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Tom Monto

Rough PR produced by simple combo of Single Voting and multi-member district -- Puerto Rico

Updated: May 29, 2021

Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV) produces mixed representation and thus proportional or semi-proportional representation at the district level. The simple combination of Single Voting and multi-member district creates PR at the district level. Sometimes that district-level PR means an entire jurisdiction has proportional representation. Such is the case in Puerto Rico.


SNTV results in representation that is most proportional when political parties have accurate information about their relative levels of electoral support, and nominate candidates in accordance with their respective levels of electoral support. This lessens the chance of vote splitting and inefficient placement of party support.


But under SNTV, even inefficient distribution of votes allows more balanced representation that would be elected under either single-member plurality or Block Voting.


It is currently used in Puerto Rico for elections of some members of its House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is made up of 40 members, one each elected in the 40 districts, elected through First past the post, plus 11 elected at-large through SNTV. By virtue of fact that the at-large members are elected in one contest, it is called a multi-member district. The district covers the whole territory of Puerto Rico as a single district.


SNTV also used to be used in Japan. In the old references, it was called the Japanese system of PR.


Although denigrated as not being proportional, it produces mixed representation and no one party can take all of a district's seats. Thus it produces representation that is more balanced than either FPTP or Block Voting.


As well, in STV elections where vote transfers did not award success to any candidates who had not led the vote tallies in the First Count, the result under SNTV was identical to those elected under STV. The difference is that under STV the accuracy of the polling was verified by the opportunity for vote transfers to make changes if voters had shown need for such. But the results themselves between STV and SNTV are occasionally identical. Either STV is only semi-proportional, not proportional, or both STV and SNTV may be considered ed to be proportional.


In fact any system where there are not enough seats for each voter will never be exactly proportional. The system said to be the purest in proportionality - party list PR - is not proportional when a threshold for seats is set. A threshold of five percent means that perhaps 20 percent of the votes are disregarded - hardly proportional as most would think of the meaning of the term.


Thanks for reading.

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