Why Scottish Parliament voting should be overhauled to stop parties 'gaming the system'

Conservative MSP Stephen Kerr said too many regional list MSPs felt “removed” from their constituents because the area they represented was too geographically large. He said regional MSPs were more likely to follow party management because constituents had voted for a party rather than an individual person.

When Scots go to the polls in May, they will be asked to vote for a constituency MSP and for up to seven regional list MSPs. While constituency MSPs are voted in using the first-past-the-post system, regional MSPs are elected using a form of proportional representation called the d’Hondt system.

This means voters rank parties from their most to least favoured, and seats are then allocated accordingly. Parties rank their candidates in the same manner to see which ones are awarded the seats.

Mr Kerr has recently written an academic paper co-authored by James Bundy highlighting a number of shortcomings they claim exist in the Scottish Parliament. The regional list MSP system is one area they feel needs improvement.

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Speaking to The Scotsman, Mr Kerr said: “Some parties only exist because of regional MSPs. But the way they are elected could be why they are often not sufficiently independent.

“They are elected here on the basis of the party, not people voting for them personally, and that is a weakness in the current electoral process.

“There are other systems we should be looking at which are stronger and give multi-member constituencies. That could empower MSPs to do more and be more independently minded.”

Mr Kerr added: “There are parties who don’t stand in constituency seats and you only have to look up what the d’Hondt system was supposed to do and see that it is like gaming the system.”

In the 2021 Holyrood election, there were two SNP, 25 Conservatives, 20 Labour and eight Green regional MSPs elected. Mr Kerr was elected as a regional MSP for the Conservatives in the central region.

He said: “I think for very understandable reasons the regional list MSPs feel more removed from their constituencies. We need to work hard to make ourselves available because our regions are huge.

“Take my central region - it covers everything from Falkirk to Hamilton. It is a huge area and it is understandable that people’s perception is that they don’t know who we are.”