Guidance for Returning Officers administering a Scottish Parliament election

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Equality of votes at regional election

If two or more parties and/or individual regional candidates are tied with the highest totals at any stage where a seat is being allocated, the following rules must be applied:1

  • if there are enough seats yet to be allocated, all the tied parties and/or individual regional candidates must be allocated a seat2
  • if there are not enough seats, you must restart the whole calculation for the region from the beginning, but before doing so you must add one vote to the number of votes given for each party or individual regional candidate who were tied. You should record this fact in your result notice3

If this would still result in two or more parties or individual candidates having the highest regional figure you must decide between them by lot. For more information see our guidance on equality of votes.

Diweddarwyd ddiwethaf: 18 Tachwedd 2025