This is larger version of the Montopedia blog "Brief Statement of how First Nations and other Indigenous governments could use STV"
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Consensus-style design making is a tradition in many Native cultures. Proportional Representation is in line with that line of thinking.
And that is why if consensus, wider democratic practices or higher rate of voter turnout is any part of the aspirations of a First Nations, I believe PR should be the system used in its elections.
PR says that each voting blocks should get its due share of seats - which means that every substantial group will elect at least one spokesperson.
And that allows each group to be heard.
The vote in the chamber still might be decided by a majority vote among the elected members, but at least all voices as much as possible will have been heard.
Say we take a First Nations that elects a chief and ten councillors.
and say we decide to use Single Transferable Voting as the form of PR to use. It has the advantage of having voters vote directly for candidates and for being useful in both contests where party labels are used and where they are not used.
Using STV means each voter gets one vote. This might seem to be disempowering the voters who perhaps were used to casting ten votes in each election before.
But actually it empowers them - for under the previous system - which I assume to be either single-winner First Past The Post or Block Voting - most voters likely found their votes did not produce any representation - only the largest group got all the seats and the voter likely found himself or herself not among the largest group.
Block Voting - When each voter had ten votes, whole voting blocks, with perhaps a third of the vote, got no represention at all, and overall perhaps more votes were ignored than were used to elect anyone. and an unrepresented group does not have a voice in the chamber.
And single-winner First Past The Post or Block Voting also often means more than half of votes in a district are not used to elect anyone.
While under STV, where ten are elected, every candidate that receives more than 9 percent of the vote will be elected, and there is nothing the other voters can do about it.
And if seats are not filled immediately, which hardly ever happens, some of the candidates who have no chance to be elected will have their names eliminated and their supporters' votes are given chance to move to help elect another candidate - someone who is preferred by the voter, just not as much as the first choice.
And about 90 perent of votes cast wil lbe used to elect someone preferred by the voter, although in perhaps a third of cases it will not be the voter's first choice.
And among the ten councillors will be found representatives of the two largest groups, and also at least one seat for any group that can accumulate just a bit more than nine percent of the votes. Likely the vote transfers will aggregate the votes of less-popular voting block behind just one candidate, and that candidate will be the most-popular of the group of candidates preferred by the nine-percent group.
Any group that has nine percent of the votes (or just a bit more than that actually) - and where voters mark their top preferences for a certain group of candidates - will see a candidate in that group elected. It might take many vote transfers but if the voting block has more than a quota and preferences are marked just for candidates of that block, those votes must produce a representative. There is just no way around it.
Each vote can in the end be used just to elect one candidate so you would have one person, one vote in a way that the Block Voting system never gave the people.
STV does not use parties in the vote count, so a non-partisan election is no barrier to using STV.
Other basic principles of STV:
-Voters vote directly for candidates -- parties play no role in the STV vote count. (But where party labels are used, a voter may vote for a candidate based only on party label, if they want.)
-When a candidate is elected, they do not receive any more votes.
-Any candidate who receives quota is declared elected.
-When a candidate is elected, if he or she holds surplus votes, votes more than quota, they are transferred, leaving the winner with just quota. That quota and the transfers are to be mixed and balanced sampling of the winner's votes. The transfer (as a whole) is to be a micro-copy of the winners' votes or of the last parcel that the winner received, depending on the variant of STV in use. (This transfer of surpus votes may not be done if the surplus votes are not in sufficient quantity to change the order of candidates or if all the seats are filled.)
-transfers of votes can cross party lines if that is how the voter marked preferences on the ballot.
-As each member is elected with the same number of votes (except possibly at the end of the count), parties with more votes in the district should take more seats than parties with fewer votes, and the most-popular candidates of each party in the district are elected while others are not.
-the districts elect multiple members so are larger than Single-member districts. This limits possibility of gerrymanderingt (fewer divisions of the electorate), and also as each district elects fairly, STV limits the hoped-for gain from unfair drawing of district boundaries.
Are STV's vote-counting procedure and vote transfers difficult?
There is a step by step oligorithm that makes the vote count simple.
Winnipeg used STV to elect ten MLAs in one contest for many years, long before computers. The process is shown in Wiki "1920 Manitoba general election" for example.
little complex math is used, only when surplus votes of winners are transferred, so at the most there will be nine times when reductionist math will be used to determine how many votes are transferred to which other candidates.
Generally transfers are done by merely looking at the vote to be transferrerd and seeing what is the next usable marked preference, if any, and moving the vote to that pile, and then producing a new vote tally for the candidate when the transfer is done.
Under STV Droop quota is the usual quota used to determine winners. it is possible to be elected with less at the end but for most of the vote count/seat allocation process, Droop quota is the threshold.
Droop is votes/seats +1, plus 1.
so in an election where 1200 votes are cast, Droop would be 109 votes.
