Background
It was quite the busy day for by-elections on the 26th of September, with a double bill of double bills. Coincidentally, both were effectively one urban, one rural ward within their respective councils. The third one that declared was Highland’s Cromarty Firth ward, which was in the rare circumstance of having two vacancies to fill. That’s the first time this term we’ve had a double, and only the second time it’s happened since I launched Ballot Box Scotland. Those arose from the resignations of Lib Dem Molly Nolan and Independent Pauline Munro.
Running 2022 for two seats, it would have been the SNP and Lib Dems picking them up. Whilst I’d have rated the SNP’s chances as basically zero in a single-seat by-election at the moment, a double seater has a much lower hurdle. I’d therefore viewed this as a tossup for any two out of the Lib Dems, SNP and a wide field of Independents.
Headline Results
Councillors and Key Stats
2 Councillors Elected:
🟠Lib Dem: John Edmondson
⚪Independent: Sinclair Coghill
Change vs 2022 (notional): Lib Dem Hold, Independent Gain from SNP
Change vs vacating: Lib Dem Hold, Independent Hold (new Independent)
Turnout: 24.6% (-15.0)
Electorate: 9832
Valid: 2375 (98.1%)
Spoiled: 45 (1.9%)
Quota: 792
2 Continuing Councillors:
SNP: Tamala Collier
Independent: Maxine Morley-Smith
Candidates
🟢Green: Ryan Barrowman
⚪Independent: Sinclair Coghill
⚪Independent: Richard Cross
🟠Lib Dem: John Edmondson
⚪Independent: Brideen Godley-MacKenzie
🟣Reform UK: Kim Hanning Jackson
🟣Reform UK: Roland Hanning Jackson
🟡SNP: Odette MacDonald
⚪Independent: Tina McCaffery
🔵Conservative: Innes Munro
🔴Labour: Michael Perera
⚪Independent: Martin Rattray
First Preferences
Note: Other Independents collectively won 29.2% of the vote in 2022.
First Preference History
With an unbelievably messy first preference distribution, effectively nobody started in a safe position. The top two spots went to the Lib Dems and SNP, albeit both lost a significant portion of their vote share, leaving the Lib Dems a bit short of two-thirds and the SNP roughly halfway to the finish line. The next five positions went to the various Independents, with barely a whisker between Coghill and Rattray, and followed relatively closely by Cross. That effectively rounded out those with even a vague prospect of winning, as Godley-MacKenzie and McCaffery were much too far behind for any hope of transfers closing the gap.
The other four political parties were left bringing up the rear. The Greens were at the front of this grouping, as the only returning party to increase their vote share at all despite the Independents gobbling up so much of what was available. Labour then placed two votes ahead of the combined total for Reform UK’s wife and husband double act, leaving the Conservatives dead last in party terms. They weren’t quite last in candidate terms because Reform UK’s failure to understand how elections in Scotland work meant they split their vote between two candidates when they should only have stood one.
Now, it’s not particularly likely that a double by-election vacancy will come up again this term, but I’m assuming Reform UK will be making a more serious play for council seats in 2027 – remember, they didn’t stand anywhere in 2022. I’m not generally in the business of advice (and it won’t surprise anyone really to imagine that I might especially balk at giving it to Reform UK…) but there’s a point at which it just gets a bit pitiable when people stumble, so just to be clear: do not stand as many candidates as there are vacancies in each ward.
That’s not how STV works, and with your general levels of support you’re probably best just standing one. You’re welcome. Also it’ll make my life really hard if you end up standing multiple candidates everywhere because I’ll have to code multiple pointless rounds of elimination into my charts because you’ve fluffed it. So actually, this is advice that’ll benefit me.
Transfers
Final Competitive Stage
Although nobody was in a truly safe position to start with, for those with any sense at all of how votes usually transfer (c’est moi, not to be egotistical) it was apparent the SNP at least were completely doomed. With so many Independent votes to transfer and a pack of them really not very behind the SNP, it was almost certain that they’d be overtaken. The question though was by which one?
