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Tom Monto

Leonid Elbert's "Local Transferable Vote"

Elbert's "Local Transferable Vote" -- large rural districts could be hard sell but local representation guarantees may help sell them


Leonid A. Elbert, "Local Transferable Vote - A Better Electoral System for Canada" (submission to the HofC Special Committee on Electoral Reform, September 2016) available online


STV used with regions (multi-member districts) but guaranteed local representation for places within the region.

local seats being about two-thirds of the seats in a region

City-regions may have 10, 12 or 14 seats. Less-populated regions would have 6, 9 or 11 seats.

Nine local seats is maximum for an electoral region, with 5 "at-large" seats.[Apparently he uses these precise numbers of seats to allow for a 9:5 ratio between local seats and top-up. I don't think this precise ratio is important.]


to get elected, a candidate must meet at least one of the following [amended by Tom Monto]:

1. win more than 50 percent of the first choice votes in his or her local district;

2. meet the regional quota with first choice votes, or combination of first choice and transferred votes;

3. be the last remaining un-elected un-eliminated candidate from his or her local district, when the local seat has not been filled.


Until all seats in the region are filled, count proceeds by the elimination of the least popular candidate (unless protected by condition 3).


Even after election, local candidates are allowed to continue to accumulate votes up to the regional quota, in cases where a majority of votes in a local district is less than the regional quota or where a candidate was elected with relatively few votes by being the last remaining local candidate needed to fill an empty local seat.


In event of surplus (when a candidate's vote count surpasses quota), the last batch (the one that that caused the surplus) would be examined and each vote in the transfer would be transferred at a value equal to the number of surplus votes divided by the number of ballot papers received in the last transfer.

[This is flawed because the last transfer is just from one candidate so its range of sentiment is not wide. As well, you would have the matter of fractions.

Two better options suggest themselves for the transfer of the surplus votes (the number votes needing to be transferred). Each uses whole votes.


They are:

- merely stopping the transfer when a candidate achieves quota, and for transfer of all remaining votes skip to the next available back-up preference.

- ["old school" method, used in Alberta elections for 30 years - without computers or even calculators] transfer ballots (randomly mixed within group) at rate of transfer to each other candidate as per this formula:

(examining all the winning candidate's total winning votes, take the number of votes bearing other candidate's name as next available choice. Divide this number by the winning candidate's total winning vote tally and multiply the resulting number by the number of votes in the surplus.


Example: 100/1200 X 200 = 17, where 100 is the number of total votes held by the candidate marked for the other candidate, 1200 is the total number of votes held by the winning candidate, 200 is the surplus, 17 is the number of votes transferred to the other candidate.]

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Elbert says the LTV system has these advantages over STV:

- much stronger geographical connection between voters and elected representatives, as multi-member regions would be subdivided into local districts

- more seats per region than under STV, hence better proportionality without significantly increasing the number of candidates on the ballot.

- surplus transfer rule is simpler than what was proposed under BC-STV, ensuring accuracy and fairness of the results with needlessly complicating the count.


[I don't see that each region needs to be totally covered by local districts. and I think that electing a candidate that a substantial group of voters wishes to see elected trumps the idea of local representation. The freer and wider the electoral district, the more freedom the voter has to elect whom he or she prefers. This is produced by a larger number of top-up at-large seats, but I do see sense of a city like Lethbridge having a local seat if it is sunk in a region that covers a third or half of the province.


I don't see how Elbert envisions that a district that has more seats will not see significant increase in candidates on the ballot. The number of candidates will not increase as compared to the collection of all the old ballots in the previous single-member districts. But any election that has more seats will see more candidates on the ballot, it seems to me. Having many names on the ballot is a good thing as long as they are not more than voters can handle. Hopefully, his system would not require voters to rank all the candidates on the ballot but only those the voter really cares about.


I don't know what the transfer rule for BC-STV is. I am not sure its supporters even know as they refer to transfers of fractions in some places and transfer of whole votes in others. So I will not address this, but only to say easy forms of surplus transfer are presented above.]


Under Elbert's LTV,

Alberta with 34 seats would have 4 regions consisting of 8-10 seats each.

