1871 W.R. Ware used STV to elect Harvard University overseers.
previously had held STV election to let students vote on Favourite English author
150 votes. 6 votes rejected.
4 to be elected:
Shakespeare, Scott, Tennyson and Burns won
Dickens was 3rd on first count but not elected. Apparently other than his first-choice supporters, few others gave their back up preferences to him.
Ware's 1871 report is important as it contains list of 16 advantages of STV.
He states STV's ranked voting can be used as easily in election of one as election of multiple members (STV).
Ranked voting and vote transfers enable the party of the minority to select between two candidates of the majority, preventing a mere majority of the majority (a power block within the majority group) from dictating the results.
Thus it would prevent the "foreign interference" that occurs when nomination to a safe seat is very effective way to control whom is elected.
(For the party of the majority to run multiple candidates, you would need a multi-member contest. And even then it is not at all certain that both would be in running at last stage of vote count.)
Ware's 16 advantages of STV (many of the same advantages are seen to lesser degree in IRV) are presented and dissected in the Montopedia blog https://montopedia.wixsite.com/montopedia/post/benefits-of-proportional-representation
They are also presented in Newman's book Hare-Clark in Tasmania.
See Ware, Machinery of Politics (1872) 31 pages
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