It's disappointing both that the SNP is being allowed to re-use the 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' slogan used on 2007's list ballot paper, and also that the party has decided to once again exploit this kind of thing.
As I recall it the phrase was used because it would both emphasise Mr Salmond's role - hence exploiting his personal popularity - and elevate the party to the top of the ballot paper. It seems that the latter aim has been thwarted by the Electoral Commission requiring the addition of the party's name in front of the slogan (Hence - 'SNP: Alex Salmond for First Minister'), but otherwise this has done nothing to remedy the misleading nature of the label.
These are parliamentary elections. It's not a presidential contest, but as it stands the list ballot paper manages to convey the latter impression vis-à-vis Mr Salmond. It would clearly be ridiculous to use the label in question for candidates in a FPTP constituency vote, so why should the regional contest be any different - it's the list candidates that voters are selecting, not the party leader.
And it's self-evident that Scottish voters often don't fully understand the list system, thus any attempt to exploit this confusion and perhaps exacerbate it is utterly shameless, particularly since the link between voters and the regional members often seems so tenuous.
Of course, as well as emphasising Mr Salmond, as a corollary the sleight of hand here helps detract attention from the actual list candidates themselves, so perhaps the SNP's stance on this says something about their quality? And indeed since Mr Salmond is usually keen to highlight the strength of his ministerial team it does seem strange to portray the SNP as more of a one-man-band in this way.
Sloganeering should be confined to the speeches, leaflets and press releases, and should not appear on the ballot paper.
The SNP may want a presidential-style election, but voters are selecting MSPs. Of course, they very probably vote for these MSPs with one eye on the prospective First Minster, but that's not the same as directly electing a president, and the powers that be should consider the 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' as unacceptable on the regional ballot paper as it would be for the constituencies.
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15 comments:
Agreed - so let's have no addition of 'Scottish' in front of 'Labour Party' which cons people into voting for something that doesn't actually exist.
At least putting 'Alex Salmond for First Minister' is a fair reflection of what voting SNP on the list is likely to achieve.
What's the defence for putting 'Scottish' in front of 'Labour'?
Interesting that you do not comment on the use of personalised slogans (sloganeering) by any of the other parties contesting the regional seats.
The parties will be listed in alphabetical order by registered party name. This is not an Electoral Commission requirement - it is the law as passed by the UK Parliament.
A party that does not have "Scottish" in its registered name may add "Scottish" to its name when it contests elections in Scotland. All part of the same UK law.
As a result, there will be eight "Scottish" parties on the regional ballot paper in the Glasgow electoral region and similar numbers elsewhere. But of course, the Daily Record's story didn't mention any of that.
You are right to say that large numbers of Scottish voters do not understand how the Additional Member System works. The regional vote is much the more important as it determines how many seats each party will get.
Thus it could be argued that, far from causing confusion, "Alex Salmond for First Minister" helped voters to understand the potential consequences of their regional vote in a way that had not been so obvious before.
The description on the ballot paper will be Scottish National Party (SNP). Underneath that it will say Alex Salmond for First Minister.
This will not elevate the SNP to the top of the ballot paper.
There is nothing misleading about it. The next Scottish Government will almost certainly be led bu the party with the biggest share of the vote. Voting SNP in the regional ballot allows people to register their suport for an SNP Government EVEN IF THEY WANT TO VOTE FOR SOMEONE ELSE AS THEIR CONSTITUENCY MSP. That is why Labour is unhappy about it.
And if that is "presidentia"l so what?
Governments don't come about by chance. They are elected and they are led, in Scotland, by a First Minister.
Anon - I've always wondered why Labour do put "Scottish" in front of their name on the ballot. It means they're in among all the other S-names - i.e. pretty much everyone except the BNP. Being under L would make them stand out more. I guess they must think it helps them, but I can't see how it would.
Anyway, the allegation seems to be that the SNP are risking causing the same chaos as 2007. We'll find out whether that fear is warranted. My guess is there won't be any more spoiled ballots than at any other election.
Why "Scottish"? They all want to play the "Scottish" card.
