We use three systems in Scotland already. (Not sure about Wales and NI, but they do use FPTP and MMPR)
The majority of MSP's are elected on the old First Past The Post system, and around a third (Additional Members) are elected using Mixed Member Proportional Representation.
The way MMPR works is there are eight Geographical Constituencies (Regions) to fight for, with seven seats in each, all the parties draw up a list of candidates in order of preference and they win seats based on the number of secondary votes they win within those Regions's.
This is where it gets a bit complicated: The amount of votes they get for each Region is divided by the number of seats they have won in the FPTP system, plus one and the winning party selects the top remaining member on their list to take a seat (if the top candidate has already won a seat in the FPTP votes it takes precedence and they select the next one down, and so on). The same process is used to select seven Additional Members for each Region, with each winning party having their divisor incremented by 1 as they win additional seats.
It means we can either split our votes because we like what another party has to say, but not enough to give them our first vote, or vote for the same party in both because we think the rest are balloons.
The third system is for the local Council Elections.
For that we use the Single Transferable Vote: (Using a quote here, CBA typing it up
)
To be elected a candidate must reach a set amount of votes known as the quota.
The votes are counted in stages. In the first stage only first preferences are counted. Anyone who reaches the quota is elected. Any votes received over the quota are not needed by the elected candidate and so are transferred to the second preference. If not enough candidates have then reached the quota, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and all of their votes are passed to the next preference on the ballot papers.
This process is repeated until three or four candidates have been elected.
So come May 5th, people in Scotland will vote twice for the Scottish Parliament elections (one for Constituency, one for Regional), once for the Local Council (in order of preference (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 etc..)) and then once more on whether to accept the AV system for the UK elections.
...and the anti-AV brigade down south patronise people by saying AV alone is too complicated for the English to deal with?
