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Tom Monto

Debate points in defence of PR - list PR, STV and SNTV. Answering false accusations against PR and STV

Updated: Aug 7

PR not needed because FPTP is fair

Under FPTP every Conservative vote in Saskatchewan and every Liberal vote in Saskatchewan elected someone while all other votes cast in those two provinces elected no one.


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always winners and losers - FPTP is same. PR rewards losers

To really appreciate the inequality of voting power, it is best to take a multi-district perspective. How much voting power you have depends on where you live (which riding) and whom you vote for (what party or set of political preferences).

That is the main issue when it comes to parity and fairness.


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Electoral reform means addressing east-west disparity (sparsely-populated districts in east, large ones in the west) so won't be done

We have done electoral reform again and again in our history - no Supreme Court ever stopped it in the past.

just look at Wiki "Elections in Canada" the "electoral reform" section

Every province used multi-member districts at one time or another and 11 ridings as well. That was not FPTP. it was the result of electoral reform or its end was electoral reform (it did end in all cases - all provinces and federal elections use FPTP now), or both.

The non-FPTP system that was used was not always PR (but sometimes it was) but it was not single-winner FPTP.

Alberta and Manitoba did actually use PR (STV ) for 30 years so we know it can be used in Canada and we can see that it did work to produce mixed, balanced representation in the districts where STV was used.

so it is both legal and constitutional -- and also effective.

To get PR, we don't need to abandon our candidate-based voting,

or our secret voting,

or having districts (just would need to change them to elect multiple members by grouping our present districts together, say using our present city boundaries).


City-wide districts are great -- people already have city allegiance,

People don't need artificially-drawn arbitrary provincial districts, which are different from city wards and federal ridings.

If a city is too big for a single city-wide district - if it elects more than say ten councillors, then simply split it in half or thirds.


SNTV works in districts electing as many as seven (just see Vanuatu),

STV works electing as many as 21 (see NSW legislative council), (and soon 37 are to be elected through STV in a single contest (Western Australia)

list PR works to elect as many as 100 or more in a district.


A city-wide district is no more than what a mayor represents by himself so if one person can represent that large a district, then several members could do the same.

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Wouldn't STV produce small parties?

It would be up to voters who they support.

But under PR the majority of votes (perhaps shared out over multiple parties) would be reflected in the majority of seats in the HofC.

But in Canada history, almost all our majority governments have been elected by a minority of votes cast. (false-majority governments) so even FPTP usually does not produce one-party majority governments in fair way.

Under FPTP, HofC is made up in 338 sub-battles unrelated to each other. with no comparison made between winners' vote tallies.

but if say 10-seat districts are used as much as possible, we would have only 34-40 districts across the country and a comparison between the competing candidates could be done to ensure each is elected with about the same number of votes, and ensuring that 80 to 90 percent of the votes would be used to elect someone (easily possible under STV or list PR, where districts have DM of five or more).

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Conservatives are winning popular vote but under PR would be blocked out of power if Liberals and NDP worked together...

Winning a plurality - something less than majority but more than any other party - is not winning the popular vote.

The Conservatives with 40 percent of the vote are due 40 percent of the seats but not government.

The Liberals (say with 25 percent) and NDP (20 percent) are due together 45 but not majority.

The other 15 percent if given 15 percent of the seats will give Lib/NDP majority or Conservative majority, if the major party can draw those members in.


The result would reflect how votes are cast, and that is how a democracy should work.

Do you prefer an un-popular government wielding power against the will of people?

The majority rule in the HofC is a good principle - we just need seats to reflect how votes are cast.

And under FPTP we do not have that - not with Liberals getting 40 seats more than they should and Conservatives getting a few more than they should, all at expense of the small parties, and many simply staying home knowing their vote will be ignored anyway.

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if we get electoral reform now, it is only because it would help Liberals.

Fair is fair.

PR of whatever sort is chosen would be almost immeasurably more fair than our present FPTP, where a minority choice is often elected in a district and more than half the votes are wasted in many districts, where voters in safe seats are ignored by all parties.

so I say to Justin -- better late than never


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Real problem is the east-west disparity in population figures in each district...

the problem of disparity east to west is nothing compared to having half the votes disregarded across the country, as happens under FPTP.

without science-based seat allocation (quota and direct comparison of vote tallies of several candidates or more) you have undemocratic results in about half the districts. Under FPTP the choice of the majority of voters split over two or more parties are ignored and get no representation while a minority takes the district's one seat.

