 Why are there two votes? If you're eligible to vote, in Scottish Parliament elections, it's really important that you do. Why? Because it's one way that you can have your say in how Scotland is run. And on who represents you. OK, but how? We don't have quite enough seats in the Scottish Parliament for the entire population of Scotland to fit. Instead, you're represented by eight people, your members of the Scottish Parliament. This is how they are chosen. At election time, you'll get two ballot papers. One is for the local area, the constituency that you live in, and the other is for your region. Regions are just larger areas made up of multiple constituencies. The constituency vote is straightforward. You choose the person you want to represent you. The person with the most votes in that constituency wins. Hooray! You might recognise this system because it's also used in UK Parliament elections. This is called first pass the post because only one person can win. So, even if it is really close, or the combined votes for all the other candidates is bigger, then it's still just one winner. This is where your other vote comes in. It helps make elections more representative and the final result more proportional to the number of votes. So, with your regional ballot, you choose the party or independent candidate, you want to represent your region. This is where things get interesting. The constituency votes are counted first. So we know who has been elected for all the constituencies in your region. This affects how many additional MSPs a party can gain in the regional vote. We take the number of MSPs already elected and use it in a formula to calculate who will represent the region. There are several rounds of calculations. Each time, votes are divided using the formula, resulting in a new winner to represent the region. These calculations continue until all the regional MSPs have been elected. Still with us? We hope so. The percentage of MSPs each party has broadly matches the percentage of votes they won. Smaller parties and independent candidates still have a chance to be elected, so voters are able to choose whoever best represents their values. You now have one constituency MSP and seven regional MSPs. All eight MSPs represent you, and you can contact any one of them if you need their help. Ta-da! We now have 129 members of the Scottish Parliament representing all of Scotland.