Voting under a Single Non-Transferable Voting system is no different than voting in a FPTP election.
SNTV is an extremely simple system but produces proportional results (mixed and balanced results) at the district (city) level.
Voting is the same -- but the difference is in the number of members that are elected in a district.
In SNTV, there are more elected in a district (although not more in a city or a province than would be under FPTP) - and thus the results are better balanced and proportional.
STV is bit more complicated than SNTV but not as much as some think. And in fact some STV elections produce exactly the same results as SNTV elections would have.
Multi-member district in SNTV and STV ensure that each member elected in a city is in direct relationship with each voter in the city. Something that FPTP cannot do.
(It is possible that FPTP across a city will elect the same members as STV/SNTV elections but with only one elected in each district (a sub--part of the city) there will not be the same direct relationship between the elected member and his or her supporters (who may be in other districts and thus unable to vote for the candidate, who was elected anyway - likely with less than half the votes in the district, and sometimes as few as 17 percent of the votes cast.)
FPTP is a lot more accidental than STV or SNTV. Although proportional representation (looking at overall votes cast and overall parties elected) is possible under FPTP, it is likely that FPTP will not be proportional. It usually does not produce the same rep as STV or SNTV. And it is certain that more than half the votes cast in a city will be ignored even if it does happen to produce an overall fair result.)
Even looking overall (such as at the provincial level), FPTP in many cases does not produce proportional results. (If it did, we would not need top-up (as is used in New Zealand's MMP system)!)
The dis-proportionality is so bad that it happens often that a province will see one party take all the seats in the province. Say this happened in Alberta, the Conservatives taking all the AB seats. (It actually has happened), then all the other parties would be un-represented. (Grave injustice!)
Just an example of top-up may be not be as easy to conduct as some make it seem.
SNTV means merely creating multi-member districts (perhaps at the city scale), with 5-10 seats (although 21 seats filled at once through STV is not unknown) and giving each voter only one vote necessarily means
- no one group can take all the seats in the city
- more than one party will be elected in the city
- the most populuar candidates across the city would be elected.
- Even without a set quota, a natural threshold would be created - any candidate that gets at least as many as votes as the fraction equal to the number of seats is ensured election. and as well it is possible that the most-popular candidates would be elected with less than this "quota."
if a city has ten seats, any candidate who receives 10 percent of the votes will be elected and there is nothing the other voters can do about it.
In fact, 9 percent (just a bit more than 1/11th) would be assured election in a 10-seat district but saying a fraction equal to the number of seats is easier to explain. And one or two will be elected at the end without even the "fraction equal to the number of seats" through being the most-popular as the field of candidates thins to the number of remaining seats. (Unfortunately, the process of vote counting and the transferring of votes has long been known to be harder to explain than it is to do. A simple demonstration of STV shows its easy use. Writing it out can not.)
- voters would have direct relationship with the elected members of the city, a voter could look at any MLA or MP in the city and say that is my member and in most cases would find someone among those elected whom they support - 80 percent of so of the voters would have had their vote used to actually elect someone.
- party representation would be balanced, and the individual candidates elected would be elected due to votes placed on the individual candidate by the most voters. This is due to wide range of candidates offered to voters of a district - multiple parties and slates of each major party would contain multiple candidates.
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With Single voting and multi-seat districts, the district elections would be more balanced and thus the top-up needed in an MMP system would involve fewer seats.
A quick study of city scale elections under SNTV
(derived from Real Lavergne's table, accessible through this: Here is a link to what I have come up with.)
The new results are based on rough calculations - simply the percentages of votes received divided by SNTV fractions.
Transfers if used would change results such as through transfers from one party to another, if vote not to be wasted (NDP to Liberal, etc.), and votes cast under more Proportional system would be different than votes cast under FPTP.
An example:
St. John's 2 seats --- no party took 66 percent of the vote in 2021 so two parties would be elected under single voting. likely Lib and NDP.
