SNTV (single voting in multiple district using X voting) is a difficult concept.
I am not being sarcastic.
despite its simplicity SNTV is clouded in fog.
Even a well-respected election explainer video calls it Multiple FPTP (but if SNTV is that, what is Block Voting? Block voting is where voters cast multiple votes - that sounds more like multiple FPTP than SNTV where voter casts just one vote.) As the previous comment implies by extension, Block Voting is like SNTV as it too is also often overlooked.
Encyclopedia Canada "Electoral reform" refers to several types of voting used or considered in Canada: FPTP,
Alternative Voting or Ranked Ballot,
three types of PR in Canada - STV, MMP, party-list PR. But SNTV is not mentioned - I can say whatever about that. But more oddly, Block Voting is not mentioned at all. And it is a system used in the past in provincial elections in every province in Canada except Quebec - sometimes even used to elect all the members of past provincial legislatures, one or more MPs in every election previous to 1968, and currently it is used in city elections across Canada (although not all of them). The idea that voters would, do or have in the past cast multiple votes to elect multiple members seems odd, perhaps as much as the idea of a system where a voter casts just one vote in a district where multiple members are elected. This is despite the fact that Block Voting is or was actually quite common in Canada. So if Block Voting is so overlooked, how can we hope people to get SNTV right off the bat?. I want to clarify what I said before about SNTV (copied farther below) with reference to my idea that elections are actually three levels (note: elections are held only if two or more candidates have put their names in for an election and the numbers of candidates are larger than the number of spots.)
The three levels of elections are:
- a voter's vote, or the voter's ballot if voter does more than simple single X voting
- who is elected in a district contest and/or through party-list PR and/or through large-district top-up
- who has majority in the chamber.
what a voter's vote or ballot does
single X vote (FPTP or SNTV) it selects one candidate that the voter wants to see elected. (both these systems have clarity that a voter is either a support of the successful candidate and no other or the voter is a supporter of an un-successful candidate and no other. any system where voter casts multiple votes allows voter to "split their vote" and no such clear hit or miss result is produced.)
depending on the system used,
instead of a single X vote,
a ballot can contain
-multiple X votes (Block Voting), or
-a first preference and several back-up preferences (a completed ballot in a STV election).
As well, a ballot may contain just one first choice preference marked with a 1. This is a plumped ballot (not fully-filled-out STV ballot) but still legal in some STV systems.
a ballot of any of these types may be used to elect someone or may not be used to elect someone.
under any (practical) system, not every voter will see their vote used to elect member(s).
- who is elected in a district or contest
single X vote - FPTP single winner only the most popular candidate is elected. all other voters are un-represented. voter will see his or her choice elected or not.
a party may elect one or none at all.
single X vote - SNTV multiple winners only the most popular candidates, multiple in number (two or more), are elected. all other votes are un-represented. voter will see his or her choice elected or not.
a party may elect one, or more than one if it runs multiple candidates, or none at all.
As the looseness of the system affects all parties who run more than one candidate, result seems relatively proportional. and smaller parties run just one candidate so suffer no harm from vote splitting, which is potential problem in SNTV. As little as five percent (party total) is enough to win seat in seven-seat district, as little as 7 percent in five-seat district, at least in a political environment where about 20 parties run for seats (Vanuatu's SNTV 2020 election as described below).
Multiple X votes (Block Voting), multiple winners
only the most popular candidates, multiple in number (two or more), are elected. all other voters are un-represented. voter will see all, some or one of his or her choices elected, or none of them.
Successful candidates usually have overlapping groups of support and election results do not record how many voters had at least one of their choices elected, other than the one with the most votes - that group obviously had at least one choice elected. Each of the rest of the successful candidates could have been elected by subset of that greater number or may have been elected by others or some of each.
A party may elect one, or more than one if it runs multiple candidates, or none at all.
Preferential votes
a first preference and several back-up preferences, or no back-up preferences marked at all.
Back-up preferences are contingency votes - used only if the vote would other wise be wasted. usually a vote comes up for transfer if the candidate to whom it is marked is eliminated from the running due to being the least popular candidate.
not all votes are transferred; not all votes if transferred are used to elect someone; not all votes that are never transferred at all are wasted.
ballot (vote) used to elect just one member in the end, or none at all.
