On May 12 2009, British Columbia, Canada, is having an election to determine the election system to use in the province. In contention are the First-Past-the-Post system currently in use, versus a Single-Transferable-Vote system. Apparently Australia and Ireland already have the the STV system, so any insights from those acquainted with the system would be particularly appreciated.
I get to vote. Which do I pick?
It’s a good thing that there’s only two different voting methods they’re choosing from, or, well, you know.
I’d also like to hear some thoughts on the STV (which sounds like something I’d see the doctor for). My impression of it that it’s complicated, and I’d have to think a bit more about all the candidates, putting more effort into voting choice. I worry that if it requires you to rank all candidates, it might further alienate people who barely vote anyway.
Election’s Tuesday – enlighten us!
Note that in Australia STV is mostly* used only for upper house parliamentary elections. Lower house elections (i.e. those determining government) generally tend to use a preferential/alternative vote system. This is still actually STV, of course, but because electorates are single member ones, there is no suggestion of proportionality in the results.
Rather than paraphrase something pretty simple here are the Australian Electoral Commissions explanations:
Actual voting is simple. You either vote for all candidates in your personal order of preference or just vote for the one candidate you favour and get his preferences.
I support the Single Transferable Vote system, as it removes the problem of votes for anyone but the top two being seen as wasted votes. It encourages people to vote for the person they want to win, not just the person they think other people want to win.
Here’s an opportunity to fight some ignorance:
What do those two terms mean?
Advantages in the Irish system:
[ul]
[li]It makes it easier for third party or non-party candidates to be elected[/li][li]It leads to really close races - so people can feel that their vote really does matter[/li][li]The proportion in which parties and candidates are represented in parliament more closely reflects the actual vote than in a first past the post system[/li][/ul]
Disadvantages:
[ul]
[li]Most candidates rely on “transfers” to get elected - that is, second and third preferences from other candidates. This means that someone can be elected even if they received fewer first preferences than someone who was not elected, thus effectively denying the voice of the larger number of voters who chose the unsuccessful candidate. To illustrate this, in the 2007 General Election in the Dublin Central constituency, a candidate who received only 937 first preferences was elected over two candidates who had each received 3000+ first preferences and two who had each received 1700+, because he was given more “second preferences” than they were. [/li][li]It has been argued that this system encourages clientelism, that is, politicians seeking to get elected by doing favours for their constituents rather than on the basis of actual politics. I’m not sure if that’s entirely true or if that’s just the Irish political culture.[/li][li]It can be confusing as hell for the average punter to understand - as is probably obvious at this point :)[/li][/ul]
There was at least one attempt in Ireland to change to FPTP, but it’s generally felt that this is a more democratic system so that attempt went nowhere.
A problem with STV is that you can get the ‘least worst’ candidate, leaving the fewest number of people happy.
On preview, cf ruadh’s first disadvantage.
STV gets a much better representation of minor parties. Taking a look at the list of US Senators, it seems that 99 out of 100 are from one of the two major parties (one independent if I’m reading that correctly). By contrast the Australian Senate is far more diverse party-wise.
I don’t regard the “least worst candidate” as a problem. I’d far rather have a candidate 60% of the population kinda sorta liked that one 30% worshipped and the other 70% thought was an incarnation of Satan.
In Aus, the vast majority of people vote “above the line” for the senate - this means that you tick just one box belonging to your preferred party, and then your preferences (“transfers”, as in ruadh’s post) are allocated as that party decides. As you can imagine, this leads to an awful lot of behind-the-scenes politicking by the parties concerned and occasional anguished hand-wringing when the “wrong” candidate gets over the line on preferences because nobody thought they had a chance.
Well, that’s the argument in favour of it. But there is at least potentially a problem with it if, for example, that 30% cannot be effectively represented by any of the candidates elected.
Consider the West Belfast constituency in the Northern Assembly. There are six seats, and in the 2007 elections all six went to nationalist candidates - although the sixth actually received fewer first preference votes than one of the unionist candidates had. This is, of course, because voting patterns are highly sectarian in the North and nationalist voters don’t transfer to unionist candidates and vice versa. But unionists in West Belfast, of whom there is a significant minority, understandably feel that the STV system has denied them representation in the Assembly. A first past the post system would have allowed the unionist candidate to take the last seat.
Obviously this is less of an issue in places where the electorate is less polarised, but arguably the more polarised an electorate is, the more important it is for that 30% to have their representation.
Isn’t it sort of optimal to get the least worst?
ETA: I mean, as opposed to getting the most worst, or someone more worst than the least worst.
Vote status quo.
