Thursday May 5th 2016
It’s election day and a lot of people are doing last minute googling to find out about the candidates in their constituency.
Midlothian has two constituencies
– Midlothian North and Musselburgh
– Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauder
Click here to find out about the candidates Midlothian North and Musselburgh and click here for Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauder.
Remember in a Scottish Election you have one vote for a constituency candidate and then a second vote for a regional list party.
Scotland is divided into 73 constituencies (for example the two Midlothian constituens above) and each constituency elects one MSP. These are known as constituency MSPs and are elected by ‘first past the post’ in exactly the same way as MPs are elected to Westminster. This is the elector’s constituency vote.
The regional vote is used to elect 56 additional members. Scotland is divided into 8 parliamentary Regions and each region elects 7 regional MSPs. In the second vote the voter votes for a party rather than a candidate. The parties are then allocated a number of additional members to make the overall result more proportional. The regional MSPs are selected from lists compiled by the parties. These MSPs are also sometimes referred to as List MSPs.
To understand how the regional list vote works click HERE.
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