Single Non-Transferable Voting
The ACE Electoral Knowledge Network, describing Single Non-Transferable Voting, states:
"Under SNTV, each voter casts one vote for a candidate but (unlike FPTP) there is more than one seat to be filled in each electoral district. Those candidates with the highest vote totals fill these positions. [*]
SNTV can face political parties with a challenge. In, for example, a four-member district, a candidate with just over 20 per cent of the vote is guaranteed election. A party with 50 per cent of the vote could thus expect to win two seats in a four-member district. If each candidate polls 25 per cent, this will happen. If, however, one candidate polls 40 per cent and the other 10 per cent, the second candidate may not be elected. If the party puts up three candidates, the danger of ‘vote-splitting’ makes it even less likely that the party will win two seats."
* I think this should be inserted at the asterix:
The most-popular candidates are declared elected irrespective of how many votes they have. Where ten candidates run and are all about equally popular, a person may win a seat with only 10 percent of the vote -
But the fact is one can win with less than that even.
Say in a five-member district, where as many as 18 candidates would likely run, the last person to take a seat may have received only 5 percent of the vote.
The most-popular candidate may have received three times that many, but both are given one seat.
(The vote tallies are derived from the 1926 election in Edmonton by taking the First Count vote tallies in the 1926 STV election as if they are the final vote tallies in a pretend SNTV election. So people have actually voted with this spread.)
(In Vanuatu 2020 election, in district of Efate with five seats one candidate won with 5.6 percent of the vote;
in district of Port Vila one candidate won with 6.8 percent of the vote.)
Because one candidate of a party may take "too many" votes, other candidates of that party may not be elected although the party's total votes would indicate having enough to win two (or even more) seats. Thus, [return to above text]
Strangely enough,
ACE Electoral Knowledge Network points to SNTV having this disadvantage:
"Parties whose votes are widely dispersed will win fewer seats than otherwise".
Actually, it seems to me that party whose votes are dispersed has better chance under SNTV than FPTP, because districts are larger. Thus voters who would otherwise be separated by frequent district borders now can come together to vote together for a candidate. The chance of a dispersed and thus likely less-popular party to win is especially larger as the threshold to win may be quite low due to specific most-popular candidates "hogging" the votes, as is discussed next.
And ACE goes on to say
"and larger parties can receive a substantial seat bonus which turns a plurality of the vote nationally into an absolute majority in the legislature.
These anomalies may lead to significant protests against the results and the system. Although the proportionality of the system can be increased by increasing the number of seats to be filled within the multi-member districts, this weakens the voter–MP relationship which is so prized by those who advocate defined geographical districts."
Usually the opposite criticism is made of SNTV - that it hurts the large parties.
The different viewpoint likely arises from ACE's overlooking the ability of one candidate to take a great number of votes, thus leaving only a relative few for the rest of the candidates and thus lowering the threshold needed to win a seat to the five percent noted above. If that one oh-so-popular candidate is of a party with many candidates, then likely it is that no other candidate of that party may take a seat, thus producing under-representation of the party. (Under STV, the surplus would be transferred to others. But that does not happen under SNTV.)
ACE does mention how a large party needs to strategize to cover the possibility, so that website seems to contradict itself. Anyways ACE does not mention how that possibility may lower threshold needed to win.
ACE lists these among SNTV's advantage (excerpted below):
"While SNTV gives voters a choice among a party’s list of candidates, it is also argued that the system fragments the party system less than pure PR systems do. ...
As with any system where multiple candidates of the same party are competing for one vote, internal party fragmentation and discord may be accentuated."
Fragmenting is debatable, but for sure, the multi-winner elections used in both SNTV and pure PR systems mean that a variety of party candidates can be run in elections to let the voters choose. In fact parties see the benefit of running a range of candidates to capture as many votes as possible. Sure they will all be Conservatives (or Liberals or whatever) but they won't all be middle-aged white guys. Well they can be, but a party would likely get more votes if its candidates are not all the same.
As well, under FPTP a party runs only one candidate in each district. Fragmenting and division within a party occurs prior to the election in the nomination process, when all of a local wing of a party has to agree on one specific candidate.
