There seems to be quite a bit of confusion over my myth-busting post about the Holyrood voting system, so I’ll try to explain the point in more detail. To reiterate, the claim I was correcting (and it’s one that you’ll hear from both Alba supporters and detractors alike) was this –
“The more seats the SNP take in the constituencies, the more seats Alba will take on the list.”
That’s not accurate, and in some cases it will be the complete opposite of the truth. What *is* true is that the better the SNP do in the constituencies, the greater the overall representation will be for pro-independence parties in the parliament. But sometimes it may well lead to Alba as an individual party missing out on seats.
As an illustration, let’s take two alternative hypothetical results in the same region. Let’s assume the region is a typical one with nine constituency seats and seven list seats.
Result A:
SNP: 7 seats (7 constituency, 0 list)
Conservatives: 4 seats (2 constituency, 2 list)
Labour: 3 seats (0 constituency, 3 list)
Liberal Democrats: 1 seat (0 constituency, 1 list)
Alba: 1 seat (0 constituency, 1 list)
Pro-independence parties: 8 seats
Anti-independence parties: 8 seats
Result B:
SNP: 9 seats (9 constituency, 0 list)
Conservatives: 3 seats (0 constituency, 3 list)
Labour: 3 seats (0 constituency, 3 list)
Liberal Democrats: 1 seat (0 constituency, 1 list)
Alba: 0 seats (0 constituency, 0 list)
Pro-independence parties: 9 seats
Anti-independence parties: 7 seats
Result A is a fairly standard outcome where the SNP are not awarded any list seats, because they’ve already taken their full entitlement of seats in the constituency section. Instead, the seven list seats are shared out between other parties, and Alba take one to boost the overall pro-indy representation to eight seats.
In Result B, the SNP do even better and take all nine constituency seats, which means that even before the list seats are allocated, the SNP already have more seats in the region than their share of the vote warrants. That effectively takes two seats ‘out of the system’ altogether and means the seven list seats are spread more thinly. The Conservatives are given three list seats, as compared to two in Result A, to compensate them for the two constituency seats they’ve lost – although of course that’s only partial compensation. That means there’s one fewer list seat available for the other parties, and in this example it’s Alba that miss out.
And yet in spite of the fact that Alba do worse in Result B, there’s still one more pro-indy seat overall than there was in Result A. So that’s the importance of Alba strongly urging an SNP vote in the constituencies – it’s not a way of maximising Alba’s own representation and they may sometimes actually lose seats as a result, but it absolutely *is* a way of maximising overall pro-indy representation.
In a nutshell, Alba are willing to risk sacrificing some of their own candidates in the best interests of the independence cause. And that makes the nature of the Alba campaign genuinely unprecedented in Scottish political history.
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You can catch-up with Episode 6 of the Scot Goes Popcast, in which I speak to Alba Party leader Alex Salmond, HERE (with video) or HERE (audio only). And if you find Scot Goes Pop’s coverage of polls helpful and would like it to continue, I’m currently running a fundraiser HERE.
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