East Ayrshire

I NOTICED in the Sunday National that Carlaw was off down south yesterday to see his esteemed leader to “demand a better immigration deal for Scotland”. Aye right. I can however imagine how this might pan out.

“Great to see you Jacko my boy, now what exactly are you ‘demanding’? Oh yes this special deal for you Jocks, well here’s how we’re going to play it. I will allow you an extra 500 immigrants a year and, let’s say a reduction of £100 on the minimum salary requirement and you pop back up the road and with a great fanfare, announce to the world what a powerful leader you are having managed to secure a ‘fantastic deal’ for the North Britains. That should certainly stick it up these nasty Nats once and for all”.

Call me an old cynic – let’s just wait and see what happens.

Robin Hastie
St Andrews

LORNA Campbell in Thursday’s National gets it spot on. Let’s stay with our main objective, independence, all the rest can fall in after and only after we have achieved that. All the politically correct vanity policies only serve to hold back our progress toward independence. Time we had a look at some of the groups that are pushing their own agenda on the back of the SNP.

High time the SNP stopped trying to be all things to all people. Grasp the nettle and get on with it, because patience is wearing thin and time is running out.

Cameron M Fraser
Bannockburn