Coghill’s tiny lead over Rattray was reversed in three of these count stages, including at stage 8 when Rattray was ahead by 6 votes. At the following stage, the elimination of Cross put Coghill back in front as well as taking him 2 votes beyond the SNP. With Rattray next out, those transfers sent Coghill sailing more than 5% ahead of the SNP, allowing him to clinch one of the two seats alongside the Lib Dems.
Two-Candidate Preferred
A real glut of these measures in this post because of the unique two vacancy nature of the by-election. After the SNP were eliminated, the actual final stage result also serves as a two-candidate preferred outcome. Had this been a single seat by-election, the Lib Dems would have won it by the skin of their teeth, with 806 votes to Coghill’s 800.
Two-Party Preferred
With so many new Independents on the ballot and both the Lib Dem and SNP first preference shares well down, it’s not a surprise that even on the two-party preferred measure both were weaker than in 2022. The Lib Dems naturally had the less severe decline and therefore ended up with a wider lead in relative terms, but just the sheer number of candidates on the ballot meant a huge pile of votes were exhausted. I wrote after the 2022 elections about how transfer use rapidly drops off straight away, and is especially limited for 4th preference and beyond. That’ll be somewhat artificially deflating shares both here and throughout the transfer rounds.
Detailed Results
Results by Polling District
Unsurprisingly a fair few district mergers given the nature of the ward, but still plenty of interesting diversity to be seen here. Broadly speaking, the Lib Dems were the clear leaders in most of Alness as well as Evanton, which were combined with the rural districts. The SNP meanwhile are marked on the map as the leading force in the east and west of Alness; if you check the chart, you’ll see it was actually a straight tie with the Lib Dems. I tinted it SNP yellow as the SNP had the in-person lead and (to be honest) I couldn’t be bothered doing a two-tone layer!
As those are merged boxes and my estimate is for an odd number of votes, the Lib Dems must mathematically have led in one and the SNP in the other. Meanwhile, Invergordon was the realm of Independents, with Coghill doing especially well in the south and east, and a respectable but more modest share for Rattray in the north and west.
In terms of strongest areas for each party, for the Lib Dems it was the central Alness district. The SNP, Labour and Reform UK all peaked in those merged east/west Alness districts, and the top two Independents obviously in the districts they led in. The remaining three Independents plus the Conservatives did best in north and west Invergordon, and finally the Greens in the district merging northern-ish Alness and Evanton.
Second Preferences
Oh gods. All of the charts for this election are a bit wild compared to normal, but this is especially so. I think the vertical nature lends itself poorly to this many candidates, but this is intended as a stylistic distinction from the polling districts chart. Let’s get in amongst this as best we can then. For the most part, the story is those who voted for a party with their first preference then had a party as their most common second preference, whilst Independent voters went for Independents.
On the party front, that means a standard SNP to Green mutual flow, though reduced compared to historic transfer rates. A lot of that will be due to the number of Independents this time, not just the bad blood between the parties. Labour and Conservative voters both favoured the Lib Dems, though for Labour that was to a meaningful degree and the Conservatives the largest of a very fractured spread.
The exceptions were the Lib Dems and Reform UK, who were both also quite fractured but most commonly plumped for the Independent Cross. Independents themselves had a bit of a mix, with the only mutual peak flow between Coghill and Cross. Rattray’s voters also most preferred Coghill, whilst he himself proved the most marked next preference for Godley-MacKenzie and McCaffery voters.
We may only have three months left of 2024, but I’ve still got an absolutely staggering 22 further by-elections on my upcoming list. The first of these are coming up just this coming week on the 3rd of October in the form of another double bill. This one is in Dundee, with what should be an easy Labour win in Lochee and a harder fought one in Strathmartine that’ll make the difference between the SNP continuing their majority administration or slipping into minority, and thus risking losing control.
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