Scottish ParliamentThe Scottish Parliament (Scottish Gaelic: Pàrlamaid na h-Alba; Scots: Scots Pairlament) is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. It is located in the Holyrood area of Edinburgh, and is frequently referred to by the metonymHolyrood. It is a democratically elected body and its role is to scrutinise the Scottish Government and legislate on devolved matters that are not reserved to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Proportional representationProportional representation (PR) is achieved by any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The party make-up of the elected representatives reflects the party make-up of the votes cast. The concept applies to representation of political parties and also other divisions of voters. The term is used for any of the various electoral systems that produce proportional representation.
Scottish Parliament constituencies and electoral regionsThe Scottish Parliament (Holyrood), created by the Scotland Act 1998, has used a system of constituencies and electoral regions since the first general election in 1999. The parliament has 73 constituencies, each electing one Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) by the plurality (first-past-the-post) system of voting, and eight additional member regions, each electing seven additional MSPs.
Scotland Act 1998Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom
Additional-member systemThe additional-member system (AMS) is a two-vote seat-linkage-based mixed electoral system used for elections to the Scottish Parliament in the United Kingdom, although not for Westminster elections, in which most representatives are elected in single-member districts (SMDs), and a fixed number of other "additional members" are elected from a closed list to make the seat distribution in the chamber more proportional to the votes cast for party lists.
Scottish GaelicCeltic languageScottish Gaelic ( ; endonym: Gàidhlig), also known as Scots Gaelic or simply Gaelic, is a Celtic language native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic, Scottish Gaelic, alongside both Irish and Manx, developed out of Old Irish.
Scots languageScots is a language variety of West Germanic origin. It is an Anglic language and descended from Early Middle English; therefore, Modern Scots is a sister language of Modern English. Scots is classified as an official language of Scotland, a regional or minority language of Europe, and a vulnerable language by UNESCO. In a Scottish census from 2022, over 1.5 million people in Scotland (of its total population of 5.4 million people) reported being able to speak Scots.Casual vacancyIn politics, a casual vacancy (casual in the sense of "by chance") is a situation in which a seat in a deliberative assembly becomes vacant during that assembly's term. Casual vacancies may arise through the death, resignation or disqualification of the sitting member, or for other reasons. Casual vacancies have the effect of eliminating or reducing the representation for the member's constituency.
Electoral districtRepresentative subdivisions An electoral district, sometimes called a constituency, riding, circumscription, electorate, or ward, is a geographical portion of a political unit, such as a country, state or province, city, or administrative region, created to provide the voters therein with representation in a legislature or other polity.
ElectionAn election is a group decision-making process whereby a portion or all of a population or group votes to choose an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office or other position of responsibility. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which representative democracy has operated since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government, such as cities or towns.
First-past-the-post votingPlurality voting systemCountries that primarily use a first-past-the-post voting system for national legislative electionsFirst-past-the-post (FPTP) — also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality — is a single-winner voting rule.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.