Editing Additional-member system (section)

== Use ==
[[File:Y Siambr 2.jpg|thumb|The [[Senedd]] (Welsh Parliament) is one of the legislative bodies that used the additional member system.]]The AMS is used in some [[elections in the United Kingdom]]

*[[Scotland]]: the [[Scottish Parliament]]
* London: the [[London Assembly]]

In 1976, the [[Hansard Society]] recommended that a mixed electoral system in a form different from the German be used for [[UK parliamentary elections]], but instead of using closed party lists, it proposed that seats be filled by the "best runner-up" basis used by the German state of Baden-Württemberg, where the compensatory seats are filled by the party's defeated candidates who were the "best near-winner" in each of the state's four regions.<ref>[http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Commission-on-Electoral-Reform-1976.pdf ''Report of the Hansard Society Commission on Electoral Reform''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151031082741/http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Commission-on-Electoral-Reform-1976.pdf |date=31 October 2015 }}, [[Hansard Society]], 1976</ref> It was the way that compensatory seats were allocated that made their report the origin of the additional member system, the term which the report also invented, which was then applied along with the much older "mixed system" by English-speaking writers on voting systems to West Germany's system and similar models until the term [[mixed-member proportional representation|mixed member proportional]] (MMP) was coined for the adoption of the German system proposed for New Zealand in a royal commission report in 1986, which would explain why "AMS" and "MMP" have been used as synonyms. The system the Hansard Society proposed was eventually adopted but with closed lists instead of the "best runner-up" (popularly known in Britain as "best losers") provision for elections to the [[Scottish Parliament]], the [[Senedd]] and the [[London Assembly]], but not for that proposed for elections to the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]].

This system was proposed by the [[Jenkins Commission (UK)|Independent Commission]] in 1999, known as [[Alternative vote top-up]] (AV+). This would have involved the use of the [[Instant-runoff voting|Alternative Vote]] for electing members from single-member constituencies, and regional [[open list|open party lists]]. However, contrary to the [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour Party]]'s earlier manifesto promises, no referendum was held before the [[2001 United Kingdom general election|2001 general election]] and the statement was not repeated.

The AMS system in use in the London Assembly would have been used for the other proposed [[Regional Assemblies in England|regional assemblies]] of England, but after the overwhelming No vote in the [[2004 North East England devolution referendum]], the Government abolished all the regional assemblies in 2008-2010.

=== Scotland ===
{| class="wikitable" style="float: right; margin-left: 1.4em"
|+ Scottish Parliament Election Study 1999 and Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2003<ref>{{cite book|author1=Catherine Bromley|author2=John Curtice|author3=David McCrone|author4=Alison Park|title=Has Devolution Delivered?|date=4 July 2006|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|isbn=0748627014|page=126|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4dKqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA126|quote="Proportion of respondents giving correct answers to knowledge quiz about the electoral system"}}</ref>
! colspan="3" | % answering correctly
|- style="background-color:#ffd700;text-align:left;"
! Question (and correct response)
! 1999
! 2003
|- valign=top
| You are allowed to vote for the same party on the first and second vote (True)
| 78%
| 64%
|-
| People are given two votes so that they can show their first and second preferences (False)
| 63%
| 48%
|-
| No candidate who stands in a constituency contest can be elected as a regional party list member (False)
| 43%
| 33%
|-
| Regional party list seats are allocated to try to make sure each party has as fair a share of seats as is possible (True)
| 31%
| 24%
|-
| The number of seats won by each party is decided by the number of first votes they get (False)
| 30%
| 26%
|-
| Unless a party wins at least 5% of the second vote, it is unlikely to win any regional party lists seats (True)
| 26%
| 25%
|-
| ''Average''
| ''45%''
| ''37%''
|}
The system implemented for the Scottish Parliament is known to make it more difficult for any one party to win an outright majority, compared to the first-past-the-post system used for general elections to the UK Parliament in Westminster.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/visitandlearn/Education/16285.aspx |title=Parliament in depth: Electoral System: Electoral system for the Scottish Parliament |publisher=Scottish Parliament |access-date=23 November 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129054933/http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/visitandlearn/Education/16285.aspx |archive-date=29 November 2014 }}</ref> However, in [[2011 Scottish Parliament election|2011]], the [[Scottish National Party]] won 69 seats, a majority of four.<ref>{{cite news|title=Scottish election: SNP majority for second term|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13319936|access-date=5 April 2017|work=BBC News|date=7 May 2011}}</ref>

In the first election for Scotland's new Parliament, the majority of voters surveyed misunderstood some key aspects of the difference there between the "first" (constituency) vote and the "second" (regional list) vote; indeed in some ways the understanding worsened in the second election.

The [[Arbuthnott Commission]] found references to first and second votes fueled a misconception that the constituency vote should be a first preference and the regional vote a second one.{{Citation needed|date=January 2015}}

To deal with the misunderstanding between "first" and "second" votes, the ballot for the 2007 Scottish Parliament election was changed as recommended by the Arbuthnott Commission. The British government announced on 22 November 2006 that the two separate ballot papers used in the previous Scottish Parliament elections would be replaced for the elections in May 2007 by a single paper,{{Clarify|reason=Is this referring to a change in ballot design or a switch to a [[mixed single vote]] system?|date=August 2024}} with the left side listing the parties standing for election as regional MSPs and the right side the candidates standing as constituency MSPs.{{Cn|date=August 2024}}