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Tom Monto
Nov 4, 202116 min read

24 U.S. cities have used STV - with more to come

Updated: Dec 13

Between 1915 and 1960 two dozen U.S. cities adopted Single Transferable Voting (STV).

By 1962 all but one had discarded it.


Cambridge (Mass) was the only one that continued to use it after 1962 - and continues to use it to the present time.


It has been joined by Minneapolis and more recently by Albany, New York and others.


Amherst (Mass) is hoping to hold its first STV election in November 2024.

This report by the town's Ranked vote Commission serves up interesting info on STV:

Commission report (Dec. 1, 2020) https://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/53914/RCVC_Report_2020-12-01 Ashtabula led the way to STV

Ashtabula (Ohio) was the first city in U.S. (actually in North America) to adopt STV. That was in 1915.


(In Canada Calgary took the plunge just two years after Ashtabula. And within months several municipalities in BC adopted the fair way to vote. This was followed by Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon in 1920, Vancouver and Victoria in 1921, and Edmonton in 1923 and Lethbridge in 1928.)

After Ashtabula, several U.S. cities switched to fair voting under STV.


=====

[San Franscisco, Los Angeles used STV but neither on list below.

"Quarterly report of popular government," state by state

see Equity series, Jan. 1913

[see that quarterly for "The "Representative Council" Plan of City Charter"

=====


These U.S. cities used STV:

Ashtabula 1915

Boulder, Colorado

Kalamazoo, Michigan

Sacramento, California

West Hartford. Conn.

Cleveland 1921 (see below)

Cincinnati 1929 (used STV 1929-1957)

Toledo (Ohio)

Hamilton (Ohio) 1926

Wheeling, West Virginia

NYC 1937 (used STV 1937- 1947) (see below)


NYC was followed by 13 more, including

seven in Massachusetts,

Norris, Tennessee

Yonkers, NY


Cambridge, Mass. 1941-present (for long time Cambridge was the only city using STV)

STV in Cambridge has had its challenges. Rebuffed by referendum defeat in 1940, the movement persevered and the next saw a majority vote for change. Then STV survived five repeal referendums before 1965, and more since then.

Lowell, Mass.

Long Beach, NY

Coos Bay, Oregon


These five cities in Mass. adopted STV in the 1950s.

Saugus, Mass.

Worcester, Mass. used STV 1949- 1961

Medford, Mass.

Quincy, Mass.

Revere, Mass.


Hopkins, Minnesota ca. 1946-1957

Oak Ridge Tennessee ca. 1947-ca. 1955.

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


Minneapolis, Minnesota and Albany, New York has joined Cambridge in using STV.

as of 2025 also Portland, Oregon and Amherst Mass.


voters of Portland (Maine) voted to have STV whenever multiple members are elected but its politicians, including three at-large members, are elected in rotation (staggered terms) so never are multiple members elected.

(more on this in this Montopedia blog:

=========

(In Canada most cities dropped STV by 1930. Winnipeg and Calgary were the only large Canadian cities to continue to use it past 1930. Saskatoon did use it again from 1938 to 1942.)

===========


PR under attack in U.S. cities

By the 1950s PR was under attack in most cities that still had it.


Ashtabula had dropped it after just a few years. Being dissected by social scientists each election cycle apparently irritated the locals!


Other cities also gave up STV easily.


Some cities saw valiant PR-defenders hold off the attack until final defeat.


In Cleveland, well-financed opponents sponsored five repeal referendums in the first ten years of STV, with voters voting down a return to X voting four times until a fifth vote saw a majority vote to sink STV after about 10 years of use.


In Hamilton, too, STV was sustained in four votes but died on the fifth.


NYC voted it out just after WWII.


Neighbouring Long Beach discarded STV in 1947; nearby Yonkers in 1948.


Boulder (in 1947), Toledo (in 1949), and Wheeling (in 1951) also took that step backwards.


In Cincinnati it was voted out in 1957.


After Hamilton) voted it out in 1962, Cambridge became the last to continue to use the fair system of election.


Cambridge has seen several votes on the retention of STV. And each time - so far - most voters have voted to maintain it.


The online source looks to be worth a careful study:

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


Cleveland City Council

1923 under STV 106,000 votes were cast for council. 86,000 were used to elect winners.