[66 percent with 33-33 for each candidate is only way to ensure that no other person/party wins a seat.
any candidate with 51 percent will be elected for sure.
any candidate with more than 33 percent will be elected for sure.]
In the 2021 federal election, St. John's elected two Liberals.
fewer Lib. seats
elected
under new system
2021 Lib seats new result than 2021 result
St. John's (2) Lib 2 Lib 1, NDP 1 1
Montreal (22) Lib 20 Lib 11, Cons. 3, BQ 4, NDP 4 9
Toronto (52) Lib 47 Lib 25, Cons. 16, NDP 8, Greens 1 , PPC 2 22
Ottawa (8) Lib 7 Lib 4, Cons. 4, NDP 1, Greens 0 , PPC 0 3
Winnipeg (8) Lib 4 Lib 3, Cons. 3, NDP 2, Greens 0 , PPC 0 1
Edmonton/Calgary (21) 2 Lib 4, Cons. 11, NDP 6, Greens 0 , PPC 0 (2 more)
Vancouver (13) 8 Lib 5, Cons. 3, NDP 5, Greens 0 , PPC 0 3
TOTAL 41
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Looking at just these 7 places (containing a good portion of Canada's population), we see the Liberal seat count go down by 41 seats. (This is actually about the number of seats that Liberals took in 2021 that was excessive to their vote share.)
This basic fairness produced at the district level would decrease the size of the top-up needed in an MMP system.
Under PR with an expanded House of Commons, with 32.6 percent of the vote the Liberals would have taken 123 seats (not 160 seats of 338-seat HofC as they did in 2021 federal election)
123 is 32.6 percent of 377. (377 X .326 = 123)
if Liberals take 119 seats and are due 123, they would perhaps get four more seats in top-up unless other parties are more needy of top-up and use up all the top-up seats.
Some think that 153 top-up seats (about 30 percent or more of overall seats) are needed and that might be true if FPTP is used in district contests, but if SNTV (or STV) was used at the district level, less than ten percent top-up would go a long way to achieve fairness for smallest parties.
And the voter did not do one thing differently under SNTV than FPTP-- he or she still went and cast one vote. (although under SNTV the voter wold not have to consider voting strategically as much as he or she would under FPTP, so votes cast might be different.)
Only the vote counting was different. The votes were put together in city-wide tallies, not artificially divided into various single-member districts. Thus, different districts and the number or members elected in each district was different, while the number elected in each city and province would remain the same.
Benefits - wider range of candidates offered to voters; higher proportion of effective votes/satisfied voters; less "vote-bending" through strategic voting; better, more direct representation
I could go for a system like that.
Malta uses post-election top-up in its STV system. Because it uses 13 5-member districts, some dis-proportionality creeps in, despite its use of PR-STV. (This is due to having many districts, with not very high District Magnitude (low number of seats in a district).) They give a couple seats after the election to a party if it has majority of the vote but had not taken a majority of the seats (under certain circumstances). Very fair and simple.
Canada could do that too. Seldom though would a Canadian party take a majority of the votes. The top-up in normal MMP systems is more all-encompassing than just ensuring majority/majority.
Canada could apply MMP top-up with beneficial results. (Any MMP system would have to preserve provincial constitutional representation and also electing members outside of district elections means having to devise a socially accepted means of choosing whom would win.)
I suggest that more fair district elections (through multi-seat districts and Single Voting) would make any MMP system easier to use.
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SNTV versus STV - and different forms of STV
Following a rabbit hole, I went to Fair Vote Canada's website and found an essay on Multiple Instant-Runoff Voting.
("Multimember Instant Runoff Voting - draft paper by Antho...", in the Multi-member district folder) (accessible through Here is the link.)
While I recently was saying that SNTV gives the same - or almost the same - results as STV, Antony Hodgson says that a bottom's up form of STV produces the same results as STV. (transfer of eliminated candidates' votes but no transfer of surplus votes)
If one is true, then easily the other would be true.
If no transfers (SNTV) produces almost the same results as STV, then it seems plausible that a form of STV where only some transfers are done would also produce results close to STV.
