Friday May 8th 2026
Ballot box
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
The SNP has secured its hold on West Lothian’s Holyrood seats.
Veteran MSP Angela Constance retained the Almond Valley seat she first secured in 2007. Pauline Stafford, first elected to the council in 2022 secured the job of MSP in the newly created Bathgate Constituency.
But the party saw its share of the vote sink compared to the lockdown election of 2021.
And the Tories have seen their fortunes plunge, coming in fourth place behind an insurgent Reform.
In Linlithgow former MP Martyn Day is expected to return to represent the ward in the Falkirk East and Linlithgow seat at Holyrood.
Turnout across the county was well down on figures for the last Holyrood poll – at the height of Covid Pandemic in 2021
A combined electorate in Bathgate and Almond Valley totalled 140,806. In Bathgate the turnout, announced around 1pm was 33,432 voters 49.1% down from
That breaks down to 68,052 in the newly created Bathgate and 72,754 in Almond Valley.
Some 274 boxes of votes were collected from 75 polling stations. A further 24,480 postal votes were collected across the two constituencies.
Turnout figures, announced around Noon for Almond Valley amounted to 40,855 or 56.2% down significantly on the 2021 turnout of 61.1%.
The new Bathgate constituency – essentially the old Linlithgow and Bathgate Holyrood constituency more or less the of Linlithgow- announced its turnout around 13:00.
It was a surprising 49.1% with only 33,432 voters turning out.
Earlier the Almond Valley voters totalled 40,855 or 56.2% significantly lower than the 2021 poll turnout of 61.1%.
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