In previous election (1921), 154,000 voters voted. 130,000 valid votes were cast in the aldermanic contests (each member elected in a separate district) and only 60,000 votes were used to elect someone. (In 1921 mayor was elected by ranked ballots - likely through the Bucklin system - and an Independent candidate was elected after secondary preferences were counted.


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

Cleveland's STV adopted prior to the 1923 election had multi-member wards of varying number of seats.

25 members were elected in four districts - two of seven, one of six, one district of five members.

Districts had different number of members as they were unequal in population - the prime objective in laying out the districts was to have districts of social and economic homogeneity, not equality of population.

(from Maxey, "Cleveland Election and the New Charter" American Political Science Review, Feb 1922.

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


New York City's STV

uniform quota

so number of members in city hall varied from election to election, and each borough got a different number of seats from election to election.

No attempt was made to have equal representation for a certain number of population but only that each 75,000 votes cast ( or 50,000 or a close number thereto) was to get a representative.


New York City

1937 first woman elected

November 1937 Genevieve Earle (Fusion and Citizens’ Non-Partisan, Minority Leader) see https://www.voteguy.com/2019/02/04/women-in-new-york-citys-ranked-choice-city-council/

Zeller, Belle, and Hugh A. Bone. 1948. “The Repeal of PR in New York City: Ten Years in Retrospect.” American Political Science Review 42, no. 6 (December): 1127–48

===========




=====


for more info on adoption of PR in U.S. cities, see

THE LOST LEFT OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION 

Aidan Calvelli


this 60-page essay covers use of STV in local governments in U.S. 1915-[2015?]


some excerpts:

"This paper is not directly concerned with the political effects or PR or its virtue as a political system. Still, many of the scholars writing about its history have viewed the problem through this lens. 

They have found, among other effects, that PR: 

generally produced “fairer and more proportional representation of political parties,” including third parties; increased representation of racial minorities; 

in part undermined the power of political machines; 

increased the number of effective votes; 

had uncertain effects on the development of political parties (some cities retained a two-party system, while others had multiple parties emerge); 

did little to change voter participation; 

and did not increase political conflict."


Two academic leaders—John Commons of Wisconsin and Charles Beard of Columbia—similarly supported PR because it could represent “all interests and classes,” helping to “defend the masses against the monopolists” who control party bosses.


Others emphasized the goal of increasing participatory opportunities for “those considerable classes of voters” who lacked political power, like farmers, mechanics and laboring men.”


Looking back in 1926 on their years leading the PRL, Hoag and Hallett confirmed that their goals were Progressive, broadly defined.  


To them, PR:

secured majority rule,

recognized minority representation, including “important” third parties;

ended gerrymandering;

representing “unorganized groups”;

fostered continuity and cooperation;

“check[ed] machine rule”;

gave freedom for “independent voting” across party lines;

raised candidate quality;

and decreased fraud.

They rejected “objections” that PR helps radical groups, conceding that the PR rightly “gives them a hearing” and “just representation,” but affirming that “extreme parties”, such asSocialists, [get only] their due” and never more."


Publishing a 380-page “campaign book” in 1912, the [Socialist] party framed support for PR as a crucial “step in the program for the capture of political power by the workers.”


While other groups backed PR in a “more or less half-hearted way,” for Socialists, it was not “a means of catching votes, but an essential preparation for the democratic management of the means by which society feeds, clothes and houses itself.”

The fact that the first two rulings on PR struck it down caused a crisis. PR leaders needed a strategy to save their prized policy: though each state court and constitution was different, the fact that California had relied on Michigan suggested bad precedents would have legs. So, William Anderson, a PRL-aligned political scientist, spun out 18 pages on the “fairly simple problem in the construction of state constitutions,”149 offering a two-step roadmap for beating “doubt[s]” over PR’s constitutionality: First, instead of textualism, show that the historical aim of “all elections” clauses was to establish the “equality of right among voters.” Second, turn the tables, showing that ordinary systems voting—not PR—“destroy the equality which should exist.” Even if provisions on a right to elect “all officers” may make multi-member districts impossible,152 most PR policies could be saved with the right legal arguments. As opposition to PR grew, Anderson’s approach grew in importance.


...with Communists claiming [PR] protected democracy against fascism.

...


(for more info, see

William Anderson, "The Constitutionality of Proportional Representation", 12 National Municipal Review 745, 745 (1923), if you can find it!

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


Today in the United States, there are four [or so] ways to populate a legislature


(Alternative voting is used in a couple states to elect members.