Conversely, if a form of STV, where only some transfers are done, delivers results almost identical to STV with full transfers, then it seems plausible that no transfers would deliver something identical or close to that also.
So that is reassuring.
Meanwhile there is a third type of STV that Hodgson does not even consider -- the surplus-transfer-only form invented by Carl Andrae in Denmark in 1850s.
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I want to say that even the most complicated STV of the three is not too much for us today. Calgary city elections used it back in 1917, for Peter's sake!
And any of them - and Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV) - would produce more proportional, better-balanced results than the present FPTP system.
All have as their backbone two things:
Single voting - each voter casts just one vote.
Multi-seat districts - where the varied voters in a city can elect multiple members to represent their varied sentiments.
STV has each voter casting a preferential vote (first preferences with back-up preferences);
SNTV has each voter casting an X vote, the same as in FPTP.
SNTV fills seats with the leading candidate in the first count.
STV may or may not fill seat(s) in the first count by candidates exceeding quota (more on that later).
After the first count, votes are transferred to try to fill any remaining open seats, if there are any.
STV may or may not fill seat(s) in later count by candidates exceeding quota;
In a STV contest, some seat(s) may - or may not - be filled at the end by candidate(s) whose vote tally does not exceed quota.
These various eventualities will come clear later.
By contrast, Hodgson wrote that
"STV embodies four main ideas:
(1) the use of ranking,
(2) ballot transfers when low-scoring candidates are eliminated,
(3) the use of a quota to determine when a candidate has sufficient votes to be elected, and
(4) transfers of fractional ballots when a candidate has reached [exceeds] the quota and has been elected."
Hodgson is actually referring only to one form of STV - the Gregory system - when he says STV uses fractional votes.
Gregory is not the only system to transfer surplus votes of elected candidates - and fractional votes are not the only way to do this.
Another form - the whole-vote system (two variants: random transfers and the exact method) - does not shift fractional votes when it transfers surplus votes. When it conducts transfers of surplus votes, it does in the form of whole votes, not fractions. (More on this later)
Hodgson suggests that the last two ideas, the quota (no. 3 on the list) and fractional votes (no. 4), are obstacles to STV's easy adoption.
He then says there is a form of STV that does not use the last two ideas.
This is the bottom's-up form of STV, which he names "Multiple Instant-Runoff Voting."
This name is problematical although it is based on true concepts:
-Multiple because it elects multiple members in a district
-Instant-runoff voting because like in IRV, in MIRV there is no transfer of surplus votes of elected candidates. Principally this is so because in normal IRV there is only one seat so when one person is elected, that fills the only seat, and there is no need to transfer the winner's surplus seats.
The name is problematic because Bottom's-up STV is not like IRV because to be elected in IRV, a candidate needs to have a majority of the votes. This is impossible in a multi-seat contest so merely being a leading candidate (of the same number as the number of seats) at the end is all that is required to be elected in bottom's up STV.
This plurality basis is the same as is used to elect members in SNTV - and in FPTP and Block Voting.
(Block voting is like SNTV except each voter casts multiple votes. Like FPTP, there are no transfers under Block Voting. In Block Voting, as in FPTP, one group can - and often does - take all the seats in a district, leaving none for the others - no proportionality.)
Plurality has virtue of seeing the most popular person(s) elected.
But it has the downside of seeing people elected with a wide-ranging percentage of the vote, creating votes of various strengths.
In FPTP, 20 percent may elect one MLA; while 70 percent of the vote in a different district elects another.
And a winner might win with 4000 votes in one district and 44,000 in another district.
Same holds true for any plurality-based election. The successful candidates simply needs to have more votes than the competitor(s), no matter how many that is. Where fewer districts are used, there is more fairness.
Where voters are split into various districts, and where voter turnout and vote splitting/vote distribution across candaites varies so much, the plurality formula means a wide range of numbers is required to win. But with fewer districts, more seats are filled in each contest throiugh direct comparison among larger groups of contenders.
