European Parliament elections in England, Scotland and Wales

The voting system

Proportional representation – closed list.

Who am I voting for?

Between three and ten Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to represent your region.

The UK is divided into regions, one for each of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and nine covering England. Each region is allocated a number of MEPs according to its population.

How to vote

Always read the instructions for filling in the ballot paper carefully, even if you have voted before.

The ballot paper lists political parties and independent candidates. Under each party name is a list of candidates who wish to represent that party.

Simply put an X (a cross) next to the party or independent candidate that you wish to vote for.

If you make a mistake then you can ask the polling staff to give you another ballot paper.

You may also be voting in other elections on the same day.

Who is elected?

In a given region the allocated seats are awarded using a quota system. The quota is the total number of votes received by a party or independent candidate divided by the number of seats already gained in that region +1.

So, for a party with no seats the number of votes received is divided by one, and so stays the same. If the party already has one seat then its number of votes is divided by two, if it has two seats it is divided by three, and so on.

This means that the more seats you have already won, the harder it is to gain extra seats, so the overall allocation of seats is more proportional to the number of votes received.

The first seat that a party wins goes to the first person on its list, the second seat to the second person, and so on, until the party has either not won any more seats or has run out of names on its list. An independent candidate is treated as though he or she were a party with only one name on its list.