I READ Mhairi Black's beginner's guide to the D'Hondt voting system and was disappointed to see her present an oversimplified and frankly dishonest explanation which was framed merely to support the SNP 1&2 strategy and nothing else (This is how list system works – and why every vote matters, April 3).

Her explanation was based on gaining one list seat in a system which was completely unrepresentative of how D'Hondt is used in a Holyrood scenario, where each list has a total of seven seats available. She also again paints the picture that voting tactically for another pro-independence party is somehow trying to "game the system", stating that you should vote for the party which represents your views. For many in the independence movement their sole reason for voting SNP is for independence, and they "hold their noses" and vote SNP in the face of other policies they patently disagree with. Ms Black decries lending your second vote elsewhere, not realising that many are lending the SNP their first vote in the first place!

READ MORE: Mhairi Black: This is how list system works – and why every vote matters

She pointed to the SNP's win under Alex Salmond in 2011, which beat the system to deliver a majority, and ascribes the 2016 loss of seats as being due to losing list votes, something which is patently not the case. There were a number of factors at play here, especially the fact Ruth Davidson had gone all out to capture the split British nationalist vote and in some areas more than doubled the Tory vote. Indeed one might say that Davidson won her constituency from the SNP due to the Greens splitting the constituency vote there – not the list.

In Central Scotland, where I live, the SNP took all the constituency seats and had 129,082 list votes, which saw them take no list seats. For them to have taken even one list seat would have required finding an extra 16,288 votes; around 3,000 more voters than actually voted for them in the constituencies. By contrast, had less than 2000 SNP voters lent the Greens a list vote then they would have gained one MSP at the expense of the Tories

Similarly, in Glasgow the SNP took 111,101 list votes for a nil return of seats and would have required an astounding 36,579 votes to prise even one seat from the Unionist rivals. Yet had just over 6,000 SNP supporters switched votes on the list, the Greens may have again taken a seat at the expense of the Tories.

READ MORE: Don’t take us for fools with ‘overly simplistic’ SNP 1&2 arguments

In Fife, the SNP required a massive 40,531 extra votes for one seat, in the North East 34,624, yet on the Lothian list they only required an extra 2,393 votes (which would have seen them gain a seat at the expense of the Greens). 

I could go on, but you get the picture. This is a complex issue which requires us as independence supporters to put in the hours and do our homework. To blindly follow a broad brush strategy of "give us all your votes" is to ask us to disregard the evidence which is before our very eyes. Far more sensible would be a message of "Vote Smart" by using your judgement and your local knowledge and experience to see whether you can use your list vote tactically to benefit a pro-independence party.

In years gone by this was fairly straightforward, as the Greens were the only alternative receptacle for list votes, however that is now more complicated as there is a choice of the Greens or the Alba Party, and a decision on which of those to vote for might be made on the basis of policy or on the basis of your assessment of which one would be most likely to win.

In the case of either party, the threshold for them to gain a list seat is relatively modest, something which is easily achievable if the SNP don't campaign to hoard votes which will ultimately be written off. An easing off on the "SNP 1&2" rhetoric would perhaps encourage some people to look afresh at our voting system and see how it works, as from what I am seeing on social media, many people's response to any debate on the issue is to merely confirm that they have already closed their mind off to the topic, and those responses are usually accompanied by slanderous comment and memes aimed at Alex Salmond, the likes of which I would formerly have expected to find in the depths of the most bitter corners of Unionist social media. 

There's something very Scottish about watching two branches of the same church tear themselves apart over whose method of worship is the right one, and I suggest that memebers of certain factions which make up the formerly broad church of the Yes movement remember what it was that made us so strong in 2014, and retrain their fire on the enemies of independence, rather than firing on their own lines. If we do not, then there will only be one winner in all of this and that is Westminster, and I am certain that is an outcome which none of us find acceptable. On May 6, whether you vote smart or vote through blind loyalty, one thing matters above all – just get out and vote, and with luck we'll all get a positive result for Scotland when the ballot box closes.

James Cassidy
Airdrie