The multi-member ward system in Scottish council elections is not helping democracy as hoped, because the ratio of candidates to places is much too low, giving electors little real choice. For instance, in my ward there are only 5 candidates for 3 places, and 3 of the 5 are the sitting councillors. Voters could not get rid of all the sitting councillors if they wanted to! One problem is that parties are afraid to submit more than 1 candidate, in case they split their vote and candidates are eliminated in the first round of the count. Vote counting system needs to be changed, perhaps to count by party first and then by individuals. Let's ask the Electoral Commission to look at this again.