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Tom Monto

How does STV work without party lists? (Also, Proposal for cascade transfer option)

Updated: Dec 12, 2023

STV does not derive its proportionality from being based on parties.


Instead STV derives its proportionality by its high rate of effective votes, votes actually used to elect someone - no way each party or voting block does not get about its due share of seats if 80 to 90 percent of votes are used to actually elect someone and if each elected member is elected with same or about the same number of votes, as is done under STV.


Admittedly under STV the vote may be used to elect someone not the voter's first preference (but half or more of the votes are used to elect the first preference, or show first preference for a candidate who is elected ). instead under STV the vote in some cases may be used to elect someone else for whom the voter marked a preference.


STV ensures that each of the members are elected with about the same number of votes by:

- electing several in one district so votes have natural places to go in the first place. more winners means movte s can go directly to winners. also filling severla seats at once mens each party runs stwo or more candite so voter has choice of candidates even within same party and too that transfers can happen just between candidates of the same party.

- surplus votes received by winners are transferred away if possible. (if too few or if the candidate is filling the last seat then the transfers is not done).

- votes cast for candidates not popular enough to be elected are transferred, starting with the the least-popular candidate.


Here's how one old book described it:

The Hare method is per se a sort of special providence, preventing the waste of valuable votes by automatically distributing surplus strength fairly and exactly to the next and next of preference (see below for different way to look at the rankings on the ballot) until at last the full fair strength of the particular party is properly determined. If combinedly in this way any party fails to return one representative, it is because all the members of the party are too feeble in numbers to have the right to be represented ; if the party on the whole returns one, two, three, or more representatives it is, for the best of all reasons, because this is the exact representation to which, by force of numbers, it is justly and reasonably entitled.


Thus the method of the Hare preference index, and the transfer in order of preference, effects the part of a never-failing providence, preventing the waste of valuable forces; or, in other words, determining exactly the fair and reasonable representation of all, in spite of difficulties concerning lack of organisation, or perfect foreknowledge of the strength and the proper allotment or distribution of voting forces. The only persons who may oppose the Hare system are the selfish aggressor or the selfish indifferent; the former craves to maintain or gain more than justice; the latter too indifferent or lazy to demand it.


(And there are different ways to look at the rankings on the ballot:

"As well as rankings of preference, the rankings on the ballot equally serve to indicate usefully the order of detestation or dislike,

No. 1 being least detested, No. 2 next in order of dislike, No. 3, 4, 5 in a similar way next in order of candidates disliked.

Even in the order of dislike, it must be of service to the elector to see that his most disliked candidates are handicapped by his influence.")

(from Johnston Observations on the Hare System)

This coincides with the advice from an Australian voter -- give 1 and the other low numbers to those you like, give the highest numbers possible to those you dislike, and sprinkle the in-between numbers among the others.


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Back in 1872 Walter Baily of England described the working of STV in his book PR in Large Constituencies:

by transferring surplus votes from candidates who have quota to others and from those who are un-electable to others still in the running, you eventually fill the seats either by the right number attaining quota or "by all but the right number having been withdrawn" (eliminated).

Simple as that.

He did not leave it at that though. In his book he went on to endorse a form of list PR, as earlier proposed by "M. Morin of Geneva" but an intricate one where each candidate was to be given a portion of the list's votes.

Quite complicated, it seems to me.

Better to stay with STV.


Baily book is available online:

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I too think it is the way to go for PR -- the blue ribbon of PR systems 

but at same time am thinking a less doctrinaire approach may work to sell it, at least in Canada. I ponder whether we might get PR quicker (those who don't have it yet) if we put less emphasis on the STV sytem details such as trasfers and simply rely on good mechanics to get PR.


  • multi-member districts

  • each voter having one vote and being allowed to mark back-up preferences.

  • Election officials use Droop quota and do the heavy work.

A lot of fairness of STV is produced by SNTV, most votes are not transferred at all.


Some members get quota and are elected just on first preferences, same as SNTV.


