Shetland says No to AV

SHETLAND’s electorate have rejected plans to introduce a more proportionally representative voting system when they returned a ‘no’ majority in the referendum, which was held on Thursday.

Following the count on Friday afternoon, counting officer Jan Riise announced that 5,079 islanders, or 55.2 per cent, had voted ‘no’, while 4,121 had been in favour of the change from the current ‘First past the Post’ to the ‘Alternative Vote’ system. There was a turnout of 53.7 per cent.

The national result will only be known later today (Friday), but expectations are that the Alternative Vote system will be decisively rejected.