Here's a piece on SNTV and STV - both simple systems where voters do not - or do not have to - vote differently than they do under FPTP, but results are much more fair at the district and thus at the city and province and overall level.
You don't need an "advanced math degree" to conduct an STV election, as some seem to think.
And voting under Single Non-Transferable Voting is no different than voting in a FPTP election.
SNTV an extremely simple system but produces proportional results at the district (city) level.
Voting is the same but the difference is in how many are elected in a district.
In SNTV, there are more elected in a district (although not more in a city or a province than would be under FPTP) - and thus the results are better balanced and proportional.
STV is bit more complicated than SNTV but not as much as some think.
And in fact some STV elections produce exactly the same results as SNTV elections would have - if votes had been cast the same. (and ther are not a lot of reasons why votes would be cast differently under SNTV than STV)
The multi-member district in SNTV and STV ensures that each member elected in a city is in direct relationship with each voter in the city. Something that FPTP cannot do.
(It is possible that FPTP across a city will elect the same people as STV/SNTV elections but with only one elected in each district (a sub--part of the city) there will not be the same direct relationship between the elected member and his or her supporters (who may be in other districts and thus unable to vote for the candidate, who was elected anyway - likely with less than half the votes in the district, and sometimes as few as 17 percent of the votes cast.)
of the three systems, FPTP is a lot more accidental than STV or SNTV. Although proportional representation (looking at overall votes cast and overall parties elected) is possible under FPTP, it is likely that FPTP will not be proportional. It usually does not produce the same rep as STV or SNTV. And it is certain that about half or more of the votes will be ignored even if it does happen to produce an overall fair result.)
Even looking overall (such as at the provincial level), FPTP in many cases does not produce proportional results. (If it did, we would not need top-up seats as used in MM!)
The dis-proportionality is so bad that it happens often that a province will see one party take all the seats in the province. Say this happened in Alberta, the Conservatives taking all the AB seats. (It actually has happened), then there would be no reason to - and no un-elected Conservative AB candidates - for AB to have the 10 percent top-up seats that some seem to think the Conservative would be due..
Just an example of how top-up may be not be as easy to conduct as some make it seem.
Merely creating multi-member districts (perhaps at the city scale), with 5-10 seats in a district (although 21 seats filled at once through STV is not unknown)
and giving each voter only one vote necessarily means
- no one group can take all the seats in the city
- more than one party will be elected in the city
- any candidate that gets at least as many as votes as the fraction equal to the number of seats is ensured election.
if a city has ten seats, any candidate who receives 10 percent of the votes will be elected and there is nothing the other voters can do about it.
In fact, 9 percent (1/11th) would be assured election in a 10-seat district (if Droop quota is used) but saying a fraction equal to the number of seats is easier to explain.
And one or two will be elected at the end without even the "fraction equal to the number of seats" through being the most popular as the field of candidates thins to the number of remaining seats. (Unfortunately, the process of vote counting and the transferring of votes has long been known to be harder to explain than it is to do. A simple demonstration of STV shows its easy use. Writing it out can not.)
- voters would have direct relationship with the elected members of the city, a voter could look at any MLA or MP in the city and say that is my member and in most cases would find someone among those elected whom they support - 80 percent of so of the voters would have had their vote used to actually elect someone.
- party representation would be balanced, and the individual candidates elected would be elected due to votes placed on the individual candidate by the most voters. This is due to wide range of candidates offered to voters of a district - multiple parties and slates of each major party would contain multiple candidates.
With Single voting and multi-seat districts, the district elections would be more balanced and thus the top-up needed in a MMP-style system would involve fewer seats.
A quick study of city scale elections under SNTV
(derived from Real Lavergne's table, accessible through this: Here is a link to what I have come up with.)
The new results are based on rough calculations - simply the percentages of votes received divided by SNTV fractions.
Transfers if used would change results such as through transfers from one party to another, if vote not to be wasted (NDP to Liberal, etc.), and votes cast under more Proportional system would be different than votes cast under FPTP.
An example:
St. John's 2 seats -- no party took 66 percent of the vote in 2021 so two parties would be elected under single voting. likely Lib and NDP
In 2021 federal election, St. John's elected two Liberals
fewer Lib. seats elected under new system
2021 Lib seats new result than 2021 result
St. John's (2) Lib 2 Lib 1, NDP 1 1
Montreal (22) Lib 20 Lib 11, Cons. 3, BQ 4, NDP 4 9
Toronto (52) Lib 47 Lib 25, Cons. 16, NDP 8, Greens 1 , PPC 2 22
Ottawa (8) Lib 7 Lib 4, Cons. 4, NDP 1, Greens 0 , PPC 0 3
Winnipeg (8) Lib 4 Lib 3, Cons. 3, NDP 2, Greens 0 , PPC 0 1
Edmonton/Calgary (21) 2 Lib 4, Cons. 11, NDP 6, Greens 0 , PPC 0 (2 more)
Vancouver (13) 8 Lib 5, Cons. 3, NDP 5, Greens 0 , PPC 0 3
Looking at just these 7 places (containing a good portion of Canada's population), we see the Liberal seat count go down by 37 seats.
This would decrease the size of the top-up needed in a potential MMP system.
now with 32.6 percent of the vote the Liberals have taken 123 seats (not 160 seats as they did in 2021 federal election)
123 is 32.6 percent of 377. (377 X.326 = 123)
top-up (377-338 = 39)
so just 39 more seats would be needed (not the 153 top-up seats based on FPTP district elections that some mioght think necessary - 153 is needed to give Conservatives a lead over Liberals and/or their due share of seats based on the 34 percent of of seats they were due.)
And the voter did not do one thing differently -- he or she still went and cast one vote.
Only the vote counting was different. The votes were put together in city-wide tallies, not artificially divided into various single-member districts. Thus, different districts and the number or members elected in each district was different, while the number elected in each city and province would remain the same.
Benefits - wider range of candidates offered to voters; higher proportion of effective votes/satisfied voters; less "vote-bending