The possibility of “gaming the system” in the Holyrood elections has always been present, with all but the SNP and three major Unionist parties primarily utilising it. It is not as easy or risk-free as those supporting Alba would like people to believe.

In 2016, the SNP lost around 4% of its list vote to the Greens, allowing them to take four formerly SNP list seats. However, the drop in the SNP vote allowed Unionists to take eight formerly SNP list seats and lost them their majority. The current polling of Alba would suggest they will win no seats but could easily allow the 2016 result to be emulated with the loss of the four remaining SNP list seats to the Unionists. On their head be it should that come to pass.

READ MORE: Sir Tom Devine: Boris Johnson's Tories think Scotland is over-privileged in UK

The fact that the current Holyrood electoral system can apparently be so easily gamed is a weakness that needs to be addressed. The usual remedy put forward is that we should go to the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. However, STV is more open to gaming than the system we currently have. Hence in council elections, candidates who got far more votes than their opponents lose out as tactical voting further down the list allows a less popular opponent to win. It is also less than transparent, as the relatively complex methodology means voters would effectively be taking the expert’s word for it who won.

I would suggest retaining the D’Hondt system but abandoning the current regional list votes and single member constituencies, and replacing them with fewer, and larger, multi-member constituencies using constituency party lists. In my view, the three island constituencies should retain first-past-the-post, reflecting their small electoral size but distinct geographical situation. All “mainland” constituencies, however, would return three to four MSPs, based on the total votes cast for each party in each constituency, and using the D’Hondt system to distribute the seats fairly.

READ MORE: Pro-Yes majority is clear mandate for indyref2, former Westminster chief says

The current list system for Holyrood uses a closed list which effectively allows parties to choose who is elected from their list in each region. I would suggest using the open list variant for these new multi-member constituencies, which would still allow parties to rank their candidates but would crucially allow voters to bypass this ranking and put their cross next to the candidate of their choice, from the party of their choice. An unpopular candidate would thus be unable to ensure the retention of their seat based solely on the colour of their rosette.

The advantages of this system are that voters only have one vote to cast for the candidate/party of their choice, the result is easier to understand than STV, and each constituency would have a range of local MSPs for constituents to choose from should they have an issue they want addressed.

It would return a relatively proportionate parliament that’s legitimacy could not be challenged due to “gaming” democracy. By that I mean thwarting the “will of the people” to get an artificial result that favours a particular political view.

Stuart Allan
Perth

CAN some of our illustrious readers enlighten me as to the difference between “tactical voting”, which has gone on for decades without any negative criticism (eg voting Labour to stop the SNP, although you may be a fully paid-up Tory), and “gaming the system”, which seems to have incurred LOTS of negative criticism.

As I see it, there’s NO difference. It’s simply an example (like tactical voting) of people trying to get the least worst result (as THEY see it) from an election. This practice is used in ALL elections. Even the much-vaunted Single Transferable Vote system would not be totally free of such attempted manipulation, though as an old trade union member, I saw it in action and thought it the simplest and fairest. If your No1 candidate comes last, then your No2 candidate gets your vote until someone has a genuine overall majority.

Look forward to hearing from all the decriers of “gaming the system”.

Barry Stewart
Blantyre

HAVING recently moved house I am required by HMRC and the Department for Work and Pensions to provide them with my new address.

I went online, and was greeted by security to establish it was the real me and not some fraudster. In neither case did they want my NI number. They did ask me to choose two from three items they could ask me about. 1: A valid UK passport. 2: A Northern Ireland driving licence. 3: Credit reference questions.

My passport expired in 2019 and I have had no occasion to renew it. I have never had a NI driving licence as I have never lived there. After several attempts, they just kept repeating these three items so I decided to telephone them. The robot voice on the phone refused to accept my postal code, so I waited for almost an hour before an operator spoke to me.

It seems that everybody is blaming Covid-19 for extremely bad service. What I wanted to do could have taken 5-10 minutes if the website had been set up properly. I decided to wait the hour to see if it took as long as IKEA to answer (1.5 hours).

Robert Mitchell
Alva