Some are elected at end by plurality, same as SNTV, FPTP, Block Votng  (really same as most all systems)

Some are elected by transfers, mixture of intra-party trasfers and cross-party support.


Single voting in MMD alone (SNTV mechanics) gives most of the balance achieved by STV, 

the transfers only polish the first count front runners. 

but transfers are important to prevent waste and give voters assurance that they can vote for whomever they want knowing back-up preferences will get the vote used effectively in most cases, if necessary, if possible and if marked.


point is under STV (under an optional preferential system), voter can vote exactly as they do under FPTP  and balanced, mixed rep is elected every time, (just look at Vanuatu's SNTV results) although threre is disprotolatiy and wastred votes but much more fairness overall than FPTP or Block Voting.


and with back-up preference marked if desired and transfers as necesary performed, 80 percent or so of the votes are used to elect someone.


I have been reading Catherine Helen Spence's A Plea for Pure Democracy (available online)

I see she actually does not see multi-member districts as discrete electorates,

as she pictures STV, a vote can flow across district lines, and districts are not guaranteed a set number of seats.


very free and easy - although not what we are used to.


with back-up preferences you do not need to worry about district seats, and would stil have fairness.


voter decides whom to support anywhere in the country. (a province is likely as great as a pool of votes can extend in Canada)


if party is more important tthan local representation, then why confine vote to just the local district?

any problem with everyone voting for the leading Conservative or Labour (massive surplus votes) would be addressed by vote transfers, if voters mark backup preferences.


CHS does mention MMDs but in 1861 those are already being used in UK  under Block Voting.


Under her system, Uniform Quota would be used --- very fair - each member would be elected the same number of votes everywhere or close to the same.


And the ballot could be constructed in such a way as to allow voter to vote just for one candidate, or could rank as many individual candidates as desired, those two things cojld be done just by standard candidates list and numbers for rankings instead of X, and beside a name, voter could check "cascade transfers if needed".


Cascade transfers if necessary would work to same effect as party list, except the party list would change depending on popularity of the candidates.


Using the cascade transfer, the vote would go to the most-popular candidate of the same party as the candidate's name beside the cascade checked. The top person marked on the ballot is elected if he or she accumulates quota and any surplus votes are transferred if necessary to the most-popular candidate of the same party still in the running. If no surviving candidate of the same party, then the vote would go to the most-popular candidate of the party ranked as No. 2.


Any votes with a usable next marked preference would be transferred to that preference. Cascade transfer would not apply.


Cascade transfer only comes into use if the voter checked it and if the vote is to be transferred.


Cascade transfers would work somewhat like indirect STV where the vote is to be transferred and no preference has been marked by the voter, and cascade transfers have been checked off.


If a vote is to be transferred, and bears no usable next marked preference, and the voter did not mark "cascade transfer", the vote is exhausted.


Cascade transfer would work same as party list as transfers would be along party lines and only when the candidates of that party have all either been elected or eliminated, then the vote would be consulted to see if another candidate had been marked as a preference.


and if it needed to be transferred at that point, then the vote would be declared exhausted.


Wide liberty for voters

can indicate one candidate and stop

can indicate all the candidates in one party and stop. (marekd one candairte and check "cascade"

can indicate candidates of two parties, check all the candidates of one party and then one more name and check "cascade".


Ballots would bear names of only local candidates but in an MMD.


Through "cascade transfer" a vote would cascade outside the district, to the most-popular remaining candidate of the same party, in the province.


A district might not get a member if not enough voters voted for a local candidate.


but if the voters in the local district marked their preferences for the local candidates, then the seats in the district would be filled by local candidates.

It would be just up to the voters which is more important -- party or locality.


But note that likely half the votes would not be transferred at all, they would stay with the first preference marked.

Many others would be transferred to candidate of the same party and then find a home there.

Only some would be transferred to a candidate of a second-preferred party.


This system is something like what Catherine Helen Spence proposed back in 1861 in her pamphlet "A Plea for Pure Democracy"

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