A contest that uses preferential ballots may elect either single member (IRV/Alternative Voting) or multiple members (STV)
IRV contest single winner
- no proportional representation produced. only one group in the end is represented.
to be elected, successful candidate must have majority of votes that are "in play" at that point in time. - perhaps not a majority of votes cast in the district if many votes are exhausted.
a party may elect one or none at all.
STV contest multiple winners
multiple members elected.
Proportional representation (or at least mixed and balanced representation) produced - always in cases where more than three members elected and usually even where only two or three members elected.
multiple groups in the end are (almost always) represented - have at least one member elected in the district.
a party may elect one, or more than one if it runs multiple candidates, or none at all.
to be elected, successful candidate must at any time have quota (a mathematically-derived pre-set fraction of the valid votes) or be among remaining candidates when field of candidates is thinned to number of remaining open seats.
all successful candidates are the most popular candidates in relation to the other candidates, but by the end, vote transfers may have changed the order of popularity of candidates from their original order of popularity set in the First Count.
Party list PR or large-district top-up in MMP multiple winners
votes as cast in district contests or in separate polling of voters are used to allocate seats to parties.
This is usually X voting where vote is placed on a party slate with individual candidate finding success through party favour or more direct voter approval.
a party may elect one, or more than one if it runs or registers multiple candidates, or none at all.
who has majority in the chamber Members elected through various district election contests, if any, and/or members elected through party-list PR, if any, and/or MMP top-up, if any, collect in the chamber. a single party may have majority or a party may collect working majority through gaining support from other elected members and so on.... =============================== Each of the electoral systems mentioned above have been used in government elections in Canada, except SNTV, party-list PR and MMP large-district top-up. All the systems listed have been used successfully in government elections recently somewhere in the world. As mentioned, SNTV is one of more exotic variations despite its simple construction-- X voting in a district that elects multiple members It is exotic because in Canadian history a district that elects multiple members usually has system that allows voters to cast as many votes as the number of open seats, but that natural style means perhaps five times more votes are collected and counted in five-seat district than if SNTV was used.
in Halifax's first election in 1758, 16 times the votes were cast (likely orally) than would have been done under SNTV - because the district elected 16 members and Block Voting was used.
SNTV Vanuatu uses SNTV to elect its members, sometimes as many as seven in a single district. looking at Vanuatu's SNTV 2020 election, we see generally fair and representative results. Despite looseness of system, the measure of satisfaction seem consistent from district to district even with different District Magnitudes (number of seats in the district): Santo seven different parties represented among the seven seats in the district. Parties candidates party total seats won percent of votes approx parties represented (in order of popularity of party's leading candidate) RMC 2 15 1 Liberal movement 1 8 1 Land and Justice 1 7 1 Vemarama 1 6 1 Cultural Self-reliance 1 5 1 Negriamal 2 9 1 Progressive Party 1 5 1 not represented Leaders Party 2 7 0 Union of Moderate Parties 3 8 0 16 other parties, Independents 21 not calc. 0 Each other party and Independent candidate got less than 5 percent of vote Candidates Elected Rick RMC 12 percent of votes (lion share of the party's 15 percent of the vote) Pikione Liberal Movement 8 percent of votes Maoh Land and Justice 7 percent of votes Nano Venarama 6 percent of votes Samson Cultural Self-R 5 percent of votes Joshua Negriamal 5 percent of votes (just more than half of the party's votes) Sakaes Progressive Party 4.82 percent of votes not elected Jocob Leader Party 4.8 percent of votes (missed last seat by 10 votes) Lum Negriamal 4.4 percent of votes (just less than half the votes. if the Negriamal party had exactly evenly split their votes, neither of the party candidates would have been elected. many more unsuccessful candidates with fewer than 4.4 percent of the vote Parties varying from 15 to 5 percent of the vote each got one seat. Two parties with more than five percent of the vote did not get any representation, seemingly due to vote splitting due to running more than one candidate. although there is no telling that the party would have received the same level of support if it had run just one candidate. Although balance is off and parties are not necessarily represented according to party vote share, the diversity of representation is astounding -- no region, city or province or district in Canada elected seven parties. sometimes just one party took all the seats in a whole province. About 48 percent of voters in Santo saw their vote actually used to elect someone. About 55 percent of voters saw a candidate of the party they voted for elected. Likely many of the supporters of other parties found someone they agreed with among the seven different members elected. the adjoining Port Vila gives us comparable result: Port Vila four different parties represented among the five seats in the district. Party candidates party total seats won