[AlanG]

AS those of you who don't live under rocks know, this year sees elections for the Scottish Parliament and for Council.

This is also the first time that a Single Transferable Vote system will be used for Council elections.

This also means that for each of the three ballot papers you will have a different voting mechanism:

Holyrood First Vote:
first past the post = person/party with most votes in a ward wins

Holyrood Second Vote
Additional Member System = votes have a greater relationship to elected candidates from party lists representing around 8 first past the post wards.
i.e. If SNP come second to Labour in every seat and vote numbers are identical in both ballots then SNP will get additional MSPs

Council
Single Transferable Vote = most preferred people in/least preferred people eliminated

Previously for elections I have set up polls and different discussion threads here as well as polled the UGS crew for questions for candidates, contacting at least one council/MSP candidate from each party and if they can be arsed replying then posting them here to feedback to UGS and allow comments on their great answers/bullshit/delete as appropriate. Ive also pulled together details of all the "local" candidates i.e. Dundee and anywhere there is more than 2 requests for.

Would there be interest in UGS doing this type of thing again (me and/or some others)
Does anyone want to help out?
Anyone got any suggestions for new things to do/changing things you thought were shit before?
Anyone have any questions for candidates? Did someone who vote for 4 years ago tell you a load of shite and you want someone else to call them on it?

Making a sticky for now