Your Questions Answered: Elaine Gallagher - Scottish Greens

We put 8 questions from our readers to all 10 candidates standing to represent the Southside Central ward ahead of the 5 May elections.

First up is Elaine Gallagher, standing for the Scottish Green Party. Watch the full interview in the video link below.

The vote will take place on the 5 May. Polling stations are open from 7am until 10pm. You don’t need your poll card or any form of ID. You just need to provide your name and address - and to have registered before the 18 April deadline. You can find your nearest polling station by clicking on this link.

Who can I vote for in Glasgow Southside Central in 2022?

There are 10 candidates standing in total representing a total of seven parties, while one candidate is standing as an independent.

• Alexander Belic - SNP (incumbent)

• Kamran Butt - Alba

• Paul Robert Donnelly - Scottish Socialist

• Jamie Dyer - independent

• Elaine Gallagher - Green

• Sam Glasgow-Jackson - Liberal Democrats

• Mhairi Hunter - SNP (incumbent)

• Tariq Parvez - Conservative

• James Scanlon - Labour (incumbent)

• Soryia Siddique - Labour (incumbent)

Greater Govanhill will be putting questions to each of the candidates standing in our local area based on what our readers have told

Which Glasgow City Council ward do I live in?

Southside Central ward includes the Gorbals, Hutchesontown, Govanhill, Queen’s Park, Crosshill and Oatlands. If you’re not sure which ward you are in, you can check by entering your address using the button below by clicking on which ward am I in?

How are the votes counted?

The votes will be counted on 6 May, when an electronic counting system will be used and dedicated Count Centres will be in place for each of the 32 Councils in Scotland. The counts are expected to be completed by late afternoon on 6 May.

Members are elected as councillors using the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. The quota for each ward is worked out by dividing the number of valid ballot papers (total votes cast minus any rejected papers) by one more than the number of vacancies plus one.

So in the case of the Southside Central ward, if 7000 valid votes were cast, and there are four seats to be filled, the quota is (7000/4+1)+1, which would make a total of 1401. So in this instance, if a candidate reached or exceeded 1401 seats they would be elected. The value of the surplus votes (above this number) for elected candidates would be transferred to next valid candidate in order of preference on each individual ballot paper.

For more information, see this guide, or the table below from the last elections.