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Tom Monto

When New York City used STV, 1937-1945, borough seat count was based on voter turn-out; party seat totals based on votes received

Updated: Jun 9

In the first part of the 20th Century, New York City was plagued by schemers and shenanigans of the Tammany Hall clique. Finally by 1937 reformers changed the playing field by managing to get the city to adopt PR-STV (or STV-PR if you prefer).



The STV system that the City of New York adopted was a two-level one where boroughs received seats based on voter turn-out and then seats in boroughs were allocated to candidates based on STV, using an uniform quota where possible.


The quota (75,000) is fixed by law, and if no candidate achieves that quota, the N highest vote-getters win seats. (N is determined by dividing the total valid first-choice votes cast by the fixed quota, then rounding.)


So the quota was not the minimum required to take a seat, as is sometimes said, but was the amount that guaranteed you a seat. As the seats were generally given out based on 75,000 (although 50,000 was also used as requirement for a borough to get a last seat), and quota was 75,000, it seems likley that many members were elected with less than quota.

[more info on NYC's uniform quota below]


Each borough had a number of members commensurate with the number of votes cast in the borough and each party got seats in the borough based on votes received.


At any rate, the system was effective at quelling the power of the Democratic Party, who controlled Tammany Hall.


The relationship between member and voters was direct -

- the parties were sidelined;

- candidates ran under their own name (and party label secondarily) so the party was sidelined;

- any candidate - and therefore any party - with 75,000 votes was given a seat;

- votes meant seats so there was no seat imbalance from borough to borough -- all votes had same value.


Some say that the brutal honesty of New York's STV system made enemies out of the schemers and wire-pullers in a way that a less-comprehensive reform might not have.


The 75,000 (0r 50,000) that was used as seat quota for borough allocation, and as quota for election to a seat, (unless the usual (lesser than 75,000) quota was used as per STV within the borough), produced very close equality visa vis the number of votes that each winner received.


The STV part may have used a quota of 75,000, or the Hare quota or the Droop quota in the borough itself.


The Hare quota (the total number of votes cast divided by the number of seats) was occasionally used back then.


Or it might have been the more-fair Droop quota, which is used today in most STV systems. Droop quota is the total number of votes cast divided by one more than the number of seats, plus 1.


This fluctuating-seat-count system is similar to a particular type of PR that uses a "uniform quota" where anyone who exceeds that quota is elected (but where seat count is pre-defined).


But in New York's STV system, the actual number of seats in a district was based on voter turn-out. This produces exactly-equal numbers of votes for each winner but also produces a fluctuating number of elected members overall and in each district.


New York City used that unusual form of STV during its use of STV in city elections from 1937 to 1945 (five elections). The number of seats was set by voter turn-out. Each borough got a number of members set by the voter turn-out in the borough.


Every 75,000 votes cast meant a seat for the borough. Actually the rule was each borough was entitled to one member of the council for each 75,000 votes cast, and an additional member if the remainder in the borough is greater than 50,000.

so 50,001 to less than 125,000 meant one member

125,000 to less than 200,000 meant two members

200,000 to 275,000 meant three members

and so on.


This system fixed the previous problem of unequal representation from borough to borough. It is said under the new system each borough was represented appropriately for its population, but actually under the new system each borough was represented appropriately according to its voter turn-out.


It did so in a way that meant that prior to election results no one knew how many city councillors would be in city hall after an election, nor how many for each borough.


The size of the city council varied from term to term depending on the voter turnout in the city elections. And each borough did not know how many members it would have until after the votes had been counted. Potentially, a member could lose his seat not because he was opposed but because the number of seats in the borough were decreased.


And then in each borough the seats were allocated through STV so each party got its fair share. The variable number of members meant great fairness -- quota in each being about the same, not always the result when districts are equally sized but voter turnout varies. In New York it took about the same number to be elected in each borough, about 75,000 under Hare quota, 65,000 under Droop, unless 75,000 was actually the quota used in the STV part of the election process.


