1. Round 5
Additional Member System

2. It’s Complicated
The Additional Member System (AMS)
is the name given to a hybrid electoral
system in which a proportion of the
representatives are selected using the
good old First-Past-The-Post system,
and the rest are allocated on the basis
of Proportional Representation.
While this all sounds a bit foreign, it’s
used with great success in Scotland for
the Holyrod elections. So to recap
AMS= FPTP + PR

3. How Does It Work?
The First-Past-The-Post Bit
This would operate the same way as
FPTP in the UK. However crucially
not all the seats in Parliament are
available under FPTP. So if we use
the UK as an example:
Overall Seats: 650
Seats Under FPTP: (e.g.) 325
The Proportional Representation Bit
What's different is that the rest of the
seats are allocated under PR.
1. Voters fill in 2 slips, 1 for their MP
and a second for their preferred
party.
2. The second slips are counted and
the remaining seats are allocated
based on their share of the vote.

4. D’Hondt If You Love Voting
To allocate seats under the AMS system each seat is allocated in rounds. In each
round we use the following formula is:
Extra Seat = Total Votes For Party +1
Total Seats Owned
So for all the 325 seats up for grabs we would use this system EVERY single time
and for every single party. The party with the highest figure for each round wins
the seat.
* However to qualify for this the party must reach a threshold (percentage) of
the overall votes cast. (E.g. In Germany and Scotland it’s 5%).

5. Bear With Me…..
D’Hondt If You Love Voting
No. Extra Seats= Total Votes for Party
Total Seats Owned + 1
(Say we want to add a further 3 seats)
Consider the following from the General Election 2010
Conservative- 10,726,614 (306)
Labour- 8,609,527 (258)
Lib Dem- 6,836,824 (57)
DUP- 168,216 (8)
SNP- 491,386 (6)
Plaid Cmyru- 165,394 (3)
Under the D’Hondt system the Lib Dems would accumulate a large number
Of extra seats.
Round 1
Tory= 10,726,614/307= 34,940
Labour= 8,609,527/259= 33,241
Lib Dem= 6,836,824/58= 117,871
SNP= 491,386/7= 70,198
DUP= 168, 216/9= 18,691
Plaid= 165,394/4= 41,349
Round 2
Tory= 10,726,614/307= 34,940
Labour= 8,609,527/259= 33,241
Lib Dem= 6,836,824/59= 115,873
SNP= 491,386/7= 70,198
DUP= 168,216/9= 18,691
Plaid= 165,394/4= 41,349
Round 3
Tory= 10,726,614/307
Labour= 8,609,527/259= 33,241
Lib Dem= 6,836,824/60= 113,947
SNP= 491,386/7= 70,198
DUP= 168,216/9= 18,691
Plaid= 165,394/4= 41,349

6. It’s Grim Up North (Of The Border)
The most obvious example of AMS in action is for the Scottish Parliamentary
Elections. Let’s look at how they roll and see if we can learn anything.
Scottish Parliament- FPTP- Part 1
In Scotland 73 of the Parliamentary
seats are decided using FPTP system.
The results are below.
SNP- 53
Labour- 15
Conservatives- 3
Liberal Democrats- 2
Scottish Parliament- PR- Part 2
In Scotland 56 of the Parliamentary
seats are allocated using the PR
system. Results below:
Labour- 22
SNP- 16
Conservatives- 12
Liberal Democrats- 3
Greens- 2
The big winners here are the SNP who are the largest single party and the
Conservatives who treble their share of the vote!

7. II Love AMS, Put Another Vote In The
System Baby!
Here we go it’s Strengths of the Additional Member System time!
1. Proportional
2. Representation
3. Choice
4. Simple-ish
5. Threshold

8. Your All In Proportion
Finally you now have a system which has all the stability of FPTP, but also has the
proportionality of PR. It takes account of the wider political mood of the nation
rather then a narrow campaign amongst swing voters.
So whilst the FPTP system still operates, we also have a second vote on much
broader terms in which voters say who they want NATIONALLY!
For the P.R. Part of the system each party puts forward a list of candidates and
depending upon how many seats they are allocated under the P.R. a number of
candidates from each list are sent to Government.

9. The Representation Of The People
Under P.R. there are no individual
communities only areas which vote for a
party and that party produces a list of
people they want. Depending on that
parties’ share of the vote a specific
number of candidates on that list will be
selected as representatives.
The most obvious example of this in
practice is the European Parliamentary
elections.
However with AMS we still keep our
constituencies….Yehy!

10. Choice Your Words Carefully
You get two voting slips:
1. Vote for your regional representative.
2. Vote for your party of choice.
Whilst this does allow an element of the ‘Safe Seat’ culture we get under FPTP, it
allows a cheeky outlet for voters to express themselves properly in the second
vote.
Not only that but the system deliberately rewards parties that struggle to get seats
under FPTP (I.e. the Liberal Democrats).

11. Simple-ish Politics
Most people understand First-Past-The-Post.
Most people understand the basic principle of Proportional Representation.
As a hybrid system AMS seems to get the best out of both systems. If selected it
would be relatively easy to explain to the electorate.
The only issue of complexity would be calculating who had won seats through the
D’Hondt formula.

12. Take The Bad With The Worse
Yep It’s that time were we criticise the system now. These are some of the issues
which arise with an AMS system.
1. Two-Tier
2. Weaklings
3. Under-Representation
4. Uncertainty
5. Accuracy?

13. Uncertain and Inaccurate
Uncertainty
There is no certainty to this system.
As my mini presentation shows a
large number of seats quickly fill up
for Liberal Democrats. As this
stands it seems ok, but as the seats
start to move amongst the smaller
parties it creates instability.
Accuracy
If we start tinkering with
constituencies is it fair to say they
start to become a bit artificial and
that the people chosen to
represent them are less significant
to the constituency?

14. 2nd Class Constituencies
This is almost a tale of 2 cities. If you constituency is electing using the FPTP part
of the system, then your representative will generally be known locally and will
have connections to the community they represent.
However.... If your constituency is allocated a representative under the PR bit of
the system then they will be chosen by a party list system and allocated to you.
They will be unlikely to know the constituency and will simply be selected on the
basis of how highly the party rates them.
So some constituencies have dedicated representatives (i.e. Labour in Scotland
are very good at this), whereas others are given representatives under PR who
may not be in the interests of that community (the overall growth in the SNP and
Conservative vote is a concern).

15. Weaklings
Weak Representatives
This ties into the last point about
party lists. Each party will have a list
of potential candidates for the PR
seats before the election. That list is
ranked in order of who the party
think is best. So MR/MRS no.1 spot
its looking promising. MR/MRS
no.325 slot might not have it so
easy. As such if they get elected
these people owe their career to
the party NOT to you!
Weak Government
If we look at the systems which use
AMS (Scotland, Germany, Italy and
Russia) one feature is that the PR
element creates political
uncertainty. With the exception of
Russia all these countries either
have a coalition Government or a
minority rule Government which
has to bargain for every issue or face
loosing a vote of no confidence.

16. Underground Over ground
Representation Free
If PR is all about a fair representation,
then why does the AMS version mean
we need a threshold to even qualify.
If we apply this to our elections then
for a party to qualify for the threshold
we need to look at a few things.
Total number of votes = 29,691,380
Threshold 5%
Voters for you needed = 1,484,569

17. The End…..
Now comes the test