(Group ticket voting is another way, used to select the electoral college in most states.)


[First past the post]

One is to hold elections in a series of single-seat districts, awarding each seat to the person with most votes. When each voter in each district can mark only one candidate, this method is called “first-past-the-post.” Ranked voting and runoff methods are increasingly popular, but all ask voters to pick between the top two candidates.

If the same kinds of candidates contest all of the districts, only one or two groups will win seats (Duverger 1954; Cox 1997). This is how we elect the U.S. House of Representatives and most other bodies. [Block Voting] A second way is to elect all members from one multi-seat district. Voters mark as many candidates as they want, up to the number of winners to elect. If the largest group of voters votes the same way, and if they use all available votes, only that group will win seats (Calabrese 2000; Colomer 2007). At-large, plurality elections of this type became popular in local government in the first half of the 20th century. Congress banned this method for federal elections in 1967, and some states still use it for lower-chamber contests.

[Limited Voting and Cumulative Voting] A third approach retains the multi-seat district but limits the number of votes one can cast (i.e., limited voting). The reason for this is to let the next-largest group win some seats.

One can get the same result by letting voters cast more than one vote for a single candidate (i.e., cumulative voting). These rules exist for some local elections where racial discrimination is a problem. Connecticut and Pennsylvania use limited voting so that Democrats can win seats in Republican towns and vice-versa. Illinois state house elections were by cumulative voting from 1870-1980. Evidence suggests these methods lead to population-proportional results when there is a cohesive majority and just one minority (Brockington et al. 1998; Gerber et al. 1998; Bowler et al. 2003).

[STV (“proportional representation via the single transferable vote,” or PR-STV] The fourth way to fill a legislature increases the odds that even smaller groups will win seats. If voters in each group pick the same set of candidates, and if those groups are arbitrarily large, each group wins seats in rough proportion to its votes.

[actually, I would say:

The fourth way to fill a legislature ensutres tht each substantial group in a district will win one or more seats. each voter has just one vote (although two or more members are being elected), but rank many candaites as back-up prefernces to allow the vote to be transferred if it would otherwise be cast aside. Under this system, each group wins seats in rough proportion to its votes.

Australia, Ireland, Malta, use this system to elect members of the national government and New Zealand, and Scotland uses it for municipal elections.



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

U.S. cities

From 1915 to 1961, STV was used in 24 American cities for city elections.

Since 1962 [prior to 2000s] only the voters of Cambridge (Massachusetts) have used this system to elect city council elections. [but more cities are beginning to use as of 2024]. ... A binding 2006 referendum in Minneapolis established STV for that city’s library board elections.


The New York City school board was elected by STV until 2002. Under a random-transfer STV rule such as the “Cincinnati method” used in all American cities, ballots are randomly drawn from the winning candidates’ piles. [this may be the whole-vote method of transfer of surplus votes which is actually semi-random ]

[for info on Cincinnati STV see

https://equitabledemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Engstrom-Cincy-1988-STV-initiative-Elect-St.pdf] ... No American city in this analysis had AV elections [single-winner contests where ranked votes are used].



DISTRICT MAGNITUDES in STV CITIES

Of the 24 PR cities, 20 had fully at-large elections with district magnitudes of seven or nine. This meant that the minimum percentage of votes needed to win a seat was either 12.5 or ten. [actually it meant that the percentage of votes needed to be certain of winning a seat was 12.5 or ten - some seats were won with less.]

The other four cities had multi-seat wards with a range of magnitudes 3 to 7 Elections in Boulder were staggered such that three of nine seats were filled in each election, giving a Droop quota of 25 percent. (Winter 1982: 9).

Cleveland had four districts of seven, five, six, and seven seats, respectively, so that the quota ranged from 12.5 to 16.6 percent of votes (Moley 1923: 653).

West Hartford had four districts of five, one, four, and five seats. (Gallup 1921: 358).

Finally, New York City treated each borough as its own district whose magnitude varied with turnout.

Table 1.2 gives the district magnitude in each borough at each of the five PR elections. [see my blog on NYC for this information]

Except one single-seat district in each of New York and West Hartford, parties in all PR cities never used a quota of more than 25 percent (DM was never less than 3] ... Staten Island: The official numbers of candidates [elected members?] were seven in 1937, four in 1939, two in 1941, two in 1943, then three in 1945.


STV in U.S.