And usually a white male is selected to be the party's candidate under FPTP, thus decreasing the variety of race, ethnic or gender representation in the legislature. While under SNTV and STV, a wider variety of candidate is likely to be selected -- and possibly elected. If only five percent of the voters give their vote to a specific woman candidate, it is possible under the right conditions that she will be elected. This can never happen under FPTP, where 18 percent of a district's votes is the smallest portion I have discovered sufficient to elect a winner.
And multi-winner elections are generally thought to reduce party friction - two candidates running in a SNTV or STV election are not competing in a zero-sum game, like they do in FPTP elections. With multi-winners it is possible for both to win. Thus there is no direct competition for a seat under SNTV or STV.
I agree with ACE's remark that
"SNTV usually gives rise to many wasted votes, especially if nomination requirements are inclusive, enabling many candidates to put themselves forward."
The more numerous the unsuccessful candidates, the more numerous the votes that will be placed on those who are not elected, all other things being equal.
The main use of transfers of votes in STV is to avoid waste. Both waste of surplus votes captured by individual winning candidates and waste of votes cast for least-popular candidates (usually belonging to less-popular parties). And that is why STV is preferable to SNTV.
The transfers conducted under STV almost never change the order of popularity of even half the candidates in an election. But they do usually change a couple of the successful candidates.
They allow a group of the least-popular candidates to band together to get at least one of their number elected.
They provide test of general acceptability and act as a safeguard. That is, although vote transfers may not change who is elected, they do allow votes to be concentrated among a few, thus providing verification that the candidates who are the most-popular, as the field of candidate thins, are the most generally acceptable. And if one or more of them are not the most-popular, then somebody else will be elected.
More of my views on SNTV in other blog entitled "SNTV pretty proportional and much more so than FPTP"
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Use of SNTV through history
In mainland North America only instance of SNTV being used was in Pennsylvania, where it might still be in use.
Pennsylvania used SNTV to elect District election officers from 1839 to 1956 (or later? perhaps right to the present) (more on this below)
Vanuatu (a Polynesian island country) has used SNTV to elect its national parliament since independence. (more on this below)
Puerto Rico elects some of its members using SNTV.
Jordan used SNTV from 1993 to 2017 or so.
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Pennsylvania
1937 Act
ARTICLE IV
District Election Officers
Section 401. District Election Boards; Election.--All primaries and elections shall be conducted in each election district by a district election board consisting of a judge of election, a majority inspector of election and a minority inspector of election, assisted by clerks and machine inspectors in certain cases, as hereinafter provided. The judge and inspectors of election of each election district shall be elected by the electors thereof at the municipal election, and shall hold office for a term of four years from the first Monday of January next succeeding their election. Each elector may vote for one person as judge and for one person as inspector, and the person receiving the highest number of votes for judge shall be declared elected judge of election, the person receiving the highest number of votes for inspector shall be declared elected majority inspector of election, and the person receiving the second highest number of votes for inspector shall be declared elected minority inspector of election.
(401 amended Feb. 10, 1956, P.L.1019, No.319)
Perhaps in 1956 or in later amendments tht Act was amended to drop SNTV --
I have not enquired with officials in that state.
(Pennsylvania's SNTV is discussed in Hoag and Hallett, PR (1926), p. 181-2.
H and H made the point that SNTV in a two-seat district did not offer much scope for PR or minority representation.)
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Vanuatu (former New Hebrides) is a British Commonwealth country that uses it today. Like Canada, Vanuatu, a Polynesia nation, has French roots. But that is about the only way the two countries are similar.
Vanuatu's recent elections produced more diverse and balanced representation than Canada's recent FPTP elections, in each district, on each island and in each part of the country. Vanuatu's multi-member districts (two to seven seats) produced mixed representation No party received more than two seats in any district. The greatest diversity was produced in Santo where candidates of seven different parties were elected to the district's seven seats.
