Voting has opened in the race to become the SNP's next depute leader.

The election is being contested by Angus Robertson MP, Tommy Sheppard MP, Alyn Smith MEP and Inverclyde councillor Chris McEleny.

Around 120,000 party members can vote in the contest.

Robertson, Smith, Sheppard and McEleny have debated with each other across the country in local party hustings.

The election was triggered after the party's current depute leader Stewart Hosie announced he would stand down at the party's conference in October.

You can learn more about the candidates in our profile of the contenders:

Hosie's extramarital affair with a political journalist at Westminster was made public shortly before his announcement.

The MP said his decision to leave the role was due to the "stress" caused by the "intense scrutiny" of the media surrounding the affair.

The election to replace Hosie will be carried out through the single transferable vote system which sees members rank the candidates in order of their preference.

The candidate with the fewest first preference votes will drop out of the contest at each stage of voting until one candidate has a majority of first preference votes.

Party members will learn who has won the contest at the first day of the SNP conference in Glasgow on October 13.

The party's last current leader Nicola Sturgeon, and previous the four leaders, have all served as depute at some point in their political careers.