SINGLE TRANSFERABLE VOTE

This article on Single Transferable Vote is the last of three articles on Proportional Representative governments.

I first heard of Single Transferable Vote from a presentation by Professor Peter Woolstencroft of the U of Waterloo. He spoke on the advantages of alternative vote systems a few months ago at a meeting organized by Judy Greenwood-Speers in Kitchener.

This form of Proportional Representation requires that each elector should have one vote. This vote is made effective by being passed on, as may be necessary, from the voter's first choice to his second choice, and so on.

STV also requires that electoral constituencies be larger. Each constituency must have at least three seats available to be filled. Five seats is probably even better, whereas ten might be excessive.

STV allows the full freedom of expression for a voter. He/she will know that if his/her first choice is not going to win then his/her vote can assist his second choice or third, etc.

Candidates are elected by reaching the minimum threshold needed. This threshold number comes from a simple mathematical equation that is clarified in the school/pupil example below.

EXAMPLE

I will use an example similar to that used in the book How Democracies Vote, borrowed for me from the London library by our very helpful Cambridge library staff.

Lets assume that a school asked the pupils to elect a committee of five. The candidates for the five positions are ten. They are asked to stand in a row for all to see. The pupils are then asked to stand beside the candidate of their choosing.

At first, we will find students standing beside all of the candidates. The students soon realize that the most popular candidate has more votes than he/she needs to win. The students realize that the excess is wasted so some of them move to support someone else that they think would do a good job.

The students standing behind the least popular candidates soon realize that their first choice is out of the race so they move to someone else who best represents their particular views. Before long all of the students are standing behind the five winners except for the small percentage who are dissatisfied with all of the most popular choices.

As we examine this we will find that a candidate needs less than one fifth of the total vote to win a seat. He/she actually needs precisely one sixth of the vote plus one additional vote. This is an important number for the voter and candidate. After this quantity of votes is received by a candidate, the excess goes to the next choice.

This simple school/pupil procedure is exactly what happens with Single Transferable Vote. However, this is done with a ballot. The ballot has all of the candidates names and Party affiliations. The voter prioritizes the candidates' in her/his order of preference. i.e. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, etc.

The votes are counted by the returning officer.

If no candidate reaches the quota necessary to win a position, the last place candidate is eliminated and the ballots she/he received are reexamined to identify the second choices.

These second choices are then distributed. The process of dropping the least favoured candidate and redistributing his/her votes continues until someone exceeds the quota to win a position.

If someone exceeds the threshold quota necessary to win, then the excess votes are not wasted. Whenever a candidate has more votes than he needs, the total votes cast are reexamined to evaluate the second (or next) choice of the voter. The excess votes are then transferred in proportion to the desires of the sum total of such previous voters. (It took me a while to understand this feature, but it makes perfect sense now.)

The author of How Democracies Vote strongly supports this as the best PR system. Apparently Australia agreed with her as it recently adopted this system.

Have a nice day.