Quota-based systems in MMDs put candidates on a more-similar basis. Any candidate who exceeds quota is elected - if no one has quota and seat(s) are still to be filled, votes are transferred from candidates to candidate to further bring up those still in the race. Transfers are done according to back-up preferences pre-set by voters by marking back-up preferences on the ballot.
Quota is arrived by dividing the number of votes by the number of seat plus one, and rounding up (or rounding down and adding one). This is the Droop quota, the type generally used in STV elections today.
Quota allows a more consistent voting formula than plurality, by producing the amount of votes that are surplus and thus can be transferred.
But not all electoral systems use quota.
Here are the five different forms of STV I am talking about,
from simplest to the most complex:
SNTV
Bottom's up STV (transfer only of votes from eliminated candidates)
Andrae's STV used in old Denmark (transfer only of surplus votes)
Whole-vote-surplus-transfer STV
Gregory STV (three variants: Gregory, IGM, WIGM)
The last three use quota; the first two do not.
SNTV does not use transfers at all so has no use for quota. Bottom's up STV does not transfer surplus votes from elected candidates so does not need quota. "Whole vote surplus transfer" STV and Gregory both use quota and transfer surplus votes from elected candidates.
But they do it differently.
"Whole vote surplus transfer" STV shifts whole votes; Gregory shifts fractional votes. The whole-vote transfers of whole-vote-surplus-transfer method are based just on the next usable back-up preference, so the system is called by some to be "random." The make-up of later back-up preferences marked on the ballots may affect later transfers. (But it is said that any variation this way is covered by the random-ness of the selection -- the "blind selection" makes for proportionality.) So if Hodgson says that quota and fractional votes as used in the Gregory system are obstacles to STV's adoption, the whole-vote system takes care of the fractional vote problem.
The bottom's-up STV system takes care of both the quota and the fractional votes.
SNTV is currently in use in some countries in the Third world (Iraq and Vanuatu, for example). Previously it was used in Japan for many years. Hence its name in some PR literature as the Japanese PR system. (info. on attempts to use it below) Bottom's up STV was used in some South Australian elections to a small degree, according to Hodgson. He does not give instances of its past use.
Andrae's STV used in old Denmark (transfer only of surplus votes)
transfers of surplus votes allows large parties to take more than one seat where a candidate takes the lion's share of the party's votes.
least-popuar candidates, usually of the smallest parties, play no role in the election (same as under FPTP).
transfer of surplus votes may have been done simply by re-routing any votes as soon as quota is met, as is done under the random-transfer method used in Cambridge (Mass.) city elections today
Whole-vote surplus-transfer STV is used in elections in Malta and Ireland, and for elections to the New South Wales lower house. It was used in the only PR elections at the provincial level held so far in Canada - that is, in Alberta and Manitoba provincial elections 1920s to 1950s.
Gregory STV is used in STV elections in Northern Ireland and for elections to the lower house in federal elections in Australia and for state (provincial) elections in South Australia, West Australia, Victoria and ACT. (Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 60-61) As well, Gregory STV was used in municipal elections in New Zealand, the U.S. (Minneapolis, in 2009, and Cambridge, from 1997 to 2011) are examples) and Scotland (Glasgow 2007 is an example). Hodgson remarks that the Gregory system was essentially the system proposed for use in BC by the Citizen's Assembly. This was prior to the 2005 referendum. the one that saw a majority vote in favor of STV, a vote result the government refused to act on.
