I’ve always thought the AMS was a decent electoral system, but it’s biggest flaw seems to be that swathes of the electorate seem incapable of understanding how it works. Or they simply refuse to because it destroys their ‘beliefs’ about ‘tactical voting’ and ‘gaming’ the system.
Thankfully, this failure to grasp the facts seems to exist also on the other side (judging by A4U’s claim to harness unionist votes to ‘annihilate separatists’.
Thankfully too, those who imagine they can defy arithmetic seem to be a tiny sect confined to the social media bubble.
But the fact remains that Yessers inability or refusal to understand electoral arithmetic means they’re actually endangering the cause they claim to support.
The more SNP vote is split between no-hoper parties, the more unionists will benefit
Get a grip now before it’s too late
For the sake of simplicity to make the critical point about splitting the vote, I’ve left aside the fact that the quota divisor means it would of course be more than 10 defecting to ISP at start, but it’s an ultra simplified example to point out the effects of splitting the vote!
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Modelling with the last Panelbase poll, where votes were transferred *only* from the SNP to a new list Party X (AFI/ISP/Wings/whatever), we see that Party X needs to get near 5% to start winning seats (from SNP) & near 6% to add 3 seats to the 'indy bloc'.
In the real world, a certain percentage of votes received by the Greens are already 'tactical votes' by those who voted SNP in constituencies.
What if some of these people voted for Party X instead of the Greens?
We see that this more realistic scenario looks even less rosy.
Here's the baseline propjection from that poll as a reminder:
I had been asked for comments about this article by BarrheadBoy. Sadly he still labours under the same misunderstandings about the SNP vote and the list. From previous commentary, his mind was already made up about the 'facts', whatever the data may say.
The seat calculator image posted from another Twitter user: others - eg BallotBoxScot and myself - project one SNP list seat. I have no idea if the seat calculator used a UNS or regionally weighted swing, but it doesn't really matter, as projections aren't an exact art.
"The success in the Constituency does however mean less success in the List Votes."
Incorrect - the success or lack of it in the list depends crucially *also* on the SNP list vote share, something the list party advocates also seem to forget.
You can bet money that no discussion on the list will happen without someone chiming in that the SNP only won 4 seats in 2016, & that it can 'only win' in a few regions.
Their opinion has become fossilised, they can't open their minds as to why....
They singularly fail to understand that the number of list seats won is NOT limited by having a constituency landslide.
Even if you win *all* the constituency seats, you can still win seats on the list if your % share is similar or higher.
Notion that SNP 'can't win' is false.
As ever, words mean nothing without data to back them up.
So let's look again at 2016, and the claims that SNP can't win in more regions & thus win more than 4 seats - assumed to be a 'plateau', putting a ceiling on SNP hopes & feeding narrative that an SNP list vote is wasted.
The ISP is not being honest with you by giving the impression that you can safely vote for it and target unionists only, without endangering SNP seats.
7% vote share would put them above Lib Dems and near the Greens. They've yet to register in a poll.
Their whole shtick is based on the fantasy they'll be at 7-8% of the list vote in 2021, taking 'just' 15% or 20% of the SNP vote - 170k votes on current polling, ahead of the LibDems.
Conveniently fail to add crucial fact that even with a landslide in constituencies, a party can still win list seats if its vote hasn't defected to other parties. In 2016, SNP won 4 seats because its list vote was 5% *lower* than it's constituency %: otherwise they's have won 9.
This is so full of erroneous statements and assumptions. ‘The issue of the vital list vote needs to be discussed & debated until a consensus is reached.’ Sadly, there’s been too much uninformed discussion and a total failure to look at what modelling the data predicts.
To state that the SNP can’t win any more list seats is false: if it’s percentage goes up, so will the list seats: the reason there were only 4 in 2016 was because the list was 5% below the constituency %. If they matched, the SNP would have doubled it’s list seats.
To state SNP can’t win in Glasgow is false. Latest Panelbase poll predicts seats in Glasgow and Central (YouGov poll has SNP on two seats in Central). If there’s enough defection of SNP votes to list parties, those SNP seats will go to Labour instead (as well as H&I seat to LDs).