On Election Bureaucracy - Holyrood 2021

[danieldwilliam]

Today is the earliest possible date for the publication of notice of election for the Holyrood general election May 2021.

It's therefore the earliest possible date for nomionations to be submitted which are permitted at any time after the notice of election.

Nominations close on 31st March.

I'll be watching to see who is nomanated and where by the Independence for Scotland Party and Action for Independence and whether Andy Wightman runs as an indendent in Lothians.

Comments

[andrewducker]

I'm also fascinated. I assume that if any big hitters go that way that it will make a splash.

[danieldwilliam]

It would do.

If Cherry stood in Lothians and Salmond stood in North East Scotland they would probably be guaranteed a seat and the publicity might help their campaign catch fire in other regions.

There are winable seats for them in every region except South of Scotland I'd have thought.

The other key thing to watch for is whether ISP and AFI stand candidates in all of the regions or whether they come to some sort of agreement.

[alithea]

Interesting times indeed. I'm hoping it's 3rd time lucky for Maggie Chapman and we don't have yet another election where she just misses out on getting a NE regional seat.

[danieldwilliam]

I see she's top of the list in the North East.

I think her prospects depend on whether e.g. Salmond runs for ISP / AFI take off.

[alithea]

Yep, I think you're right. Normally we can try to win over SNP voters to use their regional vote Green on the basis of the SNP already getting umpteen seats but if the indy vote is split further it's not going to be in her favour.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm not hugely hopeful to be honest but AMS is weird so who knows.

Fiddling about with the 2016 results I ran 4 scenarios

If the SGP increase their vote by 20% from new voters they win a seat, the Conservatives lose a seat. They need a little over 2,000 votes to win the Round 7 seat from the Conservatives.

IF ISP / SFI / Salmond for First Minister take 20,000 votes from the SNP then they win a seat, the Conservatives loss a seat.

This is still the case if the SGP also increase their vote total by 20%. No seat for the SGP.

SGP would need a 22% increase in their votes (again new voters not a shift in voters) to win a seat in the event that a pure play independence party gets 20,000 from the SNP.

That's before looking at the impact of the SNP not holding all of their constituency seats. Which I haven't done but I think a Conservative win in one of those seats doesn't allow the SNP to pick up any more seats and just means +1 Tory overall.

[alithea]

Oh dear, yeah, that doesn't look promising, I thought we were closer than that in 2016 but I must have been misremembering and/or thinking of the Euro election results.

[danieldwilliam]

It's funny because I remember looking at the 2016 result in Lothian and mis-remembering how close the SGP were to getting a third seat. There's clearly something about the election results that makes us look at them through green-tinted lenses.