How fair is that ?

Under FPTP every Conservative vote in Saskatchewan and every Liberal vote in Saskatchewan elected someone while no others did.

How fair is that?

Under PR not every vote will matter but 80 to 90 percent will and each party (above a set minimum) will get its fair share of seats,

And that will be fair


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Parties are too strong now. PR will make that worse

Under STV, voters vote directly for candidates.

Parties play no role in the vote count.

If they want to vote for an Independent, it is up to them.

some Independents are elected under STV in Ireland.

Not all PR uses party lists.

Even Single Non-Transferable Voting is more fair than our present FPTP.

Just look at Vanuatu's election results -- each district elects mixed, balanced representation

But ranked votes (STV would make it even more fair.


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Population of each district should be equal

Even if population is the same in every district, there will different number of voters and also diff. number of votes cast due to varying voter turnout percentage.

And anything from 18 percent to 80 percent of vote will be received by successful candidate, due to vote splitting, 3-, 4 - or 5-cornered fights.


A good and simple way to have fairness is to have multi-member districts and fair voting.

Fewer districts and fair voting means scientific system could be used to ensure that most members inthe district are elected with same number of votes and the rest by almost the same number.

i mean STV. Anyone with quota is certain to be elected. and surplus stripped off to help elect someone else. with each member in the district elected with the same number of votes, each party gets their fair due of seats in the district.

for PR, you don't need party list or MMP ballots as the writer warns

Just MMDs and fair voting (ranked voting) would give us much more fair result than FPTP does.

Every province has used MMD(s) in the past and 11 ridings as well.

FPTP is not only system Canada has used in last 160 years.

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In a proportional representation system, there'd be a lot more strategy involved beyond simple vote count

No actually there would be little strategizing - if you get more votes, you get more seats.

with ranked voting (STV) voter has liberty to vote how he or she truly wants and then if that choice is un-electable, vote may be transferred as voter directs, to someone who will be more able to be elected.

Under FPTP there is strategizing - to ignore safe seats and concentrate on swing ridings.

Not as much of that under PR, for sure.

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What about Toronto?

In old days the best rejoinder against PR was that it would give Toronto as many seats as it deserved.

However that is a bit weaker now - Toronto with 49 seats already has more seats than any one western province.

Should it get more? not many people in Canada would say give Toronto more of a voice than it already has.

But if Toronto has a lower percentage of the seats in Ontaio than its share of the Ontario population, then perhaps out of fairness it should get more. (in old days, a ratio of 7 to 4 urban district size to rural district size was thought appropriate.)

The real problem is not district to district pop. disparity but the disparity between winning candidates' vote tallies under FPTP. A candidate with 18 percent of vote in one district might win while in another a person with 49 percent might not. A person might win with 80 percent of the vote but that surplus is not transferred to help someone else of same party, so is as good as wasted.

People are basically fair-minded so many would agree that voters in each city in Canada, and elsewhere too, deserve to have their vote used if at all possible to elect someone.

But in the last election, only Conservative votes in Sask and Liberal votes in PEI were used to elect anyone.

And in many other districts, majority of votes were not used to elect anyone under FPTP.

Multi-member districts and each voter having just a single vote (ranked if desired) means fairness and would prevent the artificially-created regonalization that now plagues our politics.

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PR does not work elsewhere. Why should we get it here?

IPR does actually work elsewhere.

Norway, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand are not messes.

(extreme right and extreme left gets its due share of the seats but no more)


FPTP is surely no recipe for success - Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, India, etc.

(In U.S. where FPTP and elelctoral college is used, we see tens of millons of votes ignored, and might see Trump grab the Republican nomination and then possibly take the presidency even if most people - the majority - don't like him)


Even Canada under FPTP has not been the success that many crow.

Many leave Canada to try to find better conditions elsewhere, often finding it in countries where progressive governments and fair politics prevail (not counting those who moved to the U.S.).

Despite immigration our net growth has been slow.

