Single transferable vote: How the electoral system works ahead of council election

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Voters in Renfrewshire throughout Scotland will head to the polls for local council elections on Thursday.Some might be voting for the first time, while others will have exercised their right on many an occasion - either way it's helpful to know how the electoral system works.Council areas are divided into wards, with each ward electing three or four councillors.Local government elections are conducted via the single transferable vote (STV) method - a form of proportional representation used in Scottish council elections since 2007 - which ultimately means that you rank the candidates on the ballot paper in order of preference.Instead of using a cross, candidates are numbered in the order of a voter's choice, so one for first choice, two for second choice, and so on, with voters preferencing as many or as few as they like.

As votes transfer, there is no need for tactical voting."You cannot 'harm' your first preference candidate by marking later preferences," Ballot Box Scotland, an elections and polling data website, says. Don't miss the latest headlines from around Renfrewshire.

Sign up to our newsletters here. It then advises: "It’s important to use as many preferences as you can, because it might make the difference between someone you like being elected over someone you don’t."Later preferences only matter if the candidate your vote is with is elected or eliminated."In the STV system, a candidate needs a minimum number of votes to be elected, which is called the quota.If this doesn't happen based on first choice votes,