by Rab Bruce’s Spider

Election results have been the focus of much attention over the past few days, in both mainstream and social media channels. The bias of the UK broadcast and print media has been well attested on other blog sites, so there is little need to dwell on that aspect, but we do need to be careful about how we assess different voting systems.

It seems that many people do not fully understand the Single Transferable Vote system, with reports of many spoiled papers and even more where voters did not use the full range, the message of "Vote Till You Boak" not having reached them. As James Kelly points out in this article, the system can work to block candidates if used to its fullest:

http://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/take-bow-snp-voters-of-irvine-valley.html

However, while many Yesers will be happy that a Tory Councillor was blocked, we really must ask ourselves whether the STV system is properly democratic. Imagine if it had been an SNP or Green candidate who had garnered a large proportion of First Preference votes and been denied election because of later preferences. The system is very complex and, because not every voter understands how to use it, can produce some results which can only be regarded as not reflecting the proportion of voters who prefer a particular candidate.

Of course, every voting system has some flaws, and STV is certainly better than First Past The Post, but it is by no means the fairest system.

Having said that, we now know that Vote Till You Boak can work, and if that is the system we are going to be faced with in future Council elections, then we really should make best use of it and make sure that we rank all candidates.

The other major point which really ought to be made is comparison between voting systems used for entirely different situations. Many people on social media are pointing out that Marine Le Pen gained a larger percentage share of the French Presidential Election votes than Ruth Davidson’s Tory Party gained in the Scottish Local Elections. Despite this, the media are reporting Le Pen’s abject defeat, while the Tories are being praised for a stunning success. Now, while it is perfectly true that the media in Scotland is desperate to hype up the Tories as much as possible, our complaints about the comparison do not stand up to scrutiny because the two elections were totally different. In the French Presidential election, the contest was between two candidates, others having been eliminated in earlier rounds. Voters had only three choices: Macron, Le Pen, or not voting. It was a straight First Past The Post contest. It’s good news that Le Pen lost, although around a third of voters who did cast a vote chose her, and that is worrying. Still, her defeat was quite emphatic, and that is another blow to the Far Right.

In contrast, the Scottish Council elections used STV, and there was a multiplicity of candidates, with several being elected in each electoral ward. In this contest, the Tories made spectacular gains compared to the last Council elections, even if this was largely because Labour voters switched to their hard-line Unionist rallying cry. In this respect, comparison of vote share in the two elections this week is relatively meaningless because we are not comparing like with like. Marine Le Pen may have gained a higher percentage of the vote than the Tories in Scotland, but she won absolutely nothing, while the Scottish Tories have 276 Councillors to show for their efforts. It’s way behind the SNP but, coming from a really low base, it does look superficially impressive, which is why the UK media are falling over themselves to promote it as evidence of waning support for the SNP.

Further evidence of the alleged SNP slump is demonstrated by the vote share for pro-Indie Parties being only around 36%. This is, however, slightly up on the previous Council elections, and we must bear in mind that the turnout in Council elections is always lower than in General Elections. As Tories almost always vote, the pro-Indie vote is always likely to be lower in Council elections. Comparing these results with Westminster and Holyrood General Elections is a classic example of comparing apples with pears, because it tells us very little.

The media will, however, try to promote the same "SNP support waning" spin after the General Election where a consolidation of the Unionist vote behind the Tories will inevitably lead to the SNP losing some seats because the pro-Union vote will not be split between Labour and the Tories to the same extent as in the last General Election. What will be interesting to see is a comparison of the vote share between the 2015 and 2017 General Elections. Whatever the outcome in terms of seats won, the vote share will be a real demonstration of the Scottish public’s appetite, or lack of it, for independence.