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Tom Monto

2024 PR elections, STV anniversaries

Updated: Aug 7

Upcoming PR national elections in 2024


These countries will elect national governments using PR this year.

(they are provided in Wiki article: "2024 national electoral calendar"


Countries listed in order of the date of the upcoming election

(due to time restraints, electoral system of only the lower house provided sometimes, even if upper house also will be elected by PR this year)


JANUARY


Sint Maarten 

a "constituent country" of Netherlands but has its own constitution and holds elections. The 15 seats in the Estates are elected by proportional representation.[4] In order to participate in the election, new parties and parties without a seat in parliament are required to obtain at least 134 signatures; 1% of the valid votes of the 2020 general elections (thus, one can surmise that only about 10,000 votes were cast in the last election)


Taiwan     Legislative Yuan   Parallel votingFPTP (73 seats) + Party-list PR (Hare quota) (34 seats)       Aboriginal seats: SNTV (6 seats


Finland    Parliamentary elections are held every four years with a system of proportional representation in multiple seat constituencies. Finnish parliamentary elections use the D'Hondt method. Finland has a multi-party system wherein it is uncommon for a single party to achieve a majority in eduskunta; thus most Finnish governments consist of coalitions.

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FEBRUARY


El Salvador -- Salvadorans elect a single-chamber, unicameral national legislature – the Legislative Assembly of El Salvador – composed of 84 members (deputies). They are elected by open-list proportional representation for three-year terms, with the possibility of immediate re-election. All 84 seats in the Legislative Assembly are elected on the basis of 14 multi-member constituencies (corresponding to El Salvador's 14 departments). They range from 3-16 seats each according to department population size


Azerbaijan    The National Assembly (Milli Məclis) has 125 members. Before 2005, 100 members were elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies and 25 members were elected by PR.

  

(Pakistan    National Assembly FPTP (272 seats) (+ 70 members appointed by parties proportional with seats already won) so not PR)


Indonesia    Members of the People's Representative Council are elected by proportional representation from multi-candidate constituencies. Currently, there are 77 constituencies in Indonesia, and each returns 3-10 Members of Parliament based on population. Under Indonesia's multi-party system, no one party has yet been able to secure an outright majority in a democratic election; parties have needed to work together in coalition governments. Members of the Regional Representative Council are elected by single non-transferable vote. There, Indonesia's 34 provinces treated as constituencies.

Regardless of the size and population, every province returns four senators....


Liechtenstein    uses a system that mixes candidate voting and party voting in a most eccentric way.   multi-member districts, no top up.   parties are allocated seats in each district based on votes cast  - or not cast, as it were. (see footnote)

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MARCH

Portugal     the Parliament has 230 members, elected for a four-year term by PR  in multi-member districts

 

Russia     State Duma   Parallel voting - FPTP  (225 seats)[67] + party-list PR (225 seats)  (partial-PR at least on paper)

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APRIL

South Korea     Combination of parallel voting and additional member system - FPTP (253 seats) / AMS party lsit PR (30 seats) / parallel party list PR (closed lists: modified Hare quota (largest remainder method) (17 seats)

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May

North Macedonia    Assembly   party-list PR D'Hondt method


Dominican Republic   Chamber of Deputies party-list PR D'Hondt method

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June

Mexico    Chamber of Deputies Parallel votingFPTP (300 seats) + Largest remainder (Hare quota) (200 seats)


Belgium list PR

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JULY

Rwanda    Chamber of Deputies    party list PR -- largest remainder

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October


Mozambique  Assembly of the Republic  party-list PR D'Hondt method



Uruguay 

Chamber of Senators  party-list PR D'Hondt method closed list

Chamber of Representatives  party-list PR D'Hondt method  closed list


=============================


Unknown dates but expected to hold election in 2024 and to use PR


Austria    National Council  Party list PRLargest remainder (Hare quota) at district and regional levels, D'Hondt method for remaining votes at national level


