Part I
(9) In this Act, “registered political party” means a party registered under the 1998 c. 48Registration of Political Parties Act 1998.
Poll for regional members. 6.—(1) This section and sections 7 and 8 are about the return of regional members at a general election.
(2) In each of the constituencies for the Parliament, a poll shall be held at which each person entitled to vote as elector may give a vote (referred to in this Act as a “regional vote”) for—
- (a) a registered political party which has submitted a regional list, or
- (b) an individual candidate to be a regional member for the region.
(3) The right conferred on a person by subsection (2) is in addition to any right the person may have to vote in any poll for the return of a constituency member.
Calculation of regional figures. 7.—(1) The persons who are to be returned as constituency members for constituencies included in the region must be determined before the persons who are to be returned as the regional members for the region.
(2) For each registered political party which has submitted a regional list, the regional figure for the purposes of section 8 is—
- (a) the total number of regional votes given for the party in all the constituencies included in the region,
divided by
- (b) the aggregate of one plus the number of candidates of the party returned as constituency members for any of those constituencies.
Allocation of seats to regional members. 8.—(1) The first regional member seat shall be allocated to the registered political party or individual candidate with the highest regional figure.
(2) The second and subsequent regional member seats shall be allocated to the registered political party or individual candidate with the highest regional figure, after any recalculation required by section 7(3) has been carried out.
(3) An individual candidate already returned as a constituency or regional member shall be disregarded.
(4) Seats for the region which are allocated to a registered political party shall be filled by the persons in the party’s regional list in the order in which they appear in the list.
(5) For the purposes of this section and section 10, a person in a registered political party’s regional list who is returned as a member of the Parliament shall be treated as ceasing to be in the list (even if his return is void).
