THE South Wales East regional list has 61 candidates, all fighting for four available seats.

For the past four years these have been: * William Graham, Conservative
* Laura Anne Jones, Conservative
* Jocelyn Davies, Plaid Cymru
* Michael German, Liberal Democrats.
In addition to voting for a candidate to represent your constituency (Newport East, Blaenau Gwent or Torfaen, for instance), electors get a second vote for a party.

These second votes will be totted up, and a calculation then made to see how many candidates each party gets to represent the whole South Wales East electoral region.

While the constituency elections are based on "first-past-the-post" - with the candidate winning the most votes the winner - the regional AMs are decided on by a proportional representation system known as the Additional Member System.

The number of votes cast for each party on the electors' second ballot paper per region is counted first, then this total is divided by the number of constituency seats won by that party under first-past-the-post, plus one.

The party with the highest scores takes the first regional place, with its top candidate named AM.

The calculation is then repeated to decide the region's second, third and fourth AMs.

South Wales East is a vast area, with many challenging and hugely different issues.

Stretching from Merthyr Tydfil down to Newport and the far reaches of Monmouthshire, this diverse area has some of the most impoverished communities in Wales and some of the most affluent.

It takes in the constituencies of:
* Blaenau Gwent
* Caerphilly
* Islwyn
* Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney
* Monmouth
* Newport East
* Newport West
* Torfaen.

RESULTS in 2003:
Labour majority 42,291 (24.92 per cent)
Turnout 169,731 (36.15 per cent)
Labour 76,522 (45.08 per cent)
Conservative 34,231 (20.17per cent)
Plaid 21,384 (12.60 per cent)
Liberal Democrats 17,661 (10.41 per cent)
UKIP 5,949 (3.50 per cent)
Green 5,291 (3.12per cent)
Soc Lab 3,695 (2.18 per cent)
BNP 3,210 (1.89per cent)
Ind Wales 1,226 (0.72per cent)
ProLife 562