(explanatory note on "lesser than 75,000 quota":

quota if Droop quota used (vote total divided by number of seats divided by seats plus 1, plus 1), so if there were 325,000 votes, that would mean 4 seats

325,000/5 = about 65,000 is Droop quota

so likely quota was around 65,000, if these assumptions are correct.

The quota that was used to elect most members was mixture of ballots containing first preference votes and ballots containing secondary preferences.)


=====================

As well, the use of boroughs (of varying sizes) meant that New York voters did not have to be regimented into arbitrary equal-sized districts as is done in FPTP in Canada today or Malta's STV system.


About 1.7M votes were cast in city elections, and generally 20 to 27 councillors were elected.


The proportionality of the city council elections was very good. That is a fact -- if you look at the final votes, but not if you look just at the first preferences.


As one analysis put it, when analyzing STV results, you have to look at the final vote because the final votes (say the votes as they stand when there is just one unsuccessful candidate still standing) are what the system is based on.


"The 'proportionality gap' refers to the sum of the absolute values of differences between vote percentage and seat percentage [based on party vote tallies]. In a perfectly proportional system, the gap is equal to zero. This figure is taken from the final preference count [at the point when] all but one losing candidate in each borough had been eliminated.


At the time, critics pointed out that the first preference results in the 1937 election were not proportional to the assignment of seats. Democrats received 19 percent more seats than their votes in this round, while the 27 percent of votes for independent candidates failed to elect anyone.


It seems unfair to judge a system that is designed to give weight to secondary preferences by its outcomes under a single choice analysis... The results proved to be quite proportional [if you look at vote tallies] once these voters' secondary preferences were distributed."


"On the whole, council results were more proportional than ever before. In the final preference count, the average proportionality gap was 1.8 percent. This was not perfect, but compared very favorably to the average gap in the five board of aldermen elections preceding PR, where it was a whopping 14 percent. The greatest gap [under STV] was six percent in 1943 when the Democrats got six percent more seats on the council than their vote share. The vast majority of disparities [under STV] were under three percent."

(from: Fair Vote (U.S.), "Proportional Representation in New York. New York City’s Experiment with Proportional Representation and Multi-Party Democracy")


In each election of the PR period, 1937-1947, at least four parties were represented on city council. Democrats, Insurgent Democrats, Republicans, American Labor Party and City Fusion were usually present. Communist, Citizen Non-Partisan and Independents also made appearances on council. (see below for election results stats) (see below)


It seems the number of seats on council changed dramatically under STV. 25 councillors were elected in 1937, 17 in 1941, and in the last election prior to STV, 23 were elected.


And the STV quota (based on seat count) set the amount of surplus votes that an elected member had, determining the surplus that was to be transferred to others who could use it more.


It may have been the Hare quota (the total number of votes cast divided by the number of seats), which was occasionally used back then.


Or it might have been the more-fair Droop quota, which is still used today in most STV systems. Droop quota is the total number of votes cast divided by one more than the number of seats, plus 1.


Between 1925 and 1950, opposition vote varied from about 35 to about 55 percent but in most of the elections oppoositon representation was less than 10 percent. Only when STV was used --1937, 1939, 1941, 1943 and 1945 -- did [precentage of] opposition representation almost equal percentage of votes cast for non-Democrat candidates. (https://fairvote.org/new_york_s_proportional_representation_experiment_demonstrates_potential_of_fair_representation/)


Some say that the fine-tuned fairness of New York's STV system, with its fluctuating seat counts, made enemies out of the schemers and wire-pullers in a way that a less-comprehensive reform might not have.


But less-comperehensive STV systems were dropped in all cities in the U.S. except Cambridge by 1950, and in Canada by all cities but Calgary and Winnipeg by 1930, so it is an open question whether NYC's STV would've survived even if it had been of a looser variety.


================


If nothing else, New York's adoption of STV proves that things can change, according to one pundit.


"Overall, New York City’s experiment with proportional voting demonstrates how quickly the bounds of what is possible can change. The massive upheavals in New York politics, from corrupt one-party rule and the Seabury trials in 1931 to ranked choice voting [STV], took only five years.


