I AM gobsmacked at the naivety displayed by Geoff Hobson in his letter asking us to make sure that we continue to vote for party and candidate in that order, and lump it when we see that winning the constituency vote necessarily means that our “party” vote will be diminished in the Additional Member System system (Letters, July 1).
Firstly, it is open to all parties to game the system so I see nothing wrong with maximising the Yes vote in the same way that the Unionist parties have been doing with the No vote in past constituency voting by choosing the candidate who has the best chance of beating the SNP (I am looking at you, LibDem and Tory voters).
READ MORE: ‘Alternative vote’ ruse will not help gain us international respect
Secondly, he seems to think that gaming the system will somehow demean the result in the eyes of international observers. I would have thought that present SNP policy to decide on independence through a referendum is self-evidently the fairest way to establish whether the people of Scotland wish to end the Union. Of course if Westminster refuses to accede to our democratic wishes then a plebiscite vote in a General Election would be our only route to independence and would most definitely be recognised internationally.
Bill McDermott
Drumnadrochit
GEOFF Hobson writes that using the additional member vote ruse is to risk losing international respect and even to threaten the future of the existing Scottish Parliament. His conclusions raise questions.
Why is it that the Westminster first-past-the-post system, which is manifestly unfair, is perfectly acceptable to the international community, even though that system has a secondary effect in Scotland that the 81% of Scottish-supported SNP MPs have no power whatsoever in Westminster against the ranks of the Unionist parties and are even shackled further by English Votes for English Laws?
Why does it thus follow that the Additional Member System, which was foisted on the Scottish Parliament to ensure the SNP had little chance of majority rule – just because the Scottish electorate choose to use ASM to circumvent it by voting in an SNP government and now seek to use it to extend the independence vote – has suddenly become a terminal risk to independence itself?
READ MORE: Ruth Wishart: Alternative pro-independence votes may be key to Yes majority
Is it not true that Westminster is against independence for Scotland whether it is evidenced by UK elections, Holyrood elections or a referendum, and the only democratic route is via repeated pro-independence polls of every sort until the international community sees the unfairness of it, remembering that most have a history of resistance to English hegemony?
Lastly, Hobson tells us how to make our choice. Is it not true that reasons for voter selection are multifarious and are supposed to be secret anyway?
Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell
I WOULD like to thank Mr Hobson for a very clear explanation of the voting system for Holyrood and the risks of “gaming” the result. I do, however feel that he omits one unfair problem with the D’Hondt system.
In the list vote, the allocation of seats by vote share is influenced by how many votes a party has won in the constituency vote. If the list is intended to produce a closer reflection of voters’ wishes, surely each section should be entirely separate from the other? The number of votes for a constituency representative should have no bearing on which party voters have chosen in the list.
READ MORE: A formal Alliance for Independence will be up and running soon
As long as the constituency vote affects the calculations in the list vote, voters’ wishes are not being accurately represented. When putting their cross for a party, they are not saying “I want to choose this party, as long as they have not had too great a success in the constituency vote.” Yet that is the result of the D’Hondt system. The actual number of votes a party gets in that second vote is the only accurate indicator of voters’ wishes.
And therein lies our problem.
P Davidson
Falkirk
WITH respect to Mr Hobson’s letter in yesterday’s National I would make the following somewhat briefer comments.
I do not consider that the majority of people vote for a “party” or “person” as such.
Firstly they vote to achieve the goals they wish their country to aspire to and achieve. They vote for these ends to be attained by supporting a party and candidate that reflects these beliefs, but that is secondary to achieving the goals they want for their country. It is, after all, the progress of the country that is important.
The Holyrood electoral system is what it is – the same as in a number of other nations.
Therefore voting in accordance with the system is NOT a ruse. It is quite simply voting in the proper manner stipulated to achieve one’s political aims. That is what voting is about –using the system to achieve the destiny one wants for our nation.
The idea that other countries would regard the correct use of an accepted voting system as undemocratic is fallacious. So people should vote to achieve the outcomes they wish for their country. They may and should do that as they wish in accordance with the voting system, not by blindly putting a cross in any party’s box.
Ideally an indy Scotland will change to a straightforward proportional representation system, which ensures every single vote counts.
Scott Rogers
Hamilton
I THINK it was Margaret Thatcher who said the equivalent of “When people resort to personal insults it shows that you have won the argument”. Like Terry Keegans (Letters, June 29) I found the pseudo-German thing quite amusing, and it reminded me of a message on the toilet wall of Alltsaigh Youth Hostel (now
Loch Ness) in 1966 which read something like “Achtung, Nein Richten Oont Der Valls Oft Der Sheissen Hausen!”
Angus Grewar
Kirriemuir
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