(The explanation of BC-STV on Wikipedia (BC-STV) says that under BC-STV a vote can be apportioned and used to help to elect multiple candidates. Perhaps this is a reference to Gregory fractional vote transfers (or perhaps not). I have not seen clear explanation of how it was expected to work. Apparently the suggestion that it would transfer fractional votes plagued later electoral reform referendums held in BC, in 2009 and 2018. The idea that votes are transferred fractionally is problematic especially since, to the best of my knowledge, transfers are not conducted that way in any mock elections. It appears from the confusion each time that a clear idea of which STV is proposed seems necessary for a successful vote on electoral reform. (if indeed a referendum is necessary at all - the Wikipedia article on the 2018 referendum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_British_Columbia_electoral_reform_referendum) says BC has engaged in electoral reform 15 times in its history, each time without a referendum.) Perhaps this small paper will help solidify the options. If nothing else, this mention of BC-STV shows how there are a great many variations of STV, real or imagined, in the world.) A difference between the four systems listed here is how they deal with surplus votes of elected candidates. As mentioned, it seems to have been a sticking point in the BC referendums. Hodgson says this was so. It does not seem to have been a sticking point a hundred years ago when the voters of many cities voted in favour of the change. It seems that each city did transfer surplus votes by either the whole vote surplus transfer or the Gregory method. Calgary city elections used a form of Gregory; Edmonton city elections used the whole vote transfer method. Whether or not the other cities used Gregory or whole vote surplus transfer method seems lost in the mists of time. Memory of even using STV of any sort is not common knowledge in the 20 Canadian cities that once used it, and the last city STV election in Canada took place 50 years ago. Why was it not a sticking point a hundred years ago? Perhaps voters took more on trust, or were too busy to concern themselves with it, or both. Why do they care now? Perhaps because PR proponents have not a ready answer, so it is a vulnerability that opponents of PR and the media emphasize. The four systems deal with the transfer of surplus votes differently.
SNTV does not transfer at all. simply taking the first count as the final vote count and filling the multiple seats in each district by plurality. Bottom's up STV transfers votes of eliminated candidates but does not transfer surplus votes of successful candidates. The whole-vote-surplus-transfer method transfers whole votes based on the successful candidate's total votes. The Gregory method transfers votes fractionally, the fraction derived by the number of surplus votes divided by the total number of votes held by the successful candidate. (A different Gregory method transfers just the votes of the last parcel of votes, at fractional value. This method is used in elections for Tasmania's lower house.) Under the Gregory method, the fractional votes then are changed to other fractions in later transfers, an intricate procedure. The Australian elections often push voters to mark all the candidates or at least mark a party slate. From what I have seen, Canadian STV elections did not require so many rankings. Voters were free to mark just one candidate (the first preference) and to stop there or to continue to rank as many others (back-up preferences) as the voter wanted. For that reason, sometimes when the surplus votes of successful candidate were to be dealt with, it was found that there were more non-transferable votes than quota. That is, there were fewer transferable votes than the surplus. so no math was required at all. The transferable votes were simply transferred according to marked rankings. Therefore the surplus transfer was done same as if a candidate was eliminated. (I think this would be the same way it was done under the Gregory method. But am not sure.) The point is that such transfers although they were transfers of surplus votes, which are said to be so complicated, were not complicated at all, in many cases. Hodgson found that election results that used the Gregory method and those that did not transfer surplus votes at all - the Bottom's up method - produced the same results in almost all cases. In Cambridge's city elections, held each two years from 1997 to 2011, only two seats would have been filled differently under Bottom's-up than how they were filled in actuality under Gregory. (Hodgson, page 7) The unchanging nature of STV results is also seen in STV elections using the whole-vote-surplus-transfer method in Alberta.
If no transfers had been done at all, that is, if the elections had been conducted using SNTV, the same people would have been elected in almost all cases. (as mentioned below) It seems clear to me then that the use of bottoms-up STV would have produced about the same result as well in Alberta elections, and the use of SNTV in Cambridge would likely have produced much the same result as Gregory. Certainly that is seen to be true in the case of 2001 and 2003 Cambridge elections, according to information in the Hodgson essay. In the 2001 election, using the Gregory method, the nine seats were filled by the nine who had been front runners in the first count. so the people elected would have been the same under SNTV. In 2003, the top seven and the 9th and 10th-placing candidates in the first count were elected using Gregory.
In bottoms-up STV, the 8th-placing candidate (DeBergalis), not the 9th (Maher), would have been elected. All the others elected would have been the same.
