BBC News | UK POLITICS | How London will decide

BBC News Online: UK Politics

Friday, 26 November, 1999, 12:09 GMT

How London will decide

Londoners face a potentially bewildering set of choices when they get their ballot papers on 4 May 2000.

The set of rules governing the way in which London's new mayor and assembly will be chosen is perhaps the most complicated voting system ever put before the capital's electorate.

Voters will be asked to make a series of four choices of varying complexity, which could encourage a measure of tactical voting.

Different officials may be elected through a supplementary vote system, proportional representation or by first past the post.

If a voter so wished they could choose a different party for each of their four separate choices.

The mayor is to be elected by supplementary vote system under which:

Voters will cast their votes for their first and second preference candidates by putting a cross in the assigned columns on the ballot paper
If one candidate has more than half of the first preference votes, they will be automatically elected.
But if no candidate wins 50% of the vote, then all but the top two candidates will be excluded
The second preferences of the excluded candidates would then be redistributed, resulting in one candidate winning more than half the votes cast
This means that the candidate who topped the poll of first preference votes could be defeated by the person who was the most popular second choice.

The London Assembly is to be made up of 25 members chosen by an additional member system. This is the method that was used in the elections for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.

Under the system:

Each voter will get two votes
The first is within a constituency for one of the 14 members elected on a first-past-the-post system
The second vote is for London-wide lists drawn up by each of the parties, for the further 11 members. These seats will be allocated to ensure that the overall distribution of seats reflects the proportion of votes cast.

Because of the complexity of the voting system it would take three days to get a result if the ballot papers were counted manually.

However, the election will be the first in the UK to use electronic counting.

The electronic scanning equipment will be able to count two-and-a-half ballot papers a second.

As a result the outcome should be known on the morning after the ballot.

Related to this story:
Electronic count for mayor (14 Oct 99 | UK Politics)

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