percent of votes approx represented parties (in order of popularity of party's leading candidate) Land and Justice 1 11 1 RMC 2 15 1 Union of Moderate Parties 4 22 2 Vanua'Aku Pati 1 7 1 not elected Leaders 2 9 0 Green 1 6 0 Candidates elected Ralph Land and Justice 11 percent of votes Ulrich RMC 10 percent of votes Anthony Union of Moderate P. 9 percent of votes Ishmael Union of Moderate P. 8 percent of votes Kenneth Vanua'Aku Pati 7 percent of votes not elected Felix Leaders 6 percent of votes (missed last spot by 100 votes, running mate took 600 votes) Bohn RMC 6 percent of votes many other candidates, of party and Independents no other parties ran multiple candidates, and the vote tally for the parties' one candidate was never more than 5.4 percent. RMC if Ulrich and Bohn had split the party vote more evenly, both would have been elected. But that result would not have been proportional - the party took only 15 percent of the vote. About 45 percent of voters in Port Vila saw their vote actually used to elect someone. About 55 percent of voters saw a candidate of the party they voted for elected. Likely many of the supporters of other parties found someone they agreed with among the seven different members elected. so SNTV it seems provided satisfactory results - certainly more mixed and balanced representation in the two districts examined than in any group of 12 seats in Canada in the last federal election. despite X voting, relatively high level of effective votes (votes used to elect someone) and this moderately-high rate is shown as consistent at least among these two districts. although different parties were elected from district to district. System does obviously discourage parties from running too many candidates so voters do not have the choice of multiple candidates of same party as would be provided by STV for example. From Anthony and Ishmael's experience, we see that under SNTV it is possible to elect more than one candidate of the same party if the party's popularity is above 20 percent and the party's votes predominantly go to just two candidates - even if that party runs a wildly optimistic total of four candidates.
The wasted votes among the unsuccessful Union of Moderate Parties candidate was less than enough to win a third seat. Waste and missed opportunity among all the parties who run multiple candidates meant that it was just possible for the Union of Moderate Parties to win three seats if its vote had been split just right but that result would not have been proportional to the party's 22 percent vote share. so despite the loose seat allocation, the end result was somewhat fair - other than the Leaders Party, all the most popular parties had representation, the most popular candidates within those parties were elected, and the most popular party got more representation than any other party. The result in Port Vila shows that electing multiple candidates of a party is possible, despite the lack of transferable votes means that a party's votes cannot be concentrated behind just a party's leading candidates. Is SNTV proportional? I don't think I can convince the reader that SNTV is proportional or even that STV is.
But it is clear to me that SNTV is as proportional as STV in some cases because - if voters had voted the same, the same exact people would have been elected under SNTV as STV in certain STV elections in Edmonton and in Calgary in the past.
and to say that SNTV produces Proportional results, when it does, that it is due to people gaming the system, overlooks that when this actually happened in Calgary and Edmonton, the people did not game the system - they were voting under STV. I think PR depends on multiple members elected by pooled votes or grouped districts. But voters do not have to behave any differently PR versus other. MMP especially when each voter casts only one vote - does not see voters supporting multiple candidates. But it is still called proportional.
Even STV only allows each voter to have only one vote used effectively, and many STV systems use optional preferential voting where no voter has to mark back-up preferences if he or she does not want to. so SNTV is not different from STV in those cases.
SNTV does have the advantage that it can be brought in where ranked votes are prohibited but a city does retain right to set number of wards and members per ward.
BC cities and Alberta cities, too for example.
But SNTV is not perfect.
Under SNTV each party will run only as many candidate as they think they can elect and even then if one candidate takes the lion share of a party's vote, a party with enough support to elect two will elect just one.
Another problem, where a party’s local support would justify electing two candidates, one of whom is extremely popular or well-known, is how to manage the voters so that the votes are reasonably equally given to each of the party’s candidates. Even with the “right” number of candidates, there will be a risk of too many votes going to the one popular, well-known candidate, with the consequence that the other candidate does not have enough votes to secure election. STV-PR is the solution to both problems.
One way of addressing the problem identified above is to set aside a proportional number of seats for each party based on the party vote before candidate votes are counted. That is what we would do under SNTV type voting for open list regional candidates under MMP. This may not be satisfactory, but at least the party would win the number of seats it deserves.
Such a system is similar to what Wikipedia calls open ticket voting. STV-PR is a better option.
Allocated score is said to be similar to STV as far as managing surplus votes. But I don't know much about it.
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