Still, none of it would have been possible if reformers had not spent decades contemplating how the city's politics could best be improved. Opportunities for reform in a system that is as broken as our current politics are both unpredictable and inevitable, and reformers must be prepared for when they arrive."

(from Fair Vote (U.S.), "Proportional Representation in New York. New York City’s Experiment with Proportional Representation and Multi-Party Democracy")


==============================


New York's first STV city election, 1937


New York's first STV city election, held Nov. 2, 1937, was a success, although the form of STV used was unusual and the final result were not announced until almost a month later.


By the time the votes were counted, and it was known how many seats each borough would have.


As per votes cast, the boroughs (each a separate multi-member district) had these candidates in winning positions (or already elected) as of Nov. 23.


Party results (table)

26 seats

Manhattan six seats - three Democrats, one Republican, one City Fusion, one American Laborite

Brooklyn nine seats -- five Democrats, two American Laborites, one City Fusionist, one Communist

Queens five seats

the Bronx five seats

Richmond [Staten Island] one seat


The Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Nov. 24, 1937 said, the PR system was "intended to give each borough a fair representation in city council in accordance with population...


It was intended to give minority groups a fair representation in the council to and to end the anomalous situation under which the old Board of Aldermen could be composed of all Democrats, save one or two, even when hundreds of thousands of Republican and other votes were cast throughout the city. This amounted to virtual disenfranchisement.


The result was to be, and is being, achieved by abandoning the former system of election by [arbitrary] districts and instead choosing the councilmen along borough lines [and through STV]. An admirable illustration of the effectiveness of this change is given by the final results in Manhattan, which show three Democrats, one Republican, one City Fusion and one American Laborite elected.


Similar results are indicated by the present standings of the candidates in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. [at time of writing, the count had not been finished but likely the front runners would be mostly elected in the end.]


At the close of the counting in Brooklyn yesterday, the leaders for the nine posts here included five Democrats, two American Laborites, one City Fusionist and one Communist.


With the big blocs of votes being distributed in the closing counts, there is strong likelihood that they may be some changes in the leaders. The Communist may be displaced. A Republican or another City Fusionist or even another Democrat may enter the charmed circle of leading vote-getters.


Whatever change may happen, the city is still assured of a strong minority in the council. Chances favor the Democrats winning a majority of the 26 seats, but it is still possible that coalition of the other parties that backed Mayor LaGuardia for re-election may at least deadlock the city's new [council].


Even more important from the standpoint of the welfare of the city and its voters is the fact that the caliber of the new councilmen will be far superior to that of the members of the old aldermanic chamber. That body was thoroughly discredited. Its personnel was composed largely of political hacks.


To win support in borough-wide elections, leaders of all parties realized that they must nominate only men and women of character and ability. An examination of the candidates elected and those who still have a chance of election show how much more carefully the selections were made than formerly...


The indicated make-up of the new city council is the best answer to the critics of P.R. But the accomplishments of the body when it swings into action next year will be the final and most convincing proof as to whether the change to this new system of voting has been worthwhile."


(Party seat totals for other elections shown in table below)


======================

George H. Hallett's 1937 book Proportional Representation The Key to Democracy described how PR was brought to New York:

A referendum was put to voters on a new city charter and separately on the change to PR.

"This was doubtless done [as separate question] because those opposed to PR felt it would be easier to defeat it separately. But we welcomed it because we saw that it at once made it easier for unanimous action by the Commission on the charter, and, at the same time, it made it practically certain that PR would be submitted to the voters.

[a non-partisan commission was instituted to formulate a new charter ...]

The professional politicians, absorbed in the [1936] presidential campaign, gave scant attention to the charter and PR until shortly before the election [when the referendums were to be voted on], and the steps they took in opposition were so foolish that in every case they aided the cause they tried to defeat.