"L" for "Labour"? I am sure "London Labour" would soon be the slagging tag.
The cause of so many Scottish Parliament ballot papers being rejected (not "spoilt") at the 2007 elections was the change to one ballot sheet instead of using two separate ballot papers. We still do not know why so many Scottish voters made mistakes with the new design.
There were some specific problems with the ballot sheets in Glasgow and Lothian, but the same rejection problems occurred in all eight electoral regions. No research has been done to find out why the one-sheet design caused such problems here. Similar combined ballot sheets are used in the AMS elections in both Germany and New Zealand and they have never had the scale of rejections seen here in 2007.
But none of that should happen this time. We are going back to two separate ballot papers, one for the constituency and one for the region. Of course, that doesn't mean that the voters will really understand how AMS works, but that's another story!
I'd have had "Alex for president of the Universe" - if only his ego was big enough!
Seriously though, what is the problem with just sticking to the party name - SNP, Conservative & Unionist, Liberal Democrat, New Labour....
Anon
Indeed, I wouldn't defend the use of 'Scottish' in front of 'Labour', but it's not quite as contrived as the label in question, and it's still referring exclusively to the party rather than an individual who (most) people won't be voting for.
Edinburgh
Fair point as well about other sloganeering - 'SSP: Convener Tommy Sheridan' springs to mind - but again I'm not sure if any of this year's ones acually refer to an individual.
But I don't really get your point about the list vote. Surely things would be clearer if the ballot paper referred simply to the party? By the same token, the phrase used in relation to AS confuses things and might convey the impression that in some way electors are voting directly for Alex Salmond.
Indy
Indeed, I made the point in the post that the EC had thwarted the SNP's top of the ballot paper position by requiring the party's name before 'AS for FM'.
And the point is that people are voting for party list candidates, not AS as the slogan on the paper might suggest.
You say 'so what' if it's presidential, and no doubt you would like it to be so, but unfortunately it isn't.
Colin
Good point about the 'Scottish' label.
As regards the 'rejected' ballot papers, you may be correct, but my point is more as regards people thinking they are voting for AS and also insofar as this detracts from the list candidates. Clearly those issues won't manifest themselves in the form of rejected papers.
Allan, absolutely, but I think Indy makes it clear what the problem is.
Or at least, the benefits of a quasi-presidential election ;0)
Stuart
Personalised sloganeering in 2011: you have obviously not looked at the published lists of nominations. You will find that the Scottish Green Party and The Respect Party have both used personal names in the 'registered descriptions' they have chosen to use on the regional ballot papers in Glasgow and Lothian. (Haven't looked elsewhere.)
You repeat the mistake that it is the Electoral Commission ("EC") that has "thwarted" the SNP from taking the top spot. This has nothing to do with the Electoral Commission. As I said in an earlier post, this decision was made by the UK Parliament when the relevant UK-wide law was revised to mandate the use of 'registered party names' that had to be presented in strict alphabetical order. The use of one of a party's 'registered descriptions' remained optional.
The point about the list votes is quite complicated (like so much to do with AMS). Most parties in most regions (including the SNP) need to maximise their regional votes to maximise their numbers of seats. But there is good evidence from the 2007 elections that many of their supporters do not understand this. So they vote for their preferred party in the constituency but give their regional vote to another of the four main parties. This probably occurred to an even greater extent in 2003 but we cannot measure it directly because the two votes were then on separate ballot papers and the votes were not counted electronically.
My point about the SNP's 2007 personalised "First Minister" 'registered description' was that it probably helped to get across the message in all eight electoral regions that if you wanted an SNP government you should cast your regional vote for the SNP. Equally, of course, it conveyed the message that if you did not want an SNP government you should not cast your regional vote for the SNP. Of the two AMS votes, the regional vote is much the more important, but most emphasis in SP elections has, wrongly, been put on the constituency vote.
Stuart has made a fair point about the actual SNP candidates. And don't forget, the SNP if they won would decide who is First Minister, not the voters. And what happens in the unlikely event that Salmond did not win a seat?