Starting in 1867 if population had grown at easy rate of 2 percent a year, we would have 60 M people today, not 40M.

Despite mass immigration in some years, our net pop growth is slow because we do not have governments that reflect how votes are cast.

Most of our majority governments in our past have been false, the leading party did not have majority of votes.

Minority rule is actually undemocratic, and produces policies that don't reflect sentiment of voters.

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STV is not proportional...


Actually despite moderate-sized districts, Gallagher Index analysis of STV elections shows that the GI is at par with many list PR results, especially list PR where electoral threshold is more than 3 percent.


Such was the case for recent Ireland elections.


STV has fairness in that each successful candidate takes about the same number of votes. Even without quota being taken by a winner sometimes, each winner does take about the same number of votes so there is fairness candidate to candidate and thus party to party.


some people say under STV, quota is minimum needed to win a seat.

that is only true if voters must mark all candidates so there are no exhausted ballots.

Ireland, like old-time Canada STV election, did not/does not require full preferential marking so quota is not minimum to take seat. 

it is the amount that guarantees you election but it is possible to be elected with less.


STV does not look at party vote shares when it allocates seats.

STV is candidate based.

party plays no part in its working 


but STV's fairness (P-ness) should be able to be analyzed to see if STV is P proportional.


Party vote shares can be seen easily in a party that runs just one candidate in the district

Labour      one candidate      only 8 percent of First preference votes


votes can cross party lines i.e. the Labour candidate can and did accumulate more votes through transfers and the candidate's vote total at any time is used to determine if he or she is eligible to be declared elected.


achieving quota is certain way to be elected, 

the other way is to be the most-popular when the field of candidate is thinned through election by quota or by elimination to number of remaining open seats.


in Dublin (2024 election of Members of European Parliament) field of candidates thinned and thinned through 18 Counts with no one taking quota 

in 19th Count only five standing.


The last transfer did push two candidates over quota 

(they would've been elected anyway by relative plurality at that point 

- their surpluses was not transferred as all seats filled in 19th Count anyway, ending process


The least-popular of the five is declared defeated.

The other two most-popular are declared elected


Quota winners won just a bit more than quota; the other two with a bit less.


The least-popular successful candidate won with 16 percent

so range was from 16 percent      to        20 percent plus 1500.


Three of those who won in the end were the most-popular in the first count so would've won under SNTV or any plurality based X-voting election.


Green candidate was in fourth place in the 1st Count so would've won in system without transfers 

but he picked up only a few votes (11,000) through transfers and was the last candidate eliminated. by then having slipped to sixth place.


In the end, seats were shared out over four most-generally-supported parties, so there was balance.

Fairness in that each successful candidate took about same number of votes in the end  --- 77,432 to 63,500 votes.


Even without quota being used to set winner in two cases, each winner did take about same number of votes as the quota winners

so fairness candidate to candidate and thus party to party.


if any party had accumulated 40 percent of votes or possibly anything close to that, they would have taken two seats - if they ran two candidates and the two candidates survived long enough to get satisfaction and if party supporters gave top preferences to the two party candidates.


but in this case, vote based on first preference was shared out mostly over four-six parties 

No party taking more than 17 percent (FF) or 13 percent (combined for 2 SF candidates)  


and after transfers, votes were pretty evenly shared over five or six most-popular parties, so in the end were the seats. (the four sets exactly evenly shared over four parties anyway), but leaving out Greens who did not make it.


A social democrat did rise up to fifth place but never exceeded quota and without being in top four spots was never tapped as being eligible to win seat and never did.


in this case SF and MNP were only parties to run two candidates


SF did elect one, success helped by intra-party transfer. 

when least-popular SF candidate eliminated, 3/4ths of his votes went to other SF candidate. 

about 1000 went to PBP Sol candidate but that did not save that candidate from elimination later

this shows liberty voters have under STV to mark secondary preferences as they want. 

thus first preferences are not sole arbiter of who is elected.


NP did not elect either of its candidates

- its combined party vote share being just 1.5 percent first preference votes, it was long way off having quota or even close to quota. 

Don't know why it ran two but no unfairness necessarily created - STV has mechanism to prevent adverse results caused by vote splitting as could happen under X voting.


