Preferential balloting (electoral systems using ranked ballots) is often underestimated but its elegance as a process shows up well compared to the snapshot approach of party-list pro-rep, as is explained here.
Some say that Alternative Voting produces a phony majority. Is it because the majorities required to elect representatives under AV are derived from second or lesser back-up preferences? But the same process of establishing formed consensus elects most representatives under STV and I don't see you calling that a phony process. Most elections during Alberta's and Manitoba's experience of STV saw only a couple at most elected with only first choices - the rest were elected through formed consensus as votes were transferred from others.
In fact, electing people through formed consensus should be a very Canadian way of electing. it is a form of power sharing - the elected representative must know that he or she owes the seat to the support of supporters of other parties. The overlap of policy is what ensured the person's success. The need for formed consensus also ensures that candidates with general acceptability are elected, not just ones with narrow (perhaps strict ideological) support. Exactly what we want in these times.
AV is said to allow waste of half the votes. This is of course a worst-case scenario. (and much preferable to FPTP where as much as 82 percent of the votes are wasted.
Meanwhile STV, using ranked votes in multi-member districts, secures much more than 50 percent effective votes -- the larger the DM, the larger the proportion of effective votes.
in district with three seats, about three-quarters of the votes actually elect someone.
in district with ten seats, about ten-elevenths of the votes actually elect someone.
But any proportional rep system will waste votes in practice and many even in theory. A set electoral threshold is a large cause of wastage - in the recent Slovakia election 20 percent of the vote went to parties who had too little support to achieve threshold - these 20 percent were immediately thrown out, while under preferential voting (ranked ballots if you prefer) they would have the chance to be saved through transfer to other parties.
It is easy to say 38 percent of the vote will give 38 percent of the seats but how many seats does that actually mean in a 338-seat house of Commons?
It is easy to say every vote will count but that ignores the problem of threshold and the number of votes that will not make a difference as the total 18 million votes (the number cast in the 2019 Canadian federal election) are divided into only 338 parts. An increment of anything less than 53,000 would not be worth a seat. It would be nice to see the math! (If Canada adopted list PR, the Canadian electorate would still be divided by province - consittutionally votes cannot cross provincial borders and such crossing would contravene the rep. by pop. provisions.)
STV is a process so is often described as being complicated. but the troubles of implementing party-list pro-rep or MMP, etc. and wastage thereby are often glossed over. They are superficially simple - you take a snapshot and derive representation thereby - but in practice there are many thorny questions when you go to put it into practice.
STV is not like a snapshot -- it is more like a series of elections as the field of candidates gets narrowed down.
People say power is shared under PR - this includes both list PR and STV. This takes for granted a minority government - a majority government would not have to share power. It may mean a party coalition.
Under list PR the party coalition or other working arrangement is established after the process is taken out of the hands of voters, - it is formed after the election. Perhaps the party alliance established after the election would not be to the wishes of the people.
STV and AV at the district level ensures the people themselves form consensus/alliances. It is possible this would produce majority government but even if not, it gives indication to the partieswhose suporters find common ground with others.
Voters may prefer a Liberal government propped up by the NDP and Greens than a Liberal government propped up by the Conservatives. Leaving it to politicians to form a working majority government without voters input is undemocratic. A majority of voters may prefer either a A or B government than a C government, but using only first choice votes for A, B or C even under party-list system does not secure that, doesnot even indicate how public sentiment lies.
A two-vote system of "Double Democracy" as presented on my blogsite Montopedia would achieve that. At the district level a working majority would secure election of representatives under AV. and too with STV but this majority would be balanced/ augmented by lesser representation of minorities.
STV, and AV for that matter, has the virtue that it has actually been used with success in Canada. They were used to elect MLAs in Alberta and Manitoba from the 1920s to 1950s. The rules of usage are already to go - we just need to "open the can and heat."
STV was used at the municipal level in 18 western Canadian cities as well. Two cities (Calgary and Winnipeg) used them from 1917/1920 to the 1970s.
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more on ranked votes verus list PR issue
some say STV is flawed PR-wise because it works best at the DM-5 and that is too small to produce proportional results.
yes, STV-5 is not large enough to be sufficiently proportional or produce enough effective votes as desirable. (But DM-5 is can easily be exceeded even under STV. - you don't need to switch to list PR to have DM of ten or even 20.)
Balmoralm a district of Belfastm elects five members through STV
I see in Balmoral in 2020, Alliance took 40 percent of seats with 26 percent of first preference votes.
all winners were in winning position already in first count.
so it was fair that way.
transfers had no effect on who was in winning position.
members of four diff. parties were elected so mixed and balance even if no PR perfect party-wise.
all five passed quota in the end
In last round potentially the elimination of the second Sinn Fein candidate and resulting transfer of votes might have catapulted the second DUP over the second Alliance candidate
but no such change happened. SF vote transfers going almost 100 percent to the second Alliance who remained in winning position and took the second seat for Alliance.