In SNTV, the top nine, including the 8th and 9th-placing candidates, would have been elected. Thus, one would have been elected under SNTV that was not elected under Gregory STV (the 8th-placing candidate); and one would not have been elected under SNTV who was under the Gregory method (the 10th-placing candidate).
However less than 20 votes separated the 8th and 10th-placing candidates so the difference in degree of voter satisfaction achieved by the Gregory vote transfer versus SNTV is not remarkable.
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Vancouver city STV elections 1921-1922
The January 1921 election saw one change to the front runners in the first count. The eight front runners would have been elected if the election had used SNTV. Seven of them were elected in the STV election. STV ensured more voters were happy with the result by electing one initially-lower-ranking candidate, instead of one of the front runners in the 1st Count, who did not actually have as wide general appeal.
The December 1921 election also saw one change to the front runners in the first count. Of the eight front runners, seven were elected in the STV election, with one initially-lower-ranking candidate also elected.
The December 1922 election saw no change to the front runners in the first count. Of the eight front runners who would have been elected under SNTV, all eight were elected in the STV election.
========================== I could go on, but I think the point is made that Single Voting in a multi-seat district is the basis of these four methods and the end result produced by each of these four systems is usually much the same - and sometimes totally the same - whether or not surplus votes are transferred and by which of the three methods the transfers are done if they are.
So if the transfer of surplus votes (fractionally or by whole votes) and quota are obstacles to adoption of PR. perhaps Single voting in a multi-seat district is enough of an improvement over the present FPTP that if the perception of complications to do with the transfer of surplus votes are holding up the change to PR, they are not critical to PR. SNTV is a gerat improvement over FPTP.
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Fair Vote Canada resources
By the way, for those who are interested in Systems, there is a whole section of the FVC Chapter Resources Google Drive on that subject. Here is the link. Contributions welcome
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Later remarks:
STV produces the same results as SNTV in some applications, and in almost all applications it elects most of the same people as would be elected under SNTV.
the vote transfers of STV made little - and sometimes no difference - to those who would be elected if SNTV had been used
Note I am not saying that STV is the same as FPTP or that SNTV is the same as Block Voting (multiple plurality).
under SNTV (and STV) each voter casts just one vote - that makes all the difference - Single Voting in a multi-seat district allows proportionality and mixed representation.
STV (and SNTV) are far more proportional than either FPTP or Block Voting. A city-wide district allows direct relationship between each voter in the city and each member elected in the city..
Transferable votes are great and not as complicated as people think, but not as necessary as some might think.
In many STV elections, the elected members are the same as those who be elected under SNTV. (Transfers of votes were worked through merely to prove that the first count leaders were those who actually the most popular in the end.)
History shows this again and again:
Malta 2017
(I have not looked at all the districts but the ones I have looked at show that the five front runners in the first count were elected in the end.
(The picture is a bit funny-looking - About half the first count preferences are cast for candidates who are not elected. That seems to arise from each of the two main parties running far more candidates that there are open seats. knowing that the transfers will collect the party votes together behind the elect-able candidates and having confidence in the extreme party discipline shown by voters there.
There is confidence that the Labour votes, however spread they are at first, and the National party votes, however spread they are at first, will stay on candidates of the respective party through the transfers and eventually either be used for a candidate of that party or when the last party candidate is either elected or eliminated, found to be non-transferable and not used at all.
Edmonton and Calgary STV provincial elections 1926 to 1955
in all cases the great majority of the elected members would have been elected under SNTV.
In Calgary in 1930 and 1944 no change was made through vote transfers to the five who led the vote tallies in the first count.
Winnipeg 1920 to 1949 10 elected in one city-wide district
most of the successful candidates would have been elected under SNTV.
In most of the elections, only one of the sucessful candidates was not someone who would have been elected under SNTV.
In two elections that number rose to two, and that was the most ever.
An authority on Scotland's STV sent me this info on the 2007 Local Authority elections:
only 35 (6%) of the three “front runners” in the 190 three-member wards were not elected
only 20 (3%) of the four “front runners” in the 163 four-member wards were not elected.