If there are basically two large voting blocks, plus other voters --
the largest group likely might take four or five seats,
the second-largest group might take four or three,
leaving one to three seats to smaller groups.
In some cases, voters in small groups may not elect one of their own candidates but instead have their votes transferred to a candidate of a larger group, thus influencing the flavour of the large group's representation.
Where four different groups elect one or more members, four different perspectives would be represented, not counting the variety of sentiment found in each large group.
Likely 8/10ths or 9/10ths of the voters would have their votes actually used to elect someone. When ten Winnipeg MLAs were elected in 1920, 89 percent of votes cast in the city were actually used to elect someone. Such high rate of effective votes would encourage many voters who now stay at home to get out and vote knowning that the chances were very good that their vote, if made, would be used to actually elect someone.
With the broad range of member elected in a ten-seat contest, very many voters would find someone among the ten elected members that would be a voice for their opinion on an issue.
And even if ten or 20 percent of voters marked preferences for only candidates who are not elected and do not have their vote used to actually elect anyone, they are likely to find someone who is close to their sentiment among those who were elected, because the winners would hold widely diverging opinion.
The winners would not just be of one group as might historically have been the case under Block Voting or first past the post.
STV means ranked ballots
Likely voters could mark only as many preferences as they desire, and not be required to mark a set number. ("optional-preferential voting")
the rules could be wide for acceptable ballots:
just an X
just a 1
1,2,3 (with perhaps more numbers marked if desired)
X 2,3 (with perhaps more numbers marked if desired. 2 taken as second choice)
X 1,2,3 (with perhaps more numbers marked if desired. 1 taken as second choice)
even 1,2,2,3 could be taken as showing voter does not care which of the two candidates marked with 2 is taken as second choice, so perhaps rule would be in place that the one higher up on the page would be the one taken as second and the other taken as third, and then the one marked as 3 would be the fourth preference. (The vote might never be transferred, or one of the candidates marked with 2 might already be elected or eliminated anyway by the time the second preference is needed, so perhaps the duplication may not be important anyway.)
The voting should be seen as a way to determine voter opinion, not a way to test voter's ability to follow directions.
So a vote marked with just one vote, same as in First past the post, would be accepted Under STV, such a ballot would be used to elect that one person about half the time. This is better odds than Block Voting, perhaps where as little as 1/3rd of the votes might fill all the seats.
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Historical evidence of open government, intra-party co-operation produced by STV
New York City
from New York City was in the grip of Tammany Hall Democratic Party near-dictatorship, when Board of Alderman elected in single-member districts. The reputation of the New York Board of Aldermen was that it was incompetent and corrupt, lacking the political will and ability to challenge the will of the un-elected branches of city government.
Outrage among voters grew until 1937, STV adopted. starting in 1937, each borough elected mixed group of councillors.
After six STV elections, Democratic Party wrested power back and cancelled STV. Since then the Democratic Party has received 90 percent of the seats although seldom getting much more than two-thirds of the votes.
But even after that change back to single-member districts and the first past the post election system, the city’s legislature did notslip back to its discredited days as the Board of Aldermen. Although minority parties (Republicans, Labour, etc.) are terribly underrepresented, "norms remain that encourage democrats to listen to and engage with the minority. However, informal respect can never compare to the influence of robust minorities under PR which, with a handful of defections by Democratic members could make or break legislation. Evidence from roll call voting patterns in recent years suggests that the city’s Democratic majority uses its agenda control to exercise its power in ways that are more subtle but no less absolute. Where once a bill might have been doomed to a massively lopsided vote when Democrats opposed it, now such a bill is unlikely to receive a floor vote at all."
The political culture in Scandinavian countries, New Zealand, Ireland and other PR countries show how the fairness of Proportional Representation in general, and the transferable votes in STV, lead to greater openness and intra-party co-operation, and less polarization and fewer policy lurches when the "in"'s replace the "out"'s and back again, based on only small changes in voting behaviour.
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Closed-door deals flourish where there is not balance in the government chamber. Citizens become dispirited and apathetic when they see their vote disregarded again and again.
STV produces government chambers that are micro-copies of the votes cast, as much as possible. This fairness produces wider accountability and openness, and allows many voices to be heard and considered, and producing governments that govern to the benefit of more of the voters.
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a bit fuller explanation of above:
Likely in the end, under STV, all or most of those elected will be the most-popular already in the first count, but turnovers can happen.
Turnovers can happen - a person with more overall support may accumulate 9 percent of the votes and be elected, even if he or she started out with low tally, while someone who immediately got say 6 percent of the votes but has little appeal to voters who initially supported other candidates will find he or she is not elected.
But generally turnovers of those leading in the first round happens only about one in ten times. The virtue of STV is not so much the transfers but the way each voter has just one vote and multiple members are elected. Those in winning positions in the first round are already mixed and balanced; the transfers merely polish that fairness.
and at the end, 80 to 90 percent of votes are used to elect the winners.
