I don't usually do political stuff on here, but I've been looking into the Proportional Representation system being used in Wales in May and figured many people won't know how it works. I am going to look at how voters can maximise their one and only vote, but spoiler alert, this appears to be a very fair system.
First of all, lets look at how the constituencies are structured, then at how the voting works. I'm going to use publicly available polling information for my own constituency, Flint Wrexham, to show how the seats will be distributed on the assumption the current polling reflects the voting on the day.
There will be sixteen constituencies, each providing six representatives. Most of these elected representatives will be fielded by political parties but there may be some independents as well. At the time of writing there aren't any independents slated for my constituency, but I suspect there may in some of the other fifteen.
Each political party can field a number of candidates and rank them in the order they expect them to be selected if they win any seats. At the moment Labour are fielding seven candidates, Conservatives six, Plaid Cymru six, Liberal Democrats seven, Green just one, Reform six and Heritage one. There is still a week or so until the final names are ratified and fixed so that list will probably change - already in the last day a Plaid Cymru candidate and a Reform candidate have stood down (neither from Flint Wrexham candidates, I hasten to add) following historical social media information being made public - it's likely to get a little messy as opposing tribes trawl for dirt on their opponents, probably right up until election day. Modern day politics, I guess.
As a registered voter I can only vote for one party (or an independent if any are registered) and once all the votes are counted the seats are allocated by a specific process. I'm going to use the latest polling from YouGov MRP for Flint Wrexham and will try to update it up until the actual election.
At this point in time (28 March) the expected percentage split according to YouGov for Flint Wrexham is:
Plaid Cymru - 21%
Reform - 26%
Labour 15%
Greens - 15%
Conservatives - 10%
Lib Dems - 9%
Others - 4%
For the first round, the party with the largest vote share (shown here as a percentage, but in reality will be actual number of votes) wins the seat. So, at 26%, Reform wins round one and the first seat, and their vote share is halved to 13%, with all other vote shares unchanged.
In round two Plaid Cymru, at 21%, has the largest vote share so wins the seat. Its vote share is halved to 10.5%.
Round three and four in this polling suggests Labour and Green get a seat each. In reality one or the other is almost certainly going to have more votes than the other, but the process will give the same result. Both scores will be halved to 7.5% each.
For round five, Reform have the largest share at 13%, so win the seat. Their vote share is halved to 6.5%.
Finally, in round six, Plaid Cymru with 10.5%, win the seat.
So, based on these figures, Reform win two seats, Plaid Cymru win two seats, Labour wins one and so does the Green party. The Conservatives, Lib Dems and 'others' don't win anything. I don't know if 'others' refers to Heritage or other parties that at the time of writing haven't registered.
Some might be asking if they can vote tactically to help their broad choice (left or right wing) gain more seats. It's certainly seems harder than with First Past the Post, but let's play a 'what-if' game.
Traditionally in this constituency the Conservatives have done well in the General Elections, garnering almost enough to take the seat from Alyn and Deeside from Labour and actually returning Conservative MPs in Wrexham and Flint until the last General Election so there is certainly a strongish right wing vote here, which I suspect has largely been transferred to Reform. Could some or all of the Conservative votes migrate to Reform? Possibly, but my gut suggests there are a hard core of traditional Tory voters in that ten percent who probably won't leave the party.
The Lib Dems haven't enjoyed a lot of success locally in the twenty-odd years I've lived here so I'm going to suggest that some or maybe most of the nine percent is available for 'loaning'. If five percent of the voters changed from the Lib Dems to Plaid (or Green, Labour - I'm suggesting loaned votes will go to the progressive party with the most support to boost impact) then on current polling they would be neck and neck for the first two seats. In that case the third and fourth would go to Labour and Greens as before, then the fifth and sixth as in the original vote, so no change. It would need a larger swing from one of Labour or Green to Plaid to make any real difference.
So, on the basis of the current poll figures there doesn't appear to be much scope for tactical voting either way,. Historically turnout has been relatively high for the Welsh Sennedd elections - around 45% locally in 2021, that leaves a lot of scope for those who think their vote doesn't count, are apathetic or just can't be bothered putting half an hour of effort in once every five years. An interesting element is that voting is open to sixteen year olds and upwards this election, and that demographic is more likely to vote Plaid Cymru or Green according to some surveys. That's if they have registered in time - that demographic has a reputation for putting off registration.
In the figures created by YouGov there will be a certain amount of 'Don't knows', many of who probably do know, just prefer to not say. That would be me if they asked, I'm guessing (never been asked in any opinion poll, but suits me fine). It's probably reasonable for the pollster to assume that the vote distribution of these is similar to those who declare who they intend to vote for, but there will be others who think that voting is a waste of time. I've never been a fan of that argument - sure it's frustrating if the party or person returned in your locality doesn't represent your views but that's democracy in action. From what I can see from this exercise is that the PR model presents a better opportunity to get one or more representatives closer to your politics than the First Past the Post method, which would possibly have delivered a larger amount of Reform candidates in this constituency if used, judging by the current polling.
If the message gets out of how the allocation works we could see a higher turnout, which is good for democracy, which in part is why I've put this out there. I would urge everyone who is registered to vote to do so, and to urge anyone they know to do so also. Feel free to share this post - it doesn't garner any payments for me if you're worried, or feel free to cut and paste anything in it that you feel is useful. A credit would be polite.
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