Putting the People in Control

Attended an ERS launch event this evening for the publication of a major report assessing the impact of the local authority Elections in Scotland last May.

... enjoyable evening, with a good mix of civic and party activists present - sure I spotted the odd fellow renegade blogger, but didn't (unfortunately) get the chance to swap notes ;-)

It is a pretty long report - full version can be accessed here - but well worth a read, and the conclusions from the extensive analysis are very clear:

• STV has produced much more representative councils than would have been elected under the former First-Past-The-Post system
• parties appear to have adapted well to the new system, although we expect that parties will develop their techniques as they gain experience of STV campaigning
• voter understanding of the system appears to have been generally good, with a relatively low level of spoilt ballot papers (unlike the Scottish Parliament election held on the same day)
• most votes mattered, in the sense that they contributed to the election of a councillor

Contrast that with local elections down south ...

... just a pity about that damned result in Edinburgh :-((