They tried to have the questions postponed saying enough time had not been given to consider the charter and PR but this failed because it was shown that, for the six months prior to the election, there had been ample public hearings and discussions and the huge registration in the presidential year would give the largest number of voters an opportunity to decide the issues.


One of the most effective arguments for PR was the fact that in addition to its other advantages, it automatically solved the reapportionment problem in the city l[hall]. The growing boroughs of Queens, Bronx, and Brooklyn have been shamefully under-represented in relation to Manhattan. PR at each election will give each borough one councilman for every 75,000 votes cast within it and so give each borough its fair share not only now but always in the future [making changes in borough representation as voter turn-out in each borough might vary].


[Voters did vote for PR]


This victory for PR in New York is due in no small measure to the patient and constructive work of the National Municipal League and the PR League during the past 25 years. The Citizens Union and the New York League of Women Voters have also been active locally for many years.


Back in 1922, the Citizens Union co-operated with a special committee of prominent citizens and presented a memorandum in support of PR to the Baldwin charter commission. The commission recommended PR for the Board of Aldermen at that time, but the legislature took no steps then to make its adoption possible.


The brilliant example of Cincinnati inspired New York Committee of One Thousand [an anti-Democrat organization] to bring [speakers] to speak at town hall meetings here in behalf of PR and city manager plan [a feature of the new city charter]. After the Seabury investigation [of underhanded politicking and chicanery at city hall] [several organizations] held meetings and worked in other effective ways for a new charter and PR. During the campaign, [several newspapers] had editorials and cartoons which helped immensely.


... The result of the referendum [about 75 percent in favour of PR, 25 percent opposed] showed that the Democratic machine controlled less than a quarter of the voters if we credit all the votes against the charter to that organization. This must encourage all those who hope for the election of a high-grade representative Council to replace the discredited Board of Aldermen next fall."


Before the vote was held, Democratic leaders contested the referendum and afterwards tried in two separate cases to have it declared unconstitutional... the Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, upheld its constitutionality by a six-to-one vote. This decision by one of the most respected courts in the country gives a strong presumption in favor of constitutionality in other states and clears the way for the first PR elections in our largest city.


As to what we may properly hope for from that election if the voters are alert to the opportunities, Judge Samuel Seabury wrote:

'PR will break the stranglehold of the Tammany leaders and give the great mass of the voters a chance, Democrats, Republicans and other alike. PR will take care of the reapportionment question automatically for the city's council, and it will also give all the voters in every borough a new freedom to vote for and elect the persons they really want. ...

'[Under PR] there will be no machine-controlled primaries. In the election 75,000 voters anywhere within a borough will be able to elect a member to the Council, whether they have a majority in any particular locality or not. And each voter, because he has a preferential ballot and can fall back on his second choice in case his first choice is defeated, will be free to vote for the candidate he really wants without the least danger of throwing his vote away.

'[Under PR] the obscure political hack who is usually elected alderman [under FPTP] will have little chance of winning the willing support of 75,000 voters who have a choice of all the candidates in the borough. But the outstanding citizen of any party, the sort that Tammany leaders pass up because he is not sufficiently subservient, would have an excellent chance.

'The result is real majority rule, in contrast to to the minority machine rule we have now, and with majority rule, fair representation for minorities and for nearly every voter.'" (Hallett, PR (1937), p. 156-160)


Hallett's book Proportional Representation The Key to Democracy was published in the time between the pro-STV referendum and the holding of New York City's first STV eleciton. Thus it came out at the pivotal time when the largest city in the U.S. was moving to PR.


Borough representation in NYC's STV elections

District magnitude in each New York City borough under PR.