When least-popular NP candidate eliminated, votes went mostly to other than NP candidate -- only a quarter of them went to the other NP candidate 

so maybe that explains why two ran -- they did not like each other and neither did their supporters

party was spilt in the two camps and party loyality was not important for most NP voters.


That is the kind of fun stuff you learn from the nuanced preference marking in STV - 

while FPTP's X voting is pretty opaque.



In analysing STV proportionality we see first preferences do not line up with seats won...


GI analysis for fairness sake should look at votes at the end, not first preferences.


STV looks at more than just first preferences marked on ballots so it is not fair, IMO, for analysis of election to only look at first preferences.


If Quota is minimum to be elected, why are some elected with less? Is STV inconsistent?

achieving quota is certain way to be elected, 

the other way is to be the most-popular when the field of candidate is thinned through election by quota or by elimination to number of remaining open seats.


With four being elected under STV, 

20 percent  plus 1 is Droop quota.


Quota can be achieved by votes marked with first preferences alone, or first preferences on some ballots and secondary preferences on others; 


Ireland does not force voters to mark all candidates so some votes become exhausted, therefore it is common for some to be elected by quota and others to be declared elected by being the most-popular when the field of candidates is thinned to number of remaining open seats.


I see in the 19th Count in Dublin's 2024 MEP election, the least-popular elected candidate won with 63,526 votes, 16 percent of the vote.

That was the vote count that made them elected, not their first-preference vote tally, which was considerably lower.


Another candidate had 50,000 votes in the 19th Count and was not elected, so even 13 percent was not enough to be elected.



STV does not show party preference of voter...


Whether or not a voter marks back-up preferences and whether or not the back-up preference is of same party, the party identification of the first choice can be taken as indication of the voter's preferred party, just as much as a vote under FPTP or list PR.


About STV's secondary preferences being unreflective of voters' sentiment...

when transfer made under STV, we know how many  votes carry how many second preference for a different candidate.


Under X voting we can have no idea what second choice voter would like.


How close the second marked preference is to the first choice cannot be known,

just as under X voting (FPTP or list PR) we cannot know how strong the dilemma was for the voter (how close first and scond choices were) as well as not even knowing what their second choice would have been if they had had ability to mark second preference.


Under STV as under list PR, most votes are used effectively so voter does not feel push to vote strategically, to misdirect their vote on purpose

which is strong under FPTP, where votes are funneled to the main two parties, whatever they are or expected to be, in local district.


However when casting party vote under MMP, some voters do vote differently than for their local seat.

Part of this is likely due to wanting to see their vote used to elect someone and the voter, it seems, feels the party that they vote for for their local seat is unlikely to produce elected member, so more go to big parties than in local elections

although that is counter intuitutive - you would think the party vote would be more  friendly to small parties than FPTP.


Transferable votes under STV means there is flexibility - voter can cast vote for whom they truly want knowing that their vote may be moved to where it can elect someone preferred to a lesser extent than the first choice but stil preferred, if their first choice turns out to be un-electable.

but as more are elected and electable under STV than under FPTP, a smaller portion of the candidates running are found to be un-electable than under single-winner system (FPTP).


so in addition to having flexible transferable votes, there is less need to transfer anyway to see a marked choice elected. 


any vote marked with a first preference for someone who is elected already has that choice elected and the voter may also see his second choice elected as well (but avote can only be used to elect one person).


whether that person is doubly happy to see two of his choicess elecfed or just one time happy and a little bit more to see second elected, or one time happy and does not really care about second choice -- cannot be told.


But under STV generally-speaking, more than half the first preferences marked on the votes go to those who are elected in the end, 

and 80 or 90 percent of votes are used to elect the winners in the end. (it varies with DM)

only 30 or so percent are transferred to find final home in accordance with voters' marked secondary preference.


Most voters do see their vote used to elect their first preference, just as they marked it.

we can't know more of sentiment of voters than they mark on ballot nor how close their decision is between first and second choice.


Even under FPTP a voter has a first and second choice, or a first choice and the ones they dislike altogether, or the one they are voting for and the one they truly want.

just under FPTP or list PR, they can only mark one.


under STV, a voter's second marked choice (or next usable marked choice), if there is one, is used if a vote is transferred...


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some say STV produces accidental results

see separate Montopedia blog


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