Chad National Assembly First-past-the-post (FPTP/SMP) party with over 50% of vote gets all seats in multi-member constituencies (party block voting), otherwise List PR (largest remainder, closed list


Croatia   Sabor      Party li


Georgia     Parliament     Unicameral  parallel voting - superposition (MMM) :two-round system (TRS) and party list PR (closed list)


Lithuania  Simas Parallel votingTwo-round system (71 seats) + Party list PR (70 seats, Largest remainder)


Namibia   National Assembly Party list PRHare quota + 6 appointed


Romania   Chamber of Deputies party-list PR D'Hondt method  closed list

San Marino   unicameral Grand and General Council Party list using a D'Hondt method with, if no government is formed, second round with only 2 largest parties (national majority bonus/jackpot


South Africa   National Assembly Party list  PR using Droop quota


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With this many PR elections this year, who can possibly say it would not work in Canada.


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Footnote 

Electoral system in Liechtenstein - most unusual

uses a system that mixes candidate voting and party voting in a most eccentric way. 

multi-member districts, no top up

parties are allocated seats in each district based on votes cast  - or not cast, as it were. (see footnote)

each voter has multiple votes

voter marks a party as his or her preference.

voter can place votes on candidates

a vote for a candidate is a vote for that party.

any votes not used are allocated to the party of choice.

seats in each district are allocated to parties based on votes received via candidates and as per the left-over votes as per marked party.

Thus voter faces limits - he or she cannot show support for a second party over and above the number of candidates that the party runs in the district.

the district structure and the fact that the two districts in the country have different number of seats means that no overall vote stats are useful.

from wiki: "elections in Liechtenstein"

The Landtag of Liechtenstein has 25 members, elected for a four-year term by proportional representation in two multi-seat constituencies.

A variation of the standard party-list proportional format is used to elect 15 members from the district of Oberland and 10 members from the district of Unterland. The highest-remainder method dictates each party’s seat total in a district based on their vote share (which will be covered in more detail) there. Elections in these two districts are essentially separate, and the individual municipal divisions technically play no role in determining the eventual winners.


There are four parties currently registered in Liechtenstein: the Progressive Citizen’s Party (FBP), Patriotic Union (VU), the Independents (DU), and Free List (FL). Each party may nominate as many candidates in a district as can be elected there (15 available for Oberland and 10 for Unterland). Voters are assigned voting locations (either Oberland or Unterland district) based on their living. When voting, each voter must choose one party but is allowed to select as many candidates as they like (but only up to the maximum given: 15 candidate votes per Oberland voter and 10 candidate votes for each Unterland voter)

Any ballots without a single party mark at the top are considered void, but will be accepted no matter how many candidates are chosen. 

If more candidates are chosen than the limit, the candidates following the fifteenth (if in Oberland) or tenth (if in Unterland) are ignored and only the first 15 (Oberland) or 10 (Unterland) distinct choices will count.

 If the name of a candidate is repeated, only in the first instance where the candidate is named is taken into consideration and all subsequent mentions are ignored.

Although the number of candidates selected by each voter can vary and is up to their own determination, Oberland voters still must cast 15 total votes, and Unterland voters always give 10. The difference is made through the candidate rankings, which will be discussed later. 

Each candidate that is chosen by a voter counts as a vote for that candidate’s party. Each remaining vote out of the 15 (for Oberland) or 10 (for Unterland) corresponding to the number of candidates not chosen counts as a vote for the party initially specified by the voter.

For example, if a voter from Oberland chooses the FBP as their party of choice, and then chooses 4 candidates from the VU, 2 candidates from the FBP, and 1 candidate from the DU, then the party votes that this voter has cast are 4 for the VU, 1 for the DU, and 10 for the FBP (by virtue of the 2 votes for candidates from this party and the 8 remaining, empty candidate votes). 