Much more fair than the present-day one-party sweep of Saskatchewan MPs under FPTP. my blog on Vanuatu's SNTV: Alberta | Tom Monto Montopedia | Canada I wrote "If anything, Vanuatu politics are criticized as being too fair, producing what is seen as unstable minority governments due to its fairness and to the voluntary splintering of the country's voters to a multitude of different voting blocks. [But in recent years Vanuatua has held fewer elections than Canada has had, so actually who should be called unstable?] ... After the 2016 election there were 17 parties in the 52-member chamber with none holding more than six seats. Coalition governments have been a feature of government in Vanuatu for quite some time...."
after the 2020 election, 19 parties had seats in the parliament.
in Vanuatu's system, there are 10 multi-member districts with the number of seats in each ranging from 2 to 7, and 8 single-member districts. Each district produced mixed, diverse and balanced representation.
Tyson would have liked it!
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Jordan's SNTV
I thought Jordan used SNTV. it no longer does. it did from 1993 to after its 2016 election but not now. it now uses a voting system that is even more fair... An article issued before the 2016 election announced that a recent report showed there were many wasted votes under SNTV - (although there were no more wasted votes than under Canada's FPTP system - if Jordan thought change was necessary for that reason, it is long past time for Canada to change, as I am sure you would agree) ...She argues in the study that the tribal nature of Jordan's electoral politics, as well as the regime's strategic manipulation of the electoral rules, undermined strategic coordination and subverted the expected effects on the number of electoral competitors in parliamentary elections.
The result: an overabundance of candidates competing in many districts, which, in turn, has led to a high proportion of wasted votes. "As a result, the majority of Jordanian citizens cast votes for candidates who do not win, leaving them without a stake in the current political system," Buttorff said (from https://news.ku.edu/2016/01/14/jordanian-election-law-changes-led-wasted-votes-professor-says) and due to the wasted votes, that same article said Jordan was expected to go to a different voting system that is equally wasteful of votes. "...The Jordanian government actually proposed a new electoral law last year, which will return to the block-vote system used in the 1989 legislative elections while retaining the reserved seats for women and minorities." Why the writer did not think Jordan would not just add transferable votes - I have no idea. Such a change would produce STV, and under STV there are only a small number of wasted votes. But luckily Jordan did not go to Block voting as expected, but instead (Wikipedia tells me) Jordan's 2020 election was held under an even more fair system, one much fairer than Canada's: The 130 seats in the House of Representatives consist of 115 members elected by open list proportional representation from 23 constituencies of between three and nine seats in size and 15 seats reserved for women.[8]
Nine of the 115 proportional representation seats are reserved for the Christian minority, with another three reserved for the Chechen and Circassian minorities. The 15 seats reserved for women are allocated to the woman in each of the twelve governorates and the three Badia districts who received the most votes but failed to be elected on their list. So that is good news.
Canada could learn from Jordan's example. SNTV would address many of the problems we now endure in Canadian elections but Jordan has moved even past that. Canada is now the only major country that uses FPTP and only FPTP in federal and provincial elections in the world. Even UK and US have moved on. new slogan:
Electoral Reform - Get into it.
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Advantages and disadvantages of SNTV (from ACE):
Advantages of Single Non-Transferable Vote
The most important difference between SNTV and the plurality/majority systems described earlier is that SNTV is better able to facilitate the representation of minority parties and independents. The larger the district magnitude (the number of seats in the constituency), the more proportional the system can become. In Jordan, SNTV has enabled a number of popular non-party pro-monarchist candidates to be elected, which is deemed to be an advantage within that embryonic party system.
SNTV can encourage parties to become highly organized and instruct their voters to allocate their votes to candidates in a way which maximizes a party’s likely seat-winning potential. While SNTV gives voters a choice among a party’s list of candidates, it is also argued that the system fragments the party system less than pure PR systems do. Over 45 years of SNTV experience, Japan demonstrated quite a robust ‘one party dominant’ system. [see my note above]
Independent candidates are easily accommodated. (SNTV, like STV, does not depend on parties. Non-party elections work just as well for SNTV (and STV) as party elections.
Finally, the system is praised for being easy to use and understand.
Disadvantages of Single Non-Transferable Vote
Parties whose votes are widely dispersed will win fewer seats than otherwise, and larger parties can receive a substantial seat bonus, which turns a plurality of the vote nationally into a majority in the legislature. These anomalies may lead to significant protests against the results and the system. Although the proportionality of the system can be increased by increasing the number of seats to be filled within the multi-member districts, this weakens the voter–MP relationship which is so prized by those who advocate defined geographical districts.
