Summary

The number of constituency candidates declined to 313 – the smallest number in a Scottish Parliament election to date. The four major parties – Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats and SNP contested all 73 constituencies and there were just 21 other candidates. Of these eight were Independents, six represented the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition (TUSC), and three the Green party, leaving four others.

Eight parties contested all eight regional list elections – the four major parties plus the Greens, UKIP, RISE (Respect, Independence, Internationalism and Environmentalism) and Solidarity.

The SNP won 59 of the 73 constituency seats with 46.5% of the votes. The Conservatives won seven (22.0% of votes), Liberal Democrats four (7.9%) and Labour three (22.6%). 

In the list voting, the SNP had 41.7% of votes, the Conservatives 22.9%, Labour 19.1%, Greens 6.6% and Liberal Democrats 5.2%. UKIP led the ‘others’ with 1.9%. This earned the Conservatives 24 list seats, Labour 21, Greens six, SNP four and Liberal Democrats one.

Overall, the SNP fell short of a majority in the Parliament winning 63 of the 129 seats – a decline of six compared with 2011. The Conservatives with 31 seats became the second largest party – up from 15 in 2011.

Turnout at 55.8% for the constituency contests and 55.9% for the list voting was significantly higher than in 2011 (50.5% and 50.4% respectively).

As in 2011, rejected ballots constituted a minuscule proportion of votes cast. The figure was 0.41% in constituency contests and 0.17% in the list elections. The comparable figures in 2011 were 0.42% and 0.34%.

Across Scotland, 726,555 postal ballots were issued amounting to 17.7% of the electorate. This is the largest proportion to date.

Almost 77 per cent of postal ballots issued were returned. Of these, just over 3 per cent were excluded from the counts because of failures relating to personal identifiers or noninclusion of either a ballot or statement in the return envelope.

In the 63 constituencies for which data are available, new electors added to the register between December and March amounted to 3.8% of the electorate while those added between March and April constituted 2.2%. The total varied from less than 2% in two constituencies to more than 10% in four. 

Across 58 constituencies, electors aged 16-17 accounted for 2% of the electorate, the figures ranging narrowly from 1.1% to 2.7%.