Election year

Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Island TOTAL

1937 5 9 6 5 1 26

1939 4 7 5 4 1 21

1941 5 9 6 5 1 26

1943 3 6 4 3 1 17

1945 5 8 5 4 1 23

22 39 26 21 5

(Table 1.2:

from https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/1044631/Santucci_georgetown_0076D_13763.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)

============================

Sources:


George H. Hallett, Jr., Proportional Representation The Key to Democracy. Washington: National Home Library Association, 1937




Zeller, Bell, and Hugh Bone. “The Repeal of P.R. in New York City: Ten Years in Retrospect.” American Political Science Review 42, no. 6 (December 1948): 1127–48.21


Mccaffrey, George. “New York’s 1937 Election and Its Results.” National Municipal Review 27, no. 1 (January 1938)


===============================================


Party shares of seats in NYC's STV elections (Table)

Party # Seats* % Seats % Votes**

1937

Democrat 13 50 47

Republican 3 11.5 8.5

Insurgent Democrat 2 8 7

American Labor Party 5 19 21

Fusion 3 11.5 10.5

Total 26

1939

Democrat 14 66.5 65.5

Republican 2 9.5 8

Insurgent Democrat 1 5 4

American Labor Party 2 9.5 11.5

Fusion 2 9.5 11

Total 21


1941

Democrat 17 65.5 64.0

Republican 2 7.5 6.5

American Labor Party 3 11.5 11.5

Fusion 3 11.5 12.5

Communist 1 4 5.5

Total 26


1943

Democrat 10 59 53

Republican 3 17 22

American Labor Party 2 12 11

Communist 2 12 14

total 17


1945

Democrat 14 60 59

Republican 3 13 15

American Labor  Party 2 9 10

Liberal 2 9 7

Communist 2 9 9

Total 23


* Note that the number of seats fluctuated based on the number of ballots cast

** % votes represents final ballot count (not the votes as cast in the first count)

=============================


The first winner-take-all election after repeal of STV

(a repeal in which red-baiting succeeded where earlier citywide repeal ballot measures had failed)

resulted in immediate return of the old political order.


In 1949, the Democrats won 96 percent (24 of 25) of city council seats, a much less balanced result than any of the previous elections held using STV.


Source: "Repeal of PR in NYC - Ten Years in Retrospect"

from American Political Science Review, Dec. '48.

==================

More info on NYC's Uniform Quota :


Santucci (Three Articles on PR in American Cities)


"Less often, the quota is fixed by law, and if no candidate achieves that quota, the N highest vote-getters win seats. N is determined by dividing the total valid first-choice votes cast by the fixed quota, then rounding. This was the rule in New York City."


so if we take this literally, NYC may or may not have transferred surplus votes and certainly there were no eliminations (the system used by Andrae in Denamrk in 1850s).


When no candidate took the quota, then the system just reverted to SNTV, with the N number of top vote-getters being declared elected.


Presumably (but not ncessarily) when a candidate did get quota, he was declared elected, his or her surplus votes were transferred, and then if no one else passed quota, N-1 number of top vote-getters were declared elected.


===============

Number of candidates: [somewhat approximate, derived from a table in a secondary source]

Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens

1937 34 100 48 45

1939 15 55 18 22

1941 18 34 20 20

1943 12 30 20 18

1945 20 40 20 20

(from Santucci, Three Articles..., p. 27)

======================================================================


From John Ketchum's 2022 article ""How to increase political competition..." (Manhattan Institute)

...

"While PR may sound like a novel or radical proposal, it would, in fact, not be the first time that NYC has used such a system. As mentioned in the introduction, New York employed STV for city council elections from 1937 to 1947.[277]


[STV] almost immediately produced benefits compared with the system it replaced, which largely mirrored today’s single-member districts, chosen by plurality.


Most important, by ending the hegemony of the Democratic Party, PR boosted political competition and more accurately reflected voters’ preferences. This did not exclusively favor conservatives. Democrats retained a majority, but the American Labor Party (ALP), a local party associated with the socialist movement,[278] quickly became the second largest in the council, with Republicans in third place.[279] Other political parties also gained seats, such as City Fusion (which propelled Mayor La Guardia to victory in 1933),[280] the Insurgent Democrats, and Citizens Non-Partisan; though these parties were not always cohesive or internally strong, at least four were represented throughout New York’s period of PR.[281]


