The people of Wales will go to the polls on Thursday, May 6.

While some will choose to vote by post or proxy, and others by visiting the polling station, they will all receive at least three ballot papers.

These will include a paper for the constituency, another for the region and a third for the Police and Crime Commissioner election.

Some, including voters on parts of Anglesey, will also receive papers for county council by-elections happening in their area.

But this guide will concentrate on the second ballot paper, which is the regional list vote to elect four Senedd Members to represent the North Wales electoral region.

This region includes the constituencies of Aberconwy, Alyn and Deeside, Arfon, Clwyd South, Clwyd West, Delyn, Vale of Clwyd, Wrexham and Ynys Mon.

It does not, however, include the Gwynedd constituency of Dwyfor Meirionnydd which instead forms part of the Mid and West Wales electoral region.

The Senedd’s voting system

The Senedd’s 40 constituency seats are decided on a first-past-the-post basis, leaving the remaining 20 to be elected via a form of proportional representation through regional lists.

The constituency ballot is the form which will appear most familiar, with candidates elected on a straightforward first-past-the-post system to represent a specific area.

The regional ballot, known as a “half way house” towards proportional representation, usually sees voters asked to vote for a specific party rather than individual candidates.

How the regional list works

These regions – namely North Wales, Mid and West Wales, South Wales West, South Wales Central and South Wales East – each elect an additional four members each.

The system has been designed to try and ensure that that the final make-up of the Senedd better reflects the general levels of support shown for each party across the country.

Voting

The second paper you receive in the polling booth is to elect a regional member via this Additional Member System, which each party presenting a list of candidates.

You do not have to vote for the same party as you did in your first paper – for your individual constituency  – with many smaller parties often choosing to contest only the regional seats.

While the party’s candidates appear on this second paper, electors vote for the party rather than the person, and are usually counted after the constituency votes have been decided.

Ballot papers show the list of named candidates nominated by each political party, with candidates drawn in order from the top of the relevant party list.

After each individual constituency has announced its regional vote totals, what follows is a rather complex calculation, known as the D’Hondt system.

It sees each party’s total being divided by 1 + the number of members of the Senedd it already has in that region.

If a party does not get any constituency seats within a region, their votes will be divided by one, meaning it remains the same. The seats are distributed according to each party’s total after completing the mathematical equation.

In essence the more constituency seats a party wins, the harder it is to gain any additional seats through the regional list system.

The party with the highest total after this calculation gets the next seat and the person on top of its list is elected, with the same pattern being repeated until all four regional seats have been filled.

What happened last time

Held just a month before the EU Referendum, UKIP were the big winners in 2016, capturing two of the four available seats in North Wales during what was a great night for the pro-leave party.

While the party failed to capture any constituency seats, it ended up with seven seats across Wales, all thanks to the various regional lists.

But by the Senedd’s dissolution in 2021, following a string of defections and internal wranglings over the course of the five years, only Neil Hamilton remained in the UKIP group, with others leaving to become independent, Brexit Party and Abolish the Welsh Assembly members.

Labour, despite topping the regional vote with 57,528, saw no additional members elected due to its electoral successes in the constituencies – which has also been the case in every single Senedd election to date.

The remaining two seats saw Plaid and the Conservatives grab one each, at the expense of Abolish the Welsh Assembly and the Liberal Democrats.

Who’s standing this time

As expected, all of the main parties have put forward candidates, with Labour, the Conservatives, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats vying for the four seats.

UKIP has also presented a field of candidates, but will be competing with parties sharing similar stances including Reform UK – which was previously the Brexit Party.

The single issue Abolish the Assembly Party, which finished fifth in North Wales in 2016, will also be eyeing up one of the seats.

But smaller Welsh independence backing parties will also be hoping to pick up some nationalist support, including Neil McEvoy’s Propel party as well as the more right-leaning, Gwlad.

Also fielding candidates are Britain’s Communist Party, the Freedom Alliance, the Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition and the Green Party, which will be hoping to pick up its first ever seat in Cardiff Bay.

Michelle Brown, elected as a UKIP member in 2016, is standing as an independent this time out.

Full list of parties contesting the North Wales regional list:

Abolish the Welsh Assembly

Britain’s Communist Party

Welsh Conservatives

Freedom Alliance. No Lockdowns. No Curfews.

Gwlad – The Welsh Independence Party

Plaid Cymru

Propel

ReformUK – Changing Politics for Good

UKIP Scrap The Assembly/Senedd

Wales Green Party

Welsh Labour

Welsh Liberal Democrats – Put Recovery First

Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition

Michelle Brown (Independent)