And among the ten councillors will be found representatives of the two largest groups, and also at least one seat for any group that can accumulate just a bit more than nine percent of the votes. Likely the vote transfers will aggregate the votes of less-popular voting block behind just one candidate, and that candidate will be the most-popular of the group of candidates preferred by the nine-percent group.
Any group that has nine percent of the votes (or just a bit more than that actually) - and where voters mark their top preferences for a certain group of candidates - will see a candidate in that group elected. It might take many vote transfers but if the voting block has more than a quota and preferences are marked just for candidates of that block, those votes must produce a representative. There is just no way around it.
Each vote can in the end be used just to elect one candidate so you would have one person, one vote in a way that the Block Voting system never gave the people.
STV does not use parties in the vote count, so a non-partisan election is no barrier to using STV.
Are STV's vote transfers difficult?
there is a step by step oligorithm that makes the vote count simple.
Winnipeg used STV to elect ten MLAs in one contest for many years. The process is shown in Wiki "1920 Manitoba general election" for example.
little complex math is used, only when surplus votes of winners are transferred, so at the most there will be nine times when reductionist math will be used to determine how many votes are transferred to which other candidates.
Generally transfers are done by merely looking at the vote to be transferrerd and seeing what is the next usable marked preference, if any, and moving the vote to that pile, and then producing a new vote tally for the candidate when the transfer is done.
Why nine percent of the votes (or just a bit more than actually)?
Under STV Droop quota is the usual quota used to determine winners. it is possible to be elected with less at the end but for most of the vote count/seat allocation process, Droop quota is the threshold.
Droop is votes/seats +1, plus 1.
so in an election where 1200 votes are cast, Droop would be 109 votes.
If thereare basically two large voting blocks, plus other voters --
the largest group likely might take four or five seats,
the second-largest group might take four,
leaving one or two to the smaller groups.
Thus, four different perspectives would be represented, not counting the variety of sentiment found in each large group.
Likely 8/10ths or 9/10ths of the voters would have their votes actually used to elect someone.
A voter would find someone among those ten elected members that would be a voice for their opinion on an issue.
And even if ten or 20 percent of voters marked preferences for only candidates who were not elected, they are likely to find someone who is close to their sentiment among those who were elected, because the winners would hold widely diverging opinion,
The winners would not just be of one group as might historically have been the case under Block Voting or first past the post.
Is it difficult to mark back-up preferences?
Likely voters would not be required to mark a set number of preferences but
Likely voters could mark only as many preferences as they desire, and not be required to mark a set number. ("optional-preferential voting")
the rules could be wide for acceptable ballots:
just an X
just a 1
1,2,3,4,5 etc. (or fewer numbers)
X 2,3,4,5 etc. (or fewer numbers)
X 1,2,3,4,5 (or fewer numbers).
The voting should not be seen as way to test voter's ability to follow directions, but as way to determine voter opinion.
(But ten X's, or two or more candidates getting the same number would not likely be accepted.)
So a vote marked with just one vote, same as in First past the post, would be accepted and under STV would be used to elect that one person about half the time. This is better odds than Block voting, perhaps where as little as 1/3rd of the votes might fill all the seats.
And even if back-up preferences are marked, it is possible the vote will not be transferred, the back-up preferences merely instruct the election official how the vote should be transferred if it ever needs to be.
(And sometimes when the vote is to be transferred, all the back-up preferences are found to be no longer valid, the marked candidates having already been elected or eliminated. So even if back-up preferences are marked and even if the vote is given chance to be transferred, there is no guarantee that the marked preferences will ever be used.
No harm done, or at least no more waste than under FPTP, and likely much less waste.
Under any system, not all the votes can elect someone,
But under STV, 80 or 90 percent of votes will be used to elect someone,
While under FPTP, as little as half or a third might be used to elect someone, leaving the majority without representation.
Under STV, in the first round of counting, likely about half the votes would go to people whose names would not be eliminated.
Some might be transferred if the candidate is elected early, as surplus votes. but most would stay with the elected member as his or her quota.
About 35 percent of votes would find final homes through transfers.
Thus, 80 to 90 percent or so of valid votes would be used to elect someone in the end.
Others would perhaps reside with the last unsuccessful candidate whose votes are not transferred.
Others would be in the exhausted pile - those votes that would have been transferred from one candidate to another candidate if they had borne a usable marked preference.
But many in the exhausted pile would bear marked preferences for someone who was elected, just that actual vote was not required to elect the person, so the voter is satisfied with the result, even if his or her vote was not used to elect anyone.
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I can be contacted at montotom@yahoo.ca for more information.
My small book When Canada had Proportional Represention. STV in Western Canada 1917-1971, ($6) is available at Alhambra Books, Edmonton, giving the history of STV usage in Canada, and insight into how STV works.
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