I agree that larger DM would have meant finer-grained PR in each district (and thus overall) and that more votes would have been used to elect winners.
the DM is used to set quota
and quota sets the amount that guarantees success,
quota also sets amount of surplus votes
(thus the larger DM, the more the surplus votes of winners, (which can be reallocated to potentially allow others to win) and thus the more chance large parties will take their due share of seats),
quota also sets how many votes are not used effectively.
in a five-seat district, likely about 1/6th of vote will not be effective votes
in a ten-seat district, about 1/11th (nine percent) are not effective
Winnipeg used ten-seat contest under STV back in 1920 so we know it can be done even without computers.
42,000 were used to elect winners. a very high portion (87 percent) of the 47,427 valid votes
as you can see, ten members were elected in the city where only as many votes are cast as in the average single-winner Canadian federal riding today.
but that wider rep is nothing to Belfast's 60 members in a city council
the largest city council in Canada is Toronto with mayor and 25 councillors.
Belfast had about 100,000 votes cast
Toronto had about 540,000 votes cast. (in mayor's election in 2022)
To improve our democracy we need all of this fairer voting system, multi-member districts and also more members at least at city elecitons.
federally we do adhere to the cube-root rule -- the number of our 340 or so MPs is the cube root of our population figure.
But that is not true at the provincial or city level.
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More of my thoughts on ranked votes versus list PR
a person who objects to ranked votes told me of this article that he said finds fault with STV.
I looked at it and found its arguments were not logical
article begins by presenting this apparent paradox
"You ask your campaign manager, “Is there any way I could have won?” and the manager responds, “You could have won if the turnout of voters who dislike you were increased.”"
Not stated is that this outcome is based on "increase in the turnout of voters who dislike you" means a decrease in your own votes (actually a decrease in the votes cast for your party)
(so it is not true to say everything else remaining equal)
By your own votes, it means the votes that go to your party, not to you personally. specifically the amount of votes that a lesser candidate of the same party receives, is less.
with fewer votes,
the lesser candidate may be eliminated too early and thus the party not have enough standing candidates to take all the seats it is due, if we are looking at party-wise results
or the lesser candidate being moved to a situation where his votes cannot assist 'you" in being elected.
this happens when he is
A. neither elected nor eliminated, or
B. being eliminated too late for his votes to be transferred, (often this takes form of candidate being declared defeated after last count)
thus his vote transfers not assisting "you".
Situation A cannot happen in an STV election where there are certain number of exhausted votes - any STV contest where members are elected with less than quota means there are no candidates who are neither elected nor eliminated.
which means Situation A not applies to contests held where voter decides how many preferences to mark.
I have not read more than that in the article but I would be surprised if the rest of article is not the same -
hidden connections that hide why what is presented as a ludicrous situation actually has basis in good mechanics (more on that below)
presenting obscure possible cases as true and common problems.
concealing how STV's use of MMD means all substantial parties do get rep. even if some individual candidates are not elected who with lucky breaks and expected concentration of party votes behind them would have.
like under any system, under STV a candidate who gets more votes is always more likely to be elected than one with fewer.
The sort of problem presented there (perhaps article gets more nuanced later ) is part and parcel of mechanics of STV -
if we took first-preference votes and allocate seats to parties based on that, we would ensure that no party would suffer from bad candidate eliminations and would benefit from party votes being lumped together behind party's electable candidates.
But STV does not use parties in vote count.
it looks at votes cast for candidates.
such care opens door to votes crossing party lines, which is hailed as promoting cross-party co-operation.
all PR produces minority government and thus promotes cross-party co-operation
but as well in STV, cross-party support (based on individual candidates) or at least evidence of ranked party support /back-up party preference, is seen and demonstrated even as voter cast votes (mark preferences).
some might say voter showing preference for more than one party takes away from party prop.,
and that final seat allocation P not conforming to first-preference-vote P takes away from party prop.
but those are elemental components of STV put there for reason that votes can cross party lines if voter desires and situation requires or allows it.
votes first cast for cand of small party or less-popular cand of large parties are shifted, sometimes across party lines.
In STV about half the votes are never transferred, other than as surplus votes of winners
and in the end 80 to 90 percent of votes are used to elect someone preferred by voter over others.
there are obscure examples where due to bad candidate eliminations, or too-small cand slates (SNP's unfortunate under-rep in last Scottish election), dis-P outcomes are produced
- a party or two suffering under-rep., (under-rep. -- not total lack of rep)
- a candidate saying if the breaks had been different, if all my party's votes had come to me, I could have won, therefore I should have won, therefore the system sucks.
but the overall effect of STV is fair and most votes are used to elect someone, (even that means outcome is diff from first preferences and differ from from outcome under party list PR and MMP)
the trade-offs are:
vote being able to cross party lines (meaning less waste) versus vote not being allowed to cross party lines (more waste in cases where electoral threshold in use, or where ever the effective threshold bites)
cand voting versus party voting
ranked voting/transferable votes (less wasted votes) versus X voting/no vote transfers (more wasted votes) .
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STV are the choices on the left (before the "versus")
party list PR are the choices on the right
MMP has two levels:
district
vote not being allowed to cross party lines
cand voting
X voting/no vote transfers (more wasted votes)
top-up
vote not being allowed to cross party lines
party voting
X voting/no vote transfers (more wasted votes, at least more than if votes could cross party lines)
every system has advantages and disadvantages (potential accidental outcomes).
or at least present applications of any system have produced accidental outcomes.
But all PR systems are better than FPTP or Block Voting.
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