The Welsh Election is interesting, despite potentially record low turnout(1). This is because we have more parties, it's a knife edge election and the voiting system alone is amusing. Also, between Scottish independece, tory whitehall fuckwittery and the risk of Brexit, the Welsh Goverment may find itself moving down the devo path to full independence much faster than the last decade.
It's a mixed member system. So just like the UK general elections, there's a first pass the post for 40 constituencies to elect 40 out of 60 members. That's one ballot form. One of the parties genuinely has a hammer and sickle as their logo.
The other 20 members are elected from the regional lists. There's five regions, so 4 members come from each region based on the proportional vote (using d'hondt/jefferson system to round up). You get a ballot form for your regional list. The effect is significant. Last election the Tories got 14 seats in the assembly, 8 of them through the regional proportional votes.
Now, interesting parties. Last time Labour held a single seat majority in the assembly. This time will probably be a coalition. the exit polls suggested Labour would win 27 seats - three fewer than 2011 - with Plaid Cymru second with 12 seats, the Conservatives with 11, UKIP winning eight and the Liberal Democrats two.(2)
I voted green as ever, and i live in hope of the regional list triggering a Green Assembly Member.
Plaid Cymru are the welsh nationalist party. Friends of The Earth actually scored their manifesto higher than the Greens! So it's a land of proud hippies, basically. Plaid and the Greens have pledged to campaign for each other where they are not in direct competition.
First results due 0200. It's 2300 here and I'm off to bed.
(1) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2016-wales-36218580
(2) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2016-wales-36202460