Likewise, if an Unterland voter chooses DU as their party of choice, then casts 1 vote for a FBP candidate and a vote for each of 2 VU candidates, then this voter’s party votes are counted as 1 for the FBP (since only 1 FBP candidate was selected), 2 for the VU, and 7 for the DU due to the 7 remaining candidate votes.

Note that it is impossible for a voter to cast votes for any party other than the one listed at the top of their ballot without also selecting the requisite  number of candidates from that party.

 [perhaps what is meant is  "Note that it may not be possible for a voter to cast votes for candidates of a party other than the one listed at the top of their ballot and also to select each of the candidates running for that party.]


 This has been criticized by some as restricting the freedom of voters to choose multiple parties while refraining from supporting at least 1 particular candidate.

[voter might want to choose two parties and not care about partlcular candidates - (say Green and NDP in Canadian terms) but has choice of only one party and particular candidates of any other parties. (But vote for candidate of another party does count as support for that party.)


Also keep in mind that a maximum of 1 vote can be cast for each candidate by a single voter, and thus it would be impossible for a given voter to cast multiple votes for a single candidate. Especially because parties may not nominate a full slate in a given district since the party usually desires maximum influence on the candidates elected and because it is unlikely for the party to win a very large majority of seats that they had not anticipated, voters who support just one party have complained that their influence is diminished because they can only support the candidates their party has nominated and thus their remaining votes would only count as party votes and not also candidate votes.


Additionally as fact, the expected transition by Liechtenstein authorities to new, electronic voting machines could eliminate the possibility of a voter selecting too many candidates, especially if mistakenly believing that they would all be counted and being told that they could only vote for 15 in the Oberland and 10 in the Unterland. The party choice for each voter does not matter if the voter chooses the maximum number of candidates that they are allowed (15 in Oberland and 10 in Unterland) but makes a difference of one party vote if they leave one candidate choice blank, and it counts as two party votes if two are unchecked.


Once the number of seats for each party in each of the two districts has been determined by the party vote count in that district, the corresponding candidates of that party with the highest number of votes are elected. For example, if the VU is given three seats in Unterland, then the 3 most-popular VU candidates in Unterland are elected as the 3 representatives of the VU from the Unterland, regardless of how many votes these candidates garnered in relation to candidates from other parties.

If a party is given more seats in a district than the number of candidates that it has nominated there, then the extra seats are redistributed to the other parties as if the party of concern had not received that many votes also by using the Hare quota. In this case, the maximum number of seats that this party can earn in the relevant district is also equivalent to the total candidates it has nominated there.

It is important to note that votes for a party and votes for candidates are separate and affect the count differently: as explained above, 

party votes are used only for determining the number of seats given to a party in each district

while candidate votes determine which candidates from a party win election from each district, this value corresponding to the number of seats that the party in question receives as determined in the previous step.

This is also why the two districts are not compared outside of the separate elections: 

Oberland voters get 15 votes each and Unterland voters 10 votes, which would distort support if a party’s vote share is different between the two districts. 

However, this is evened out because the seats are determined by district, and therefore both districts are approximately equally represented since the ratio of seats between them must be roughly proportional to their population difference

see Montopedia blog Liechtenstein 

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STV anniversaries


100th anniversary

1924 Alberta adopted STV for election of provincial-level members in Edmonton, Calgary and Medicine Hat.


80 years ago -- 1944 due to using PR to elect only about ten MLAs, the Alberta Legislature was still mostly composed of IRV winners in single-member districts.


Due to this, the 1944-1948 Alberta legislature had only two CCF MLAs even though that party received almost a quarter of votes cast in the 1944 Alberta provincial election.


Although the Alberta experience was somewhat shallow and Manitoba's was about the same, Alberta's and Manitoba's experience with STV is the deepest use of a PR system anywhere in U.S. and Canada that has ever happened.

(Illinois's long use of cumulative voting is a close second perhaps, that is, if you count CV as a form of PR.)

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