Santucci described three very different cities representing the US experience with PR:

Cincinnati (1929-1957);

New York City (1937-1947); and

Worcester, Mass. (1949-1961)

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

Santucci (p. 18) reported that the 24 cities had different STV systems:

20 used at-large, all elected at once with DM of 7 or 9

Boulder -- 3 elected at a time, staggered terms - 9 members on council

Cleveland -- four wards -- DM of 5, 6, 7, 7.

West Hartford -- four wards - DM of 1, 4, 5, 5.

New York City -- treated each borough as a district. DM varied with turnout. DM was 1 or ranged from 3 to 9.

(from Santucci, p. 18)

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


No American city in this analysis had AV elections [none for election of city councillors and possibly none for mayors too?].

[all city councillors elected in multi-winner contests]


Of the 24 PR cities,


20 had fully at-large elections with district magnitudes of seven or nine. This meant that the percentage of votes [certain] to win a seat was either 12.5 or ten.

The four other cities had multi-seat districts with a range of magnitudes.


Elections in Boulder were staggered such that three of nine seats were filled in each election, giving a Droop quota of 25 percent (Winter 1982: 9).


Cleveland had four districts of seven, five, six, and seven seats, respectively, so that the quota ranged from 12.5 to 16.6 percent of votes (Moley 1923: 653).


West Hartford had four districts of five, one, four, and five seats. (Gallup 1921: 358).


New York City treated each borough as its own district whose magnitude varied with turnout. Table 1.2 gives the district magnitude in each borough at each of the five PR elections. [info presented above]


Except one single-seat district in each of New York and West Hartford, parties in all PR cities never confronted a threshold of more than 25 percent. [in other words, never was DM less than three.)


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

STV Methods Varied


STV systems vary on five main aspects:

DM -- the range of DM in the U.S. described above


Method of surplus vote transfer

random two different methods

Cincinnati method - numbered the ballots one by one and then a mathematical ratio was derived and then applied to the ballots in order that say every 4th ballot was extracted if 25 percent was needed.

Toledo method -- stop receiving - after quota is reached, any arriving votes are re-routed to next usable marked preference


whole-vote transfer -- proportional transfer of surplus votes based on next usable marked preference. used in Boulder, Colorado and in Malta, Ireland, and historically most STV systems in Canada.


(Gregory method was not used in any STV system in Ohio, according to Barber's book. NYC also did not use Gregory, nor Cambridge. Other than that, I don't know what transfer method was used in NYC.)


Ballot design (little known about this aspect)


Preferences - how many preferences had to be marked by voter

(little known about this aspect in historical uses of STV in the U.S.)


Casual vacancies

Casual vacancies may result in fluctuations in DM if staggered terms are used (such as Boulder)

DM does not fluctuate if a casual vacancy is filled by a separate election held between general elections or if it is filled in a separate contest even if the contest is filled at same time as the next election.

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


STV in Ohio

Ashtabula STV 1917-

Cleveland

Cincinnati

Hamilton STV repealed in 1960 by referendum, replaced by block voting at large (Barber, p. 236)

Toledo

========

Cincinnati

had STV elections 1925 to 1955

elections held each odd-numbered year



1925 first black elected in Cincinnatti's history was due to adoption of STV.


=====

1954 referendum

Yes (to repeal STV) 74,872

No (to retain STV) 75,544

(National Municipal Review, Jan 1955) [print-out in my files]

But despite this referendum result, Cincinnati cancelled STV just three years later.

=====

1988 referendum

Richard L. Engstrom, Cincinnati’s 1988 Proportional Representation Initiative

Electoral Studies (1990), 9:3, 217-225

In a 1988 referendum the voters of Cincinnati rejected by 55 percent to 45 percent a proposal to adopt STV for electing the Cincinnati city council.

STV had been in use in Cincinnati from 1925 until 1957 and it was the first effort to bring it back.

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


Sources for info on STV used in U.S. cities


book:

Kathleen L. Barber, PR and Election Reform in Ohio (1995)






See also


HOW PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION GAVE AMERICAN VOTERS MEANINGFUL REPRESENTATION IN THE 1900s

And how racial fears and the Red Scare stopped it in its tracks


Notes from Joseph P. Harris The Practical Workings of Proportional Representation in the U.S. and Canada (1930)

(see notes below)


online:

Santucci (thesis) Three Articles on PR with an introduction


Richard L. Engstrom, Cincinnati’s 1988 Proportional Representation Initiative

Electoral Studies (1990), 9:3, 217-225


Aidan Calvelli "The Lost Left in PR"


Thanks for reading.