The proportionality gap, used in FairVote analysis of STV in New York, also shrank, indicating a more representative local legislature. This measure effectively captures the total difference between the percentage of the vote that each party receives and the percentage of seats that the party obtains in the representative body.[282]


According to FairVote’s report, the five aldermanic elections preceding STV’s implementation averaged a proportionality gap of 14%; by the time STV was abolished, that had dropped to a mere average of 1.8%.[283] That meant that STV produced a closer match between voter preferences and candidate positions. With a representative body comprising members with sharply divergent viewpoints, from conservative Republicans to avowed socialists, lively, even chaotic, council meetings turned into popular spectator events, and radio broadcasts from the chamber attracted an estimated—and astounding—750,000 listeners.[284]


Despite such competition and political diversity, legislation still managed to get passed. In the 1946–47 term, 80% of bills passed unanimously, and consensus-building became a regular part of council business.[285] Some of the laws passed during the city’s experiment with PR included the creation of a central traffic commission, a smoke-control bill,[286] and a rent-control regime.[287] In sum, reducing single-party dominance and introducing electoral contestation achieved the fruits of competition: a higher quality and quantity of ideas, better governance, and energized democratic engagement.


Why, then, did New York voters opt to repeal STV-based PR in 1947—even though they had voted to retain it three times in the preceding decade? The conventional wisdom has long been that the rising fears of communism in the U.S., culminating in the postwar Red Scare, turned voters away from multiparty local politics.[288] Communists had, after all, been elected to the council from 1941 onward, and changing geopolitical dynamics meant that they could not remain.[289]


But Santucci has convincingly demonstrated that there was far more to the story of STV’s demise in New York.


For starters, Republicans had not supported the repeal of PR in its early years because ALP’s cross-endorsement allowed Republicans to keep control of the powerful Board of Estimate (which was subsequently dissolved in 1989).[290]


In the mid-1940s, ALP split into two factions based on issues of race and urban redevelopment, which destabilized the council and ended the unified party cross-endorsement for Republicans in board elections.[291] Seeing in ALP’s collapse a unique opportunity to coalesce all opposition under its party banner, Republicans turned against PR.[292]


Newspapers and business interests followed, which, when combined with fears of communism, led to PR’s repeal.[293]


==========================

An earlier draft of article on NYC's STV

(may have info not presented above)


The City of New York used STV to elect its city councillors from 1937 to 1949.


In the first part of the 20th Century, New York City was plagued by schemers and shenanigans of the Tammany Hall clique. Finally by 1937 reformers were able to change the playing field by managing to get the city to adopt PR-STV (or STV-PR if you prefer).



The STV system that the City of New York adopted was a two-level one where seats were allocated to boroughs based on voter turn-out and then seats in boroughs were allcocated to candidates.


Anyone who got 75,000 votes or more was elected. (This 75,000 might be mixture of ballots containing first preference votes and ballots containing secondary preferences.)


Conversely, it is said that each borough had a number of members commensurate with the number of votes cast in the borough (so some confusion there).


At any rate, the system was simple and effective at quelling the power of the Democratic Party, who controlled Tammany Hall.


The relationship between member and voters was direct - the parties were sidelined;

candidates ran under their own name (and party label secondarily) so the party was sidelined;

any candidate - and therefore any party - with 75,000 votes was given a seat;

votes meant seats so there was no seat imbalance from borough to borough -- all votes had same value.


Some say that the brutal honesty of New York's STV system made enemies out of the schemers and wire-pullers in a way that a less-comprehensive reform might not have.


The 75,000 may have been based on an approximate fraction of the votes cast.


And that 75,000 may have worked to set the amount of surplus votes that an elected member had, determining the surplus that was to be transferred to others who could use it more.


If it was based on a quota, I don't know what the fraction was.


It may have been the Hare quota (the total number of votes cast divided by the number of seats), which was occasionally used back then.


Or it might have been the more-fair Droop quota, which is still used today in most STV systems. Droop quota is the total number of votes cast divided by one more than the number of seats, plus 1.


====================================================

See John Ketcham, NYC Electoral Reform


=====================================



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