As with any system where multiple candidates of the same party are competing for one vote, internal party fragmentation and discord may be accentuated. This can serve to promote clientelistic politics where politicians offer electoral bribes to groups of defined voters.
Parties need to consider complex strategic questions of both nominations and vote management; putting up too many candidates can be as unproductive as putting up too few, and the need for a party to discipline its voters into spreading their votes equally across all a party’s candidates is paramount [to maximize the party's seat count in the district] [if the party's calculation is correct] .
As SNTV gives voters only one vote, the system contains few incentives for political parties to appeal to a broad spectrum of voters in an accommodatory manner. As long as they have a reasonable core vote, they can win seats without needing to appeal to ‘outsiders’. However, they could win more seats by wooing voters from other parties by putting up candidates acceptable to them.
SNTV usually gives rise to many wasted votes, especially if nomination requirements are inclusive, enabling many candidates to put themselves forward."
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Single voting - two or more members are elected in each district but each voter casts just one vote.
That is Single Non-Transferable Voting, simply put.
SNTV
No single party can take both seats if any other candidate has at least half of that party's total and likely the largest party vote would be spit unequally, making it very unlikely two candidates of a party would each have more votes than any other candidate, which would have to happen for those two candidates to take both seats, under SNTV...
Two different parties having representation means very large proportion of voters would likely be pleased by result.
Simple as that...
with use of transferable voting
with each voter casting a single transferable vote, the certainty of mixed representation becomes much greater - any candidate who takes at least 33 percent of the vote (whether first preferences or combination of first preferences and votes transferred to him or her due to secondary preferences) would be elected.
Very likely that two parties would each have a bit more than 33 percent of the vote - thus likely that two different parties would each elect one member.
Multiple-member seats combined with any single voting system system -- STV or SNTV or I suppose district-level MMP, like Scotland's "Additional Member system" -- produces mixed representation in each district and thus mixed representation in each large city and thus mixed representation in each province, so it would prevent our present artificially-created regionalized representation (one-party sweeps of whole provinces or multi-province regions).
Block Voting can lead to one-party sweeps.
Edmonton had that experience in 1921 when the city's five MLAs were elected in one city-wide district and each voter could cast up to five votes. The Liberal candidates each received more votes than each of any other candidate, and that party took all five seats.
Due to the multiple voting, it is unknown whether each voter gave at least one vote for a Liberal candidate, with some casting perhaps three votes for Liberal candidates and splitting their vote, using their other four, or three, or two votes for candidates of other parties ...
or perhaps just about a third of the voters gave almost all their votes to Liberal candidates. Either way is possible.
However it was, the five Liberal candidates took all five seats, leaving no representation for any other groups.
just as bad as any FPTP election...
Only benefits of Block Voting being
- voters had wide offering of about 30 candidates. They were not arbitrarily divided from any candidate who under FPTP might have been running in a different district
- easy to switch (in 1924) to STV -- officials could simply leave the district as is and just change the method of voting from multiple X-voting to Single Transferable Voting.
Even if a voter still just marked one preference, and some did just that, mixed representation was produced, due to MM district.
(Single-member districts, even under IRV/"ranked voting", as proposed for future Ontario provincial elections and as was used in 2018 London Ontario city election, will never produce mixed representation in a district.)
Under STV in 1926, candidates of four parties were elected among Edmonton's five members.
immediate and positive improvement.
high proportion of votes used effectively to elect someone.
only change for voters was use of single transferable voting versus X voting.
Only change for system as a whole was introduction of quota and performance of vote transfers, where needed.
If SNTV is so simple and good, why don't we have it?
Mostly because we don't have PR of any sort.
and if we did have PR, would people choose a simple system that produces crude PR in each district or would people prefer a more complicated and technical system where nearly-exact PR is produced at the overall or at the province-level?