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

Moves toward STV in 2000s


2006 Minneapolis, MN, adopts STV-PR.

Minneapolis adopted PR by initiative in 2006. The result was challenged in court, and the initiative was upheld in 2009. STV will be used for the Board of Estimate and Taxation and Park Board at-large seats. The Minneapolis city council is elected from single-seat wards, for which seats, along with the mayor and other single-seat offices, the initiative specifies IRV.


2006 Davis, California, passes advisory measure favoring STV-PR.


2021 Portland, Oregon to elect city councillors, in four 3-seat wards. (put into use in 2024)


2023 Portland, Maine

The city council of nine members is elected by the citizens of Portland. The city has five voting districts, with each district electing one city councillor for a three-year term. An additional three members of the city council are elected at-large.

The three at-large members are elected through STV, what Portland calls "Proportional ranked-choice voting". (wikipedia says four at-large members but Portland's official website says three)


Councillors serve three-year terms -- staggered terms.

the election of November 2023 saw just one at-large seat open.

only two candidates ran so just FPTP process, not even IRV, and not STV.


The ratifying referendum read:

"authorizing the city to use a proportional ranked choice voting method for elections in which more than one person is to be elected to a single office (i.e. a multiple seat election) and directs the city council to enact an ordinance to establish the proportional ranked choice voting method."


But either incidentally or purposefully as a way to get around the results of the referendum, Portland (Maine) uses staggered terms so never elects multiple members at one time, a prerequisite for STV.

Just one at-large member was elected in 2023, and only at-large councillors are elected in a multi-member district, so it seems that STV is not being used to elect city council to any great extent...


As well The City of Portland had a four-seat at-large Charter Commission contest scheduled for June 8, 2021. Apparently when it is to be re-elected, it is to be done through STV.

but "multi-pass IRV" is also discussed.


Portland's Mayor is elected through IRV. The current mayor is Mark Dion, who narrowly defeated city councilor Andrew Zarro in the 5th count in the November 2023 election. Successive counts where least-popular candidates were eliminated eventually saw only two in the running. The 1st-count front runner was elected in the end, although the second runner-up had accumulated 4000 votes while the front runner accumulated just 2000 more, over and above his 1st count vote tally.

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


Notes from Joseph P. Harris The Practical Workings of Proportional Representation in the U.S. and Canada (1930)


A very good and detailed examination of processes of STV

and its variations such as a "fixed quota" as a means of making it simpler to communicate and thus easier to sell (p. 379)


as well, there is city by city chronology and analysis of STV


Cleveland

Boulder p. 360

Hamilton (Ohio) p. 361

Kalamazoo (Ohio) p. 362

Sacramento p. 363

West Hartford p. 363


Calgary p. 365

Winnipeg p. 366


Past Experience Analyzed p. 368

Effective votes

Does PR secure a more representative council? p. 371

"the election of capable persons is of far more importance than the election of typical citizens."

Does STV increase racial and religious voting?

Does it elect radicals? p. 373

Are better councilmen elected? p. 373

How does PR affect political parties? p. 364

How does PR affect votes cast? p. 364

Invalid ballots

Does the transfer of votes change the results? p. 376 (#50)

(vote transfers seldom affect results but they are useful back-up measures)

p. 379 (#53) election of those in winning position in first count


Is PR popular with the voters? p. 378


p. 378 (#52) referendums on STV


General Summary and suggested simplifications p. 379

Fixed quota  -- as Droop quota is difficult to explain, a fixed quota may be used instead but that means varying numbers are elected.

(I think NY City used fixed quota in city elections but also it used fixed quota to set seat count in each borough.)


Harris: the real purpose of the quota is not to fix a number that must be reached by a candidate to be elected but rather to fix a number beyond which votes will not be counted for a candidate. There are almost always some candidates elected without reaching quota. ...

the effective principle of the quota is to turn back the surplus votes so as to prevent votes being wasted upon a popular candidate.

Even Hare is simpler than Droop.


p. 381

Surplus vote transfers -- instead of mathematical "exact" whole-vote method or the mathematical and complicated fractional Gregory method, a candidate simply stops accepting votes once quota is reached.


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

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