STV is thought to care only about first preferences, with little effect made by secondary preferences. It is said by some that STV elects only candidates that have many first preferences and that it eliminates all those who have few. But note that some candidates under STV are elected with more votes that have been transferred from others than by first preference votes. Take for instance the case of the 1922 provincial election contest held in Winnipeg. Winnipeg at the time was a 10-seat district using STV. Most of the successful candidates won due after receiving more secondary preferences than first count preferences. Dixon and Jacobs were the only candidates to win with only first preferences. They were declared elected on first count by getting the quota.
Downes was well on his way to quota in the first count - he received 3195 votes in the First Count - and eventually in the 11th Count he received enough vote transfers to exceed quota (aggregating 4053 votes) and was declared elected.
All of the other successful candidates were elected by receiving at least as many secondary-preference votes as first-preference votes.
Farmer received 1066 votes in the First Count and was elected in the end with 4038 votes
Evans received 2519 votes in the First Count and was elected in the end with 4634 votes
Haig received 2406 votes in the First Count and was elected in the end with 4245 votes.
Queen received 2120 votes in the First Count and was elected in the end with 4045 votes.
Rogers received 1689 votes in the First Count, and was elected in the end with 3485 votes.
Ivens received 1238 votes in the First Count and was elected in the end with 3648 votes.
Craig received 1179 votes in the First Count and was elected in the end with 3412 votes.
The last three were elected without quota, but still each with a goodly number of transferred votes originally cast for other candidates, looking like especially many due to the relative low number of first preferences that they had received in the First Count.
Actually, the importance of receiving as many secondary preferences, either from other candidates of the same party or from candidates of other parties, is why STV is often thought of as creating a less polarized political culture. In that way, STV could have he same benefit that is thought by some to be produced by approval/STAR voting system.
Winnipeg Tribune July 19, 1922, reported the total vote as 4219
quota as 3829. But the next day the full votes were counted and a new number of votes was reported -- 44,328, putting quota at 4030.
(Coverage of Winnipeg's STV election in the Parliamentary Guide is sparse - it does not give quota and only gives first count totals.)
The first edition of the local newspaper, Winnipeg Tribune, which came out the morning after polls closed (but perhaps the deadline was around midnight on election night) gave only prelimiinary information but presented it as though it was final. (This is just the same as media does nowadays.) July 19 Tribune gave quota as 3829 but it turned out later that quota was finally determined to be 4030. This was important because Jacobs was determined to have 4030. (Perhaps this is only time in history that a candidate received exactly the quota.!)
Winnipeg Tribune July 19, 1922, p. 6
(In bold are those candidates who received more in vote transfers than first preferences.)
The Tribune numbers are generally lower than the official count, as the Tribune was hurrying to get out preliminary report. When the official count is lower than the early report, could be accounted for by mistake in counting or in reporting, or votes that were counted early later being determined to be rejected.)
Tribune total official count as per Wikipedia Armstrong 1185 1273 max. 2064 Brown 396 413 Cameron 1486 1595 max. 3041 Cartwright 393 390 Chipman 867 1037 Craig 1232 1179 max 3412 elected Cutler 399 426 Dixon 7352 (PG 7971) Max 7971 elected Donovan 948 616 Downes 3195 (PG 3621) max 4053 elected Dubienski 455 340 Eggertson 600 594 Evans 2344 2519 max 4634 elected Farmer 1166 1195 max 4036 elected Haig 2233 2406 max. 4245 elected Hammond 187 102 Hample 299 336 Henderson 192 194 Henry 546 639 Hilson 270 143 Ivens 1154 1238 max. 3648 elected Jacobs 3417 (PG 4030) max 4030 elected Macphail 323 37 McGill 70 142 McCallum 380 450 McCartney 84 72 MacLean, A.L. 151 254 McLean, Dan 489 515 McTavish 577 619 Milton 596 612 Morden 142 138 Munro 101 97 Murray 731 811 Newcombe 487 507 Popovitch 752 788 Puttee 203 135 Queen 2120 2348 max 4045 elected Rogers 1579 1689 max 3485 elected Simpkin 232 113 Sulliven 871 973 Trueman 633 653 Tupper 562 616 Winning 493 502
The candidates that were elected and two that were eliminated at the end (Armstrong and Cameron) all eventually received more votes through transfers than in first preferences. These are the candidates in bold in the list above.
