Scottish voters will cast their votes on Thursday in 32 local election races. But it’s possible that no party will win majority control of a mainland council. This is partly by design. These elections use the single-transferable-vote (STV) system. Scots rank their preferences instead of being forced by a first-past-the-post (FPTP) system to gamble on one party – often considered by voters as the least bad. By its nature, FPTP squashes small parties and leads to duopolies on power. In contrast, STV allocates seats more or less in line with the popular vote.
The electoral system is one reason that “coalitions of losers” often win Scottish local election races. Another is that Scottish politics remains polarised around national identity. The Greens’ decision to enter the SNP-led Scottish government encourages supporters of these two parties to give lower preferences to each other’s candidates. This would give the SNP potentially a big advantage over the unionist parties which have not tacitly – or explicitly – recommended that their backers give lower preference votes to the candidates of other pro-union parties. However, council elections are fought in the streets on bread and butter, rather than constitutional, issues.