Overall, 21 local seats and 13 top-up seats.

perhaps: Edmonton 4 local, 5 top-up 9 total

Calgary 4 local, 5 top-up 9 total

Red Deer north 7 local, 1 top-up 8 total

Red Deer south 6 local, 2 top-up 8 total


He envisioned 14-seat Manitoba being like this:

Winnipeg 8-seat region: 5 local and 3 top-up

The rest of Manitoba 6-seat region: 4 local seats and two top-up

[I think that there should be multi-member local districts. Perhaps even a city could be one multi-member district that would be an entire region to itself. We don't need to break down the city into "wards." I think cities should be all "at-large" elected through the "regional" quota, the city being the region.

This is how it could work for Alberta:

5 regions

Edmonton region (one city-wide district) 9 at-large 9 total


Calgary region (one city-wide district) 9 at-large 9 total


Between Red Deer and Athabasca/Sask River excluding Edmonton 1 local, 3 top-up 4 total 1 local district = Sherwood Park

Northern Alberta north of Athabasca/Sask River 2 local, 2 top-up 4 total

1= Fort McMurray

1= Peace River area


Red Deer and south 3 local, 5 top-up 8 total

3 local members:

Red Deer 1

Medicine Hat 1

Lethbridge 1

overall 6 local, 28 at-large (18 in the two main cities' regions)]


Although local representation may not be as important as Elbert seems to believe, overall the LTV scheme's protection of local representation may grease the adoption of STV in the rural parts of Alberta and Canada. This has never been done before.


Alberta and Manitoba's use of STV in provincial elections did not include rural areas.


Adoption of STV in rural areas would decrease the considerable waste of votes that now occurs in these parts.


If we had STV across the country, there would be very good proportionality of representation. A mixture of parties would be represented in each of the "regions" as well as in the House of Commons overall.


Having "regions" and having proportionality means there would be less reason to gerrymander. As voters are represented proportionally wherever they are, the placement of the boundaries is less important.Less votes would be wasted than under FPTP, with most voters in each region having someone elected in the region if not the local district, if any, that they would be satisfied with.Being multi-member elections, each party would run many candidates. Thus voters would have a wide range of choices from which to choose.


Some seats would be filled by candidates who had accumulated quota through vote transfers from other candidates. Thus extreme candidates and extreme parties would be at disadvantage under this system.


As well, candidates would be encouraged to be moderate and soft-spoken so as not to turn off supporters of other candidates who might give them a back-up preference. Many Canadians want less divisive politics. This system would swerve politics in that direction.


Leonid A. Elbert was resident of Guelph, Ontario.

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What is STV?

From a 1902 reform magazine:

"Thinking it well to have in every number something by way of a brief explanation of proportional voting, I repeat in this number the following.


Proportional representation means the use of a reasonable and scientific system of voting instead of the present stupid, unfair and inefficient procedure.


Methods: There are several systems by which the principle of proportional representation may be given effect to. Large electoral districts, each electing several members, are a necessary feature. The "quota" plan is usually employed. It means that a quota of the votes elects one representative. To arrive at the quota, the number of valid votes cast is divided by the number of seats to be filled. For instance in a seven-member district any one-seventh of the voters could elect one representative and the other six-sevenths could not interfere with their choice.


The three principal systems of proportional representation are the Free List as used in Switzerland and Belgium [party-list pro-rep], the Hare system as used in Tasmania [STV], and the Gove System as advocated in Massachusetts.


The Preferential Vote [Alternative Voting/Instant Run-off Voting] -- This is used in the election of single officers such as a mayor. It is not strictly a form of pro-rep but is akin thereto, and uses part of the same voting methods. The object of preferential voting is to encourage the free nomination of candidates and to obtain always a clear majority at one balloting, no matter how many candidates are nominated."

(From the Proportional Representation Review Dec. 1902, p. 77) (Hathi Trust online resource, page 81/180)


Thanks for reading.


Check out my blog "list of Montopedia blogs concerning electoral reform" to find other blogs on this important subject.

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This year:

*Alberta is celebrating 150 years in Confederation 1870-2020

*100th Anniversary of STV first being used to elect legislators in Canada

Winnipeg MLAs first elected through STV in 1920

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