Total of 55 out of 1222 elected members (5 percent) were different from who would have been elected under SNTV
These figures are particularly low because of the parties’ policy of nominating only one candidate where they expect to win only one seat (which, of course, denies the voters within-party choice.
So SNTV in connection with low District Magnitude means fewer candidates offered to voters and less choice - a loss traded off against not having to use ranked votes.
Ireland 2020 election
Real Lavergne (of Fair Vote Canada) researched and derived this data: district-by-district analysis of the Irish election results in 2020.
Simply put, looking at whether vote transfers made any difference to the front runners - the ones who would have been elected under SNTV,
39 districts in total
3-seat districts 10 30 members in total 6 would have been different under SNTV
in 4 districts the transfers made no difference;
in each of 6 districts one member would have been different under SNTV
4-seat districts 52 members in total 10 would have been different under SNTV
in 4 districts the transfers made no difference;
in each of 8 districts one member would have been different under SNTV
in one district two would have been different under SNTV
5-seat district 16 80 members in total 6 would have been under SNTV
in 10 districts the transfers made no difference;
in each of 6 districts one member would have been different under SNTV.
162 members in total
22 of them (14 percent) would have been different under SNTV.
This 14-percent difference between SNTV results and STV results can be considered large or small depending on your point of view.
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I actually don't think STV is too complicated but am trying to point out that the extremely simple SNTV is a vast improvement over the present FPTP.
I may be alone in this but I think it may be good enough, especially if top-up seats are added later.
My calculations were rough and ready- -
A correspondent of the list-PR persuasion said "In your simulation, the results are proportional, which they would be if you have a party vote that determines how many get elected from each party."
Yes, party seat counts under SNTV could vary from party proportions - if a party run too many candidates (through greed for more) and spread their vote too thin, or if one candidate is very popular and the lack of transferability means other candidates of the same party are beggared.
But if all parties make that kind of mistake to about the same degree, the final result is still proportional.
And note that final results in STV elections, as compared to party vote tallies in the first count, may be proportional or they may not be -
but that is what voters wanted.
Transfers can cross party lines.
The will of voters is produced clearly by STV elections, as we both agree.
I just think the will of voter would also (mostly) be produced by SNTV.
This seems to be the fact - the result in historic STV elections seems mostly the same as they would have been under SNTV.
The transfers seem to make little difference (much as we might like to think that such a perfect thing is actually important).
STV's refined transfer of votes seems to elect the same representation that the happenstance of SNTV produces.
Stephane Dion's plan seems to be like the old "List Plan" system, as described in Hoag, Effective Voting (1914). (Check it out if you have an odd copy kicking around!)
So it is an old idea. Even back then, people moved from that on to STV - single voting in multi-member districts.
STV was used in Canadian elections. List plan never.
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SNTV goal of P.R. movement? (1914)
Equity magazine of Jan. 1914 tells us that some actually asked the P.R. League to change its goals to emphasize SNTV.
application to change goal of AM. P.R. League to mention clearly "the principle of a single vote in a multi-membered district."
https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcmassbookdig.equity1617tayl/?sp=9&r=-0.076,0.925,1.407,0.5,0 [59/488] (see below)
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SNTV in Rhode Island (almost ... 1902)
A committed proportionalist, Lucius F.C. Garvin, was elected governor of Rhode Island in 1902. He was a member of American PR League. As governor, he shepherded a bill through the Assembly that would allow municipalities to adopt single voting without transfer [SNTV]. but it was blocked by the state Senate. (P.R. Record, Dec. 1902, p. 77)
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[The Jan. 1914 P.R. Review publication also talked of recent P.R. progress:
Jan 1914 "PR Review" page 43 [51/488]
covered
-events in France and Holland.
-Denmark progress report
-500 attended conference of proportionalists at London in 1914.
Earl Grey presiding.
Mrs H. Fawcett and many others there.
Belgian spokesperson says Belgium had had eight P.R. general elections "and no party objects to it now." [57/488]
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