But to be fair it is no different than when Labour bring up MPs who have got nothing to do with Scotland such as Milliband. So a bit of pot kettle black.
Edinburgh
Apologies if I appeared to be ignoring your point about the role of the UK Parliament in changing the rules, which was due to my haste in pointing out to Indy that I had underlined that the SNP wouldn't be able to use the slogan this time round to top the ballot paper.
And indeed I haven't looked at any of the published lists of nominations - and unless I can drag my carcass to the polling booth in May then I'm unlikely to do so! - but I certainly don't want to pick on the SNP as regards abusing the process.
And using personal names is not the only problem with the SNP's tactic, in my opinion - it's the 'for first minister' aspect as well, which must convey the impression to some that they're voting directly for AS, which comes back to my quasi-presidential point.
Indeed, since you say that some electors are regarding the list vote as some kind of second preference vote - if I'm reading you correctly - then this underlines the potential for 'AS for FM' causing confusion, if you're saying that many simply don't understand the system.
Anyway, as regards electors giving their vote to another party in the list vote as compared to the constituency, isn't that kind of the intention of the system, apart from introducing an element of proportionality per se?
For those who want to see the regional candidates for Glasgow, look here:
http://www.glasgow.gov.uk/en/YourCouncil/Elections_Voting/ScottishParliamentaryElection2011/Candidates/RegionalListforGlasgow.htm
and for Lothian, look here:
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/4159/lothian_region-statement_of_persons_nominated_and_notice_of_poll.
The big problem with AMS is deciding how best to use your two votes most effectively to help secure the result you want. To do that you need a great deal of information about the likely voting pattern in your electoral region (not an all-Scotland average)and about the likely outcome in every constituency within that electoral region. Quite a challenge!!
Very many electors (and parties!) regarded the two votes as some kind of preferences. Indeed, even the official literature encouraged this view in 1999 and 2003: "your FIRST vote"; "your SECOND vote". And that fitted very well with the general view that the constituency election was the more important. But in reality, the regional vote is much the more important.
If you are a supporter of the Scottish Green Party in a constituency where the SGP has not nominated a constituency candidate, you would vote SGP in the region and find another home for your constituency vote - and maybe vote tactically there to keep someone in or to keep someone out.
But if you are a supporter of one of the four larger parties which contest every constituency and every electoral region, determining your best option could be much more difficult. If your preferred party is not going to win all its overall fair share of the seats as constituency seats, you MUST give your regional vote to your preferred party. But that's what lots of party supporters don't do - they give away their regional votes to another of the four larger parties.
If you are a Labour Party supporter in one of the electoral regions where the Labour Party will win its overall fair share (or more than its fair share) of the seats as constituency seats, what should you do with your regional vote? There is no point in giving it to the Scottish Labour Party, because it will not help them win even one regional seat. But that is exactly what hundreds of thousands of Labour Party voters did in the past AMS elections - and all those regional votes were completely wasted - they had no effect on the outcome at all. In 2007, taking only the three electoral regions where such an outcome was easily predictable, more than 283,000 regional votes for Labour were wasted in this way.
Thanks for that insight, Edinburgh, but somehow I doubt if anything other than a small proportion of voters consider these things with that level of sophistication, and potentially encouraging SNP supporters to waste votes in some regions with the slogan in question must raise questions about the SNP's strategy ;0)
Anyway, thanks for the links, which have helped inspire my next blog post.
And I'm not sure if the URLs are working properly in your browser, but here they are in hyperlink form: Glasgow Edinburgh)
Stuart, I am sure you are right that very few voters think through how best to use their two AMS votes. What is more worrying is that the parties do not appear to do it either, not even in emphasising the importance of the regional vote.
If you want more on this, you might be interested to look at this conference paper:
http://www.jamesgilmour.f2s.com/EPOP08-Switch-Voting-10Sep08.pdf
Thanks for that, Edinburgh, and I see Kenny Farquharson has devoted his Scotland on Sunday column to these kind of issues, suggesting that the election result will be a 'sham' as a consequence.
Ouch!
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