Commentary on Sections (and Schedules) Part 1: the Assembly and Welsh Government Section 2: Removal of restriction on standing for election for both constituency and electoral region
12.Every voter in Wales has two votes: one for their preferred constituency candidate and one for a regional candidate. Before GOWA 2006 came into force, candidates could stand for election as both a constituency member and a regional member. Section 7 of GOWA 2006 prohibited this as it was thought that a member who had lost a constituency vote but was elected as a regional member could cause dissatisfaction with the political process because they would have been explicitly rejected by the electorate as a constituency member. However, this concern has been refuted in studies by the Electoral Commission and others which have demonstrated that the prohibition has a disproportionate impact on smaller parties who have a smaller pool of potential candidates to draw upon.
13.Subsection (2) of section 2 amends section 7 of GOWA 2006 to remove the restriction on standing as both a constituency and a regional candidate in an Assembly election. But a person cannot stand as a candidate in a constituency outside of the region in which they are standing. It also provides that a candidate on a regional party list cannot stand in a constituency as a candidate for another party. The section also makes provision for individual candidates standing on a regional list: they can stand neither as party candidates in a constituency in the region nor as a candidate for a constituency outside that region.
14.Subsection (3) of section 2 amends section 9 of GOWA 2006 to provide how regional seats are to be allocated following the removal of the prohibition.
15.Subsection (4) of section 2 amends section 11(8) of GOWA 2006 to provide that a regional vacancy occurring between general elections cannot be filled by a candidate on a party list submitted at the previous general election if the candidate was returned at that election or has since been returned in an Assembly constituency by-election or under section 11.