The Tory MSP Murdo Fraser finishes his latest Scotsman column with some perfectly reasonable suggestions for reforming the Holyrood voting system. He advocates replacing the two-ballot set-up with a single ballot to eliminate the possibility of gaming the system, scrapping closed lists in favour of open lists that would give the opportunity for voters to choose between individual candidates (that ought to be a no-brainer), and possibly switching wholesale to the Single Transferable Vote system. But unfortunately his journey to these sensible conclusions, ie. his stated reasons for thinking the system needs to change, involves some of the most mind-bending ‘logic’ you’ll ever see.
Murdo seems to think the fact that the SNP are considering a deal with the Greens will somehow lead to a greater ‘distortion’ of the way people voted. But self-evidently the opposite is true – the SNP on their own took 48% of the constituency vote and 40% of the regional list vote, but the SNP and Greens in combination took 49% of the constituency vote and 48% of the regional list vote. A two-party government would therefore be closer to representing the majority, not further away. Contrast that with the single-party Tory government at Westminster that just 44% of the electorate voted for. Crucially, that government claimed a mandate for a hard Brexit even though a significantly bigger share of the popular vote went to parties opposed to leaving the EU on the basis Boris Johnson wanted. If Murdo wishes to talk about ‘distortion’ and open-and-shut cases for reform of the voting system, Westminster is the place to start.
Another bogus point Murdo makes is that the pro-indy majority at Holyrood was artificially created by SNP voters gaming the system and switching to the Greens on the list. That really is absolute rubbish. There was a pro-indy majority on the popular vote in the regional list ballot – a point that Murdo conveniently glosses over. It may be theoretically possible that voting for different parties on the two ballots can make pro-indy votes work more efficiently, but what it can’t do is increase the overall number of pro-indy votes. And yet the combined vote share for pro-indy parties was significantly higher on the list ballot than on the constituency ballot. Murdo needs to reflect on where those extra votes came from. It can’t have anything to do with gaming the system. The most likely explanation is that some people voted for a unionist party on the constituency ballot because their favourite pro-indy party didn’t have a candidate in their area.