As you know, the proposal is to reduce 85 ridings down to 20 electoral districts where instead of one MPP you get to choose say the top 5 or so candidates from a slate of lets say 20 to send a total of 85 MPPs back to Victoria.
You list as many candidates as you desire in order of preference.
If your No 1 choice comes out on top, a portion of your “unused” vote is applied to your No 2 choice for the second iteration of the vote count. If your No 1 choice comes in at the bottom, your choice drops out and 100% of your vote applies to your No 2 choice in the second iteration.
Repeat iterations until all 5 MPPs are selected.
Sound beautiful to a mathemetican I suppose.
But this system is absolutely computer dependant and I suspect an auditing nightmare. Myself, being comfortable with placing a simple X in a circle with a pencil on a piece of paper, is the best way to secure my vote.
You may find that you won’t have a representative at all from your own locality.
A New Zealand person I came across tells me that you’ll need to get used to coalition governments. If you support the Green Party, this system will work for you.
The only purpose of this system is to avoid majority governments with less than a majority of the popular vote. In a multi party system, the only way we can have effective governments with effective programs, good or bad, is with majority governments. I don’t want to be faced with endless coalition governments like they have in Israel.
Oh, since this involves computer calculations, it is possible that a candidate gets in with a plurality of less than one vote. 
No it isn’t. Ireland is proof of that.
Thanks for the help so far. The main thing that worries me about the STV is the possibility of constant minority governments.
I see the point that if you’re, for example, and ABC voter (anybody but Conservative) this will work to you advantage, while if you’re a single party person, it may not.
For the record, there are officially two Independents in the US Senate, but due to the way our system is set up, they need to officially ally themselves with one party or the other in order to hold any real power (both caucus with the Democrats). Joe Lieberman used to be officially a Democrat, but he got primaried out in his last election, so since he couldn’t run as a Democrat, he formed the “Connecticut for Lieberman” party. Since then, he’s maintained closer ties to the Republicans than many Democrats are comfortable with (including endorsing McCain over Obama for President). Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, comes from a liberal enough state that he can openly call himself a Socialist and still get elected.
That’s not a problem of STV versus First Past the Post; that’s a problem of Proportional Representation versus the lack thereof. In either STV or FPtP, if there’s a sharp divide between two ideologies, and one of them outnumbers the other in each district, then that one is probably going to win in each district (though it might require primaries or some other method of weeding it down to one candidate from each side). Changing STV versus FPtP will just change who it is representing each side.
What ? They don’t have computers in Ireland ?
Your STV may not be exactly the same as what is proposed for British Columbia. Simple elimination rounds transfering the votes of the bottom candidates to second or subsequent choices until the full complement of seats are determined is easy enough.
But when your top choice in round one comes in at No 1 with an excess of say40,000 votes over the N0 2 who got 20,000 votes, here in BC it is proposed you get a second chance with a vote worth 0.66666666666666666666… votes for your second choice.
Suppose your second choice wins by say 20,000.666666666666… votes over the runner up who has 10,000 votes?
What is the value of your vote in the third round ?
Erm, for all intents and purposes STV vs FPTP is Proportional Representation versus the lack thereof. That’s sort of the main argument for STV.
In any event, the point wasn’t merely that the outnumbered side didn’t win a seat.
Not for elections, it’s all done the old-fashioned way. Our counts can be pretty long, drawn-out affairs.
The way it’s done here is that when a candidate reaches the quota, their surplus is distributed amongst the remaining candidates in the proportion to which their second preferences went to those candidates. So, say Candidate A was elected by having received 5000 first preferences, where the quota was 4000. Thus he has a surplus of 1000. On examination of the ballots it is determined that 3000 of his voters gave Candidate B their second preference and 2000 gave Candidate C their second preference. Therefore, his 1000-vote surplus will be distributed amongst Candidate B and C in a 600/400 split.
After the second round, though, the counters get lazy and instead of distributing the entire surplus proportionately they just grab a box of votes and assume that all the transfers went the way they did in that box. This is a potential problem with the system (since a “box” comes from a particular area in the constituency and will therefore reflect the particular demographics of that area), and I definitely don’t recommend you adopt it.
I found a pro-STV site (Bonfire Development, Inc. - Contact) with explanations of how it would work.
The more I think about it, the more I think this would work to the advantage of the more fragmented left in BC (Liberals / NDP / Green) than the more monolithic right (Conservatives).
Incidentally, this electionsBC site (http://www3.elections.bc.ca/index.php/can/polparties/regpolparties/) shows all the many many parties in BC, to include the Sex Party, the Work Less Party and* the Party Of Citizens Who Have Decided To Think For Themselves And Be Their Own Politicians*.
I never thought the Marijuana party would look so staid and middle of the road.