Only three of the ten elected candidates had fewer vote transfers than first preferences. The other seven elected candidates won through receiving vote transfers, either from other candidates of the same party or from candidates of other parties or from Independents. This is generally the case in all STV elections -- although each vote can only be used once, and no back-up preferences on a ballot are used at all if the first-preference candidate is elected, still back-up preferences are used to determine election of most of the people elected under STV. Based on the preliminary vote tallies, the Tribune noted that "Experience of last election [the 1920 provincial election where STV was used in Winnipeg] has proven that the Labour party derives belated preferences from unexpected sources and the possibility of this party electing less than three is very remote but there is no hope of them getting more." Winnipeg Tribune, July 19, 1922, p. 1
Back-up preferences were critical to determining the individuals who filled most of the open seats.
As well, in response to the widely-held belief that STV eliminates candidates that have few first preferences and elects candidates that have more first preferences, we see an exception to this in the 1922 Winnipeg provincial election contest.
In the election, STV did eliminate Armstrong and Cameron who received more first preference votes than Craig, the least popular successful candidate.
Why did this happen? It happened because Craig eventually aggregated more votes, of both first preference and transferred votes, than Armstrong and Cameron, so they were eventually eliminated, not Craig.
In many STV elections, less popular candidates did overtake initially more popular candidates so secondary preferences are often very significant indeed. (And where vote transfers made no change to the order of popularity of candidates, still basic fairness is achieved even in the First Count where, due to single voting in multi-seat district, no one party can take all the seats and mixed representation, the hallmark of proportional representation, is produced.)
So STV does not solely look at first-count first-preference popularity when it comes to elimination of unsuccessful candidates and the election of other candidates.
The way that votes are cast - the actual voting system used - affects how much information the voter conveys with his or her vote. X voting tells nothing other than the first preference of the voter. (In fact in single-winner elections, often the voter only indicates of the candidates he or she thinks can win, the one he or she most wants to see elected. Self-censorship is strong in FPTP elections.)
Ordinal and cardinal preference voting systems provide more information than a single X (obviously). However, cardinal systems provide more information and use more of that information at each stage.
The Approval voting system does consider more info than STV, but there is the risk that giving as much significance to secondary preferences as first preferences is likely to make voters reluctant to mark secondary preferences because the voters do actually prefer their first-preference candidate to any others. The Bucklin system was found to have that effect more than a hundred years ago. widespread plumbing prevents the benefits of ranked voting.
And too in the Approval voting system voters do not give votes, but only mark their feelings. The fairness of an election result will be harder to judge if emotional responses are marked on the ballots, not actual Xs or numbers.
If all preferences are considered, I believe that fairness would only produced by weighting of the various gradations. And if the weighting is complicated or conducted behind the scenes, then voter satisfaction would suffer.
Election by verifiable simple comparison of vote tallies is a virtue, perhaps the main virtue of FPTP. Likewise, under STV, election is achieved by comparison of vote tallies to the quota and eliminations are secured by comparison of the vote tallies secured by the various candidates.
(Producing quick election night results used to be FPTP's other virtue but now with longer vote counts due to mail-in ballots, even FPTP does not produce quick results, not ones that are accurate and official and final anyway. )
That is not to say that the vote tallies compared have to be X votes.
Under STV, transfers, where necessary and where possible, are conducted according to voters marked back-up preferences, through basic addition or multiplication, These calculations are simple enough to have been accurately even before invention of computers.
in the 1922 Winnipeg election, two candidates were elected with no addition or math at all, just simple count of votes and comparison against quota. (Here the basic democratic fairness of Single Voting in multi-member districts is shown - the two successful candidates belonged to two different parties.)
In the end, simple comparison of vote tallies against each other determines the winners.
After the 36th Count, there were just four candidates left standing and three remaining open seats. Cameron was determined to have the least votes of the four remaining candidates (his 3041 votes were made up of 1600 votes bearing first preferences marked for him and 1400 votes bearing secondary preferences marked for him). The other candidates each had more than 3400 votes at that point.
Cameron was eliminated, signifying the election of the other three.
Weighting of various preferences seems to me to be more complicated than that.
That is why I prefer STV to Approval Voting.
FPTP has the virtue of simplicity but produces legislatures that do not reflect how voters voted. STV does elect according to how voters voted, even choosing successful candidates based on votes, not party lists. So that is why I prefer STV to any other system. ======================
Thanks for reading.
Check out my blog "List of Montopedia blogs concerning electoral reform" and to find other blogs on this important subject.
As well, please consider purchasing my booklet When Canada Had "Effective Voting" STV in Western Canada 1917-1971. 68-page overview of Canada's PR experience in the last century - the fight for proportional representation, the adoption of STV by 20 cities and two provincial governments in the 1920s, and STV's final use in a government election, in the 1971 Calgary city election. Available through AbeBooks.com or email me at montotom@yahoo.ca
===============================================
Comentarios