If you are a party member in London then a bit of voting is in order.

The Mayor of London governs the Greater London Authority, and s/he is scrutinised and challenged by the 25 members of the London Assembly.

This week voting has opened for our candidates for the London elections in 2020. Most London members have received their online ballot instructions this week by email, while others should get their papers in the post.

When the London elections come around every four years, voters are sometimes a bit bemused to be presented with three ballot papers, each using a different electoral system. This provides plenty of material for happy hours of discussion by the election geeks amongst you …

First, the Mayor of London is elected by supplementary vote, which is a variant on the alternative vote system. Voters identify their first and second choices for the person to lead our amazing conurbation.

Second, the 25 members of the London Assembly are elected by the additional member system, which uses a two part process. Greater London is divided into 14 super-constituencies and each elects one person to the London Assembly using first-past-the-post (at least that bit is familiar to most voters).

A further 11 Assembly members are selected using the party list system. Voters select one list, and each list on offer contains up to eleven ranked candidates from the same party. At the count the candidates on the party lists are allocated in a mystical way that preserves proportionality across the Assembly.

All that is a preamble to explaining that, ever since the Greater London Authority was set up, all the Liberal Democrat Assembly members have been elected through the party list. The number elected from the list has varied from 1 to 5, so there is understandably intense interest in the rank position of anyone on the list.

The selection contests are now underway for the 11 members to appear on the party list – and, crucially, their position on the list – and for our candidate for Mayor. The constituency member selections will take place in the New Year. Naturally, yet another electoral system (single transferable vote) will be used for the party list selection, but at least party members are used to using it for all our internal elections.

However, there is a further tweak this time, as explained in this post. This time positive action is being taken to ensure that there is good representation of BME candidates. To quote the rules:

The count for the List Candidates will therefore be adapted to allow the ordering of the List according to the preferences expressed on the ballot papers, subject to the requirement that at least one of the top two, at least two of the top five and at least three of the top eight are candidates based on the Race / Ethnicity protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010.

A similar strategy was used in the selection of candidates for the first London elections in 2000, except on that occasion male and female candidates were “zipped” to ensure a decent gender balance.

Finally, a massive thank you to all the shortlisted candidates listed below – and good luck!

Candidates for Mayor of London

Siobhan Benita
Rob Blackie
Dinesh Dhamija
Lucy Salek

Candidates for London Assembly members party list

Azi Ahmed
Reetendra Banerji
Rob Blackie
Hina Bokhari
Michael Bukola
Adetokunbo Fatukasi
Charley Hasted
Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett
Hussain Khan
Chris Maines
Ben Mathis
Joyce Onstad
Caroline Pidgeon
Lucy Salek
Irina von Wiese

* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.