The reaction of even Electoral reformers to discussion of SNTV shows where people's affection lies.
cries of SNTV only being effective by coincidence or when parties game the system are heard when evidence points to its actual effectiveness
- based on STV first counts (where no such gaming takes place) and
- based on its effectiveness in actual SNTV elections where each district produces mixed and balanced representation, where most of the most popular parties get representation and the most popular candidate(s) within the party is/are elected.
SNTV is proportional - to a degree - certainly more than our present FPTP - but it is not exact PR - in best case it produces same rep. as STV, and often but not always STV produces results as P as MMP.
but my blog on Vanuatu does point out how some parties got more votes than other parties but get fewer seats (or the same number of seats) than other parties.
But SNTV results are light years ahead of ours in terms of voters in an average district who saw a candidate of the party they supported - often even the actual candidate they voted for - elected in their district - not to mention the variety of parties who had at least some representation in the national chamber and thus general satisfaction in that regard. The five parties in Canada's 338-seat HofC is nothing compared to the 19 parties in Vanuatu's 52-member house. I think perhaps people - especially people in power - do not care about proportionality or do not understand or care about it, and only the question of simplicity or complication comes up after that hurdle is overcome. PR - whether simple or complicated - is not usually considered, until need for PR is pushed and then any (possible) complication or problem is inflated to prevent such reform from going forward.
Does STV or SNTV produce too large ballots? I believe STV and SNTV would encourage the presence of same number of candidates. The number running in any one district under STV or SNTV would be many more than in any one district under FPTP. But if you collect all the candidates in an X number of various districts under FPTP, their number would not be much different than the number of candidates in STV or SNTV in a single district electing the same X number of members. other than the fact that the greater fairness of STV (or even SNTV) means that (sometimes) there are more parties running candidates.
Large ballots where they happen are result of having many parties So yes ballots are sometimes larger than under FPTP. This would have to be the case due to the wider selection that votes have under STV compared to FPTP.
Voters are not constrained by small district size to small selection of candidates.
Under STV, voters do vote more freely due to not being constrained (even in looser SNTV) to a strategic choice between the likely winner versus one other candidate who is likely to be his or her most popular opponent and the number of parties usually does rise compared to FPTP. but even under FPTP Canada has many parties.
Canada has more parties who run multiple (more than one) candidates than Ireland does
Canada 21 parties ran multiple candidates in the last Canadian election 1700 candidates in 338 districts average 5 St. Boniface had 21 candidates! (but you might recall that was inflated on purpose to prove a point) Ireland Nine parties in the last Irish election. about 510 candidates in 39 districts average 13 Cavan-Monaghan, one of largest districts, had only 13 candidates.
New York
Oversize ballots might have been said to be cause for New York dropping STV in its city elections. New York has historically had a fractured, splintered and crochety politics. so I'm not surprised many small parties would emerge under loosened and freer PR environment but that is not what it would produce always everywhere.
And a reason more commonly given for New York dropping STV is the admittedly biased stand by many against blacks and Communists having representation, which STV was effective at producing. Even Australia is having so-called tablecloth elections where ballot for Senate is a metre across and about 30 cms tall. if that is problem, raising the required candidates deposit is a way to stop it. The deposit could be refunded if candidate receives say half of quota, so that new cost would only be imposed on less-popular ballot-filling names. But note that about 6 Senators are elected in each district (state) so there is some reason for the multitude of candidates.
Many names on ballot does not necessarily mean more work for voters. Voters can mark fairly quickly but at loss of control... voters can mark just for party slates and then have their vote potentially slide around from party to party according to party decisions - In Victoria Senate election, a vote for Green party would if transferred go to Pirate Party before possibly going to Labour Party. In Victoria, Greens did use their own votes to elect one member so no such transfer took place (and no Pirates were elected) but it could have happened if voter votes "above the line" for Green party.
STV reflects political culture
STV or any fair system produces the kind of political culture preferred by voters.
Malta despite STV is a two party system (although six parties do run candidates). Ireland is multi-party system (more than Canada's) with nine parties getting at least some representation and no party taking more than 25 percent of the vote. if voters want fair and balanced two-party fight, it can be that. if voters want fair and balanced multi-party rep., it can be that.
