On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 10:20:24 EST, Juanelan@aol.com wrote: > > How does Election Day work in Orkney? > WHo gets out the vote? What is the local political structure and heirarchy? > Are government workers allowed to help 'encourage' people to vote? > And is there a, er, ahem, a column on the card that they would want to > encourage? > Who registers people to vote there? What is the lag time between residency > requirements and registration? > .... > Now, how are the elections runs in Orkney? What is the dedicated politcal > make up? > For the UK Parliament Orkney joins with Shetland to send one MP to Westminster, but each send their own MSP to the Scottish Parliament. All three representatives are Liberal Democrats and all have among the safest seats in the whole country. Orkney and Shetland have had a Liberal representative in the UK Parliament for the last 50 years and as things stand it looks like we will for the next 50 years. Because things are so unlikely to change there is very little electioneering in Orkney (I haven't been in Orkney for the last few elections, but I can't imagine things have changed). You probably wouldn't notice there was an election until you turned on the TV. The rules governing the elections are the same as for elsewhere in Scotland and the UK; whoever gets the most votes wins. For the Scottish Parliament there is an additional complication. As well as voting for a member to represent your area you vote for a party, then additional MSPs are allocated so that overall the proportion of MSPs for each party reflects the proportion of votes for each party in this second vote. This is called "The Additional Member System". There are also MEPs - Members of the European Parliament, in Strasbourg. There are 8 such MEPs for the whole of Scotland and they are elected by a mechanism that only three people have ever understood - one of whom is dead, the second has gone mad, and the third has forgotten. Nobody has the faintest idea who any of the MEPs are, in fact after the last european election I was shocked to discover that I'd lost my seat - I'd been an MEP for 5 years and didn't know! Robert