Do ranked votes lead to more cooperation? if ranked votes (transferable votes) do produce co-operation - it would be from lack of domineering majority due to fragmented and thus more representational results and or - from more cautious posturing by candidates and members due to hope to get vote transfers from others but extent of that is determined by political culture where parties do not share beleifs, they would likely expect fewer transfers and act under that expectation. in Malta the two main parties get very little - I mean very little - vote transfers across party lines between them, perhaps a few hundred votes in a district with 22,000 votes cast.
but pretty much all of the votes initially cast for candidates of smaller parties do move to one or other of the main parties.
likely lack of cross-party transfer between main parties is due to deliberate polarization that is natural to competing for most seats (zero sum game) but also it is due to policy decisions -- the Nationalist and Labour have ideological differences. They likely expect little overlap between their supporters and do not try to appeal to supporters of the other party.
So not much co-operation there.
and that polarization feeds on itself as we know
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I don't wish to engage in discussion of whether or not SNTV should be considered proportional or even if STV should be. The meaning of proportional varies from person to person.
It is clear to me that SNTV is as proportional as STV in some cases because - in certain elections the same exact people would have been elected under SNTV as STV. This was the case in certain STV elections in Edmonton and in Calgary in the past.
But it is clear to me that SNTV is as proportional as STV in some cases because if SNTV instead of STV had been used, the same exact people would have been elected in certain STV elections in Edmonton and in Calgary in the past.
And to say that SNTV produces P results, when it does, that it is due to people gaming the system overlooks that when this actually happened in Calgary and Edm, the people did not game the system - they were voting under STV.
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And the question is - would people vote the same under STNV as they do under STV?
Voters don't necessarily vote in such a way (choose a candidate) in such a way as to see their vote have good chance of use. that is, they mark whom they want elected whether it has a chance or not. so whether fringe candidate has chance or not he or she still gets votes.
For that reason or just because a candidate with only five percent of the vote in a district can win a seat under SNTV, as many as 10 or so candidates may take sizable amounts of the vote (that is, say more than one percent of he vote) in a Vanuatu district. something not seen in a FPTP district.
I have not done study comparing what is needed to win under SNTV versus STV but perhaps it may be easier to win under SNTV with micro amount of vote than under STV - as counter-intuitive as that seems.
in part caused by higher waste of other votes perhaps?
=================================================ida
Some confuse ranked voting with multiple voting and have idea that each voter must endorse multiple candidates for a system to be proportional representation
Proportional representation is about mixed representation elected by voters across a district or across the jurisdiction - province, etc. not about each voter electing multiple candidates.
Some might say
"The Single Non-Transferable Vote is a non-proportional voting system. All proportional voting systems allow voters to support multiple candidates." I think PR does depend on multiple members elected by pooled votes or grouped districts. But voters do not necessarily have to behave any differently in PR system versus other.
It is the counting of votes and the allocation of seats that creates PR, not necessarily how the voter casts a vote. (More on this below.) MMP, especially when each voter casts only one vote, do not see voters supporting multiple candidates except in so far as their vote is used as support for a party slate which may or may not contain multiple names - but usually does.
Some say STV allows voters to rank candidates, obviously missing the fact that "STV" stands for Single Transferable Voting - the voter only has one vote that will be used to elect someone in the end (or none at all).
And the successful candidate under STV will be elected by relative popularity over the other candidates - really just simple plurality, but with quota being used to shave off surplus votes for those elected early and usually one or a couple of candidates being declared elected in the end by literal plurality.
The STV only allows each voter to have only one vote used effectively, and many STV systems use optional preferential voting where no voter has to mark back-up preferences if he or she does not want to. so STV would operate just like SNTV in those cases whee voter plumps. SNTV does have advantage that it can be brought in where ranked votes are prohibited but where a city does retain the right to set number of wards and the number of votes a voter can cast. The casting of a single vote is obviously acceptable. That is the number of votes a voter would have under SNTV!
BC cities for example, and Alberta cities, too.
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if Block Voting is hard to discuss, how does SNTV have a chance ?
If Block Voting was an animal, it would be the elephant in the room. And SNTV would be that slight scent of flowers or perfume wafting in from the hall.
SNTV (single voting in multiple district using X voting) is a difficult concept.
I am not being sarcastic.
Despite its simplicity it is clouded in fog and mystery -- and apparently seen as something you do not discuss in polite company.
Even the online The Explainer video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU9TULIp2Nc) calls it Multiple FPTP. The strangeness of how a thing that uses "Single" in one name could possibly have another name that uses "Multiple" must have been overlooked by the writer.
If SNTV is Multiple FPTP, what do you call Block Voting?
As the video indicates, Block Voting is often just plain overlooked.
Encyclopedia Canada "Electoral reform" refers to these types of voting used or considered in Canada:
single-winner FPTP,
Alternative Voting or Ranked Ballot,
three types of PR - STV, MMP, party-list PR.
SNTV is not mentioned - I resignedly say whatever about that.
But oddly the reference does not mention Block Voting at all. And Block Voting was used in past provincial elections in every province in Canada (unlike all the others, Quebec only used BV prior to Confederation) -
sometimes BV was even used to elect all the members of past provincial legislatures.
BV was used to elect two or more MPs in every election previous to 1968.
And it is currently used to elect city councillors in many (perhaps most) cities across Canada.
The idea that voters would, do or have in the past cast multiple votes to elect multiple members seems odd (perhaps almost as odd as the idea of a system where a voter casts just one vote in a district where multiple members are elected.) This is despite the fact that Block Voting is or was actually quite common in Canada.
So if Block Voting is so overlooked, how can we hope people to get SNTV right off the bat?
I want to clarify what I said above about SNTV with reference to my idea that elections are actually three levels.
(Note: elections are held only if two or more candidates have put their names in for an election and the numbers of candidates are larger than the number of spots.)
The three levels are:
- a voter's vote, or the voter's ballot if voter does more than simple single X voting
- who is elected in a district contest and/or through party-list PR and/or through large-district top-up
- who has majority in the chamber.
First level: what a voter's vote or ballot does
The style of ballot or vote used is determinant about the whole voting system.
Single X vote (FPTP or SNTV) it selects one candidate that the voter wants to see elected. (both these systems have clarity that a voter is either a support of the successful candidate and no other or the voter is a supporter of an un-successful candidate and no other. any system where voter casts multiple votes allows voter to "split their vote" and no such clear hit or miss result is produced.)
Depending on the system used,
instead of a single X vote,
a ballot can contain
-multiple X votes (Block Voting), or
-a first preference and several back-up preferences (a completed ballot in a STV election).
As well, a ballot may contain just one first choice preference marked with a 1. This is a plumped ballot (not fully-filled-out STV ballot) but still legal in some STV systems.
A ballot of any of these types may be used to elect someone or may not be used to elect someone.
Under any (practical) system, not every voter will see their vote used to elect member(s).
Second level: who is elected in a district or contest
How many and who is elected in a district depends on system used.
single X vote - FPTP single winner only the most popular candidate is elected. all other voters are un-represented. voter will see his or her choice elected or not.
A party may elect one or none at all.
single X vote - SNTV multiple winners only the most popular candidates, multiple in number (two or more), are elected. all other votes are un-represented. voter will see his or her choice elected or not.
A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs multiple candidates), or none at all.
As the looseness of the SNTV system affects all parties who run more than one candidate, result seems relatively proportional. and smaller parties run just one candidate so suffer no harm from vote splitting, which is potential problem in SNTV.
As little as five percent (party total) is enough to win a seat in seven-seat district,
as little as 7 percent in five-seat district, at least in a political environment where about 20 parties run for seats (Vanuatu's SNTV 2020 election as described below).
Multiple X votes (Block Voting), multiple winners
only the most popular candidates, multiple in number (two or more), are elected. all other voters are un-represented. voter will see all, some or one of his or her choices elected, or none of them.
Successful candidates usually have overlapping groups of support and election results do not record how many voters had at least one of their choices elected, other than the one with the most votes - that group obviously had at least one choice elected. Each of the rest of the successful candidates could have been elected by subset of that greater number or may have been elected by others or some of each.
A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs multiple candidates), or none at all.
Preferential votes
a first preference and several back-up preferences, or no back-up preferences marked at all.
Back-up preferences are contingency votes - used only if the vote would other wise be wasted. usually a vote comes up for transfer if the candidate to whom it is marked is eliminated from the running due to being the least popular candidate.
not all votes are transferred; not all votes if transferred are used to elect someone; not all votes that are never transferred at all are wasted.
ballot (vote) used to elect just one member in the end, or none at all.
A contest that uses preferential ballots may elect either single member (IRV/Alternative Voting) or multiple members (STV)
IRV contest single winner uses preferential voting
- no proportional representation produced. only one group in the end is represented.
to be elected, successful candidate must have majority of votes that are "in play" at that point in time. - perhaps not a majority of votes cast in the district if many votes are exhausted.
A party may elect one or none at all.
STV contest multiple winners uses preferential voting
multiple members elected.
Proportional representation (or at least mixed and balanced representation) produced - always in cases where more than three members elected and usually even where only two or three members elected. multiple groups in the end are (almost always) represented - have at least one member elected in the district. A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs multiple candidates), or none at all. To be elected, successful candidate must at any time have quota (a mathematically-derived pre-set fraction of the valid votes) or be among remaining candidates when field of candidates is thinned to number of remaining open seats. all successful candidates are the most popular candidates in relation to the other candidates, but by the end, vote transfers may have changed the order of popularity of candidates from their original order of popularity set in the First Count.
Party-list PR or large-district top-up in MMP multiple winners
usually X voting used to choose a party slate. (Back-up party slates may be marked on ballot in some systems.)
Votes as cast in district contests or in separate polling of voters are used to allocate seats to parties.
This is usually X voting where vote is placed on a party slate with individual candidate finding success through party favour or more direct voter approval. A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs or registers multiple candidates), or none at all.
Third level: who has majority in the chamber Members elected through various district election contests, if any, and/or members elected through party-list PR, if any, and/or MMP top-up, if any, collect in the chamber. a single party may have majority or a party may collect working majority through gaining support from other elected members and so on....
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SNTV is exotic variation
Each of the electoral systems mentioned above have been used in government elections in Canada, except SNTV, party-list PR and MMP large-district top-up. All the systems listed have been used successfully in government elections recently somewhere in the world. As mentioned, SNTV is one of the more exotic variations despite its simple construction -- X voting in a district that elects multiple members It is exotic because in Canadian history a district that elects multiple members usually has system that allows voters to cast as many votes as the number of open seats, but that natural style means perhaps five times more votes are collected and counted in five-seat district than if SNTV was used.
In Halifax's first election in 1758, 16 times as many votes were cast (likely orally) than would have been done under SNTV -
because the district elected 16 members and Block Voting was used.
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Vanuatu's SNTV -- mostly fair and absolute minimum of votes to count
Vanuatu uses SNTV to elect its members, sometimes as many as seven in a single district. looking at Vanuatu's SNTV 2020 election, we see generally fair and representative results.
Despite the seeming looseness of the SNTV system, the measure of satisfaction seem consistent from district to district even with different District Magnitudes (number of seats in the district):
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Santo seven different parties represented among the seven seats in the district.
Parties (in order of popularity of party's leading candidate)
candidates party total seats won
percent of votes approx
Parties represented
RMC 2 15 1
Liberal movement 1 8 1
Land and Justice 1 7 1
Vemarama 1 6 1
Cultural Self-reliance 1 5 1
Negriamal 2 9 1
Progressive Party 1 5 1
Parties not represented
Leaders Party 2 7 0
Union of Moderate Parties 3 8 0
16 other parties, Independents 21 not calc. 0
Each other party and Independent candidate got less than 5 percent of vote
Candidates Elected
Rick RMC 12 percent of votes (lion share of the party's 15 percent of the vote)
Pikione Liberal Movement 8 percent of votes
Maoh Land and Justice 7 percent of votes
Nano Venarama 6 percent of votes
Samson Cultural Self-R 5 percent of votes
Joshua Negriamal 5 percent of votes (just more than half of the party's votes)
Sakaes Progressive Party 4.82 percent of votes
(more on Vanuatu's use of SNTV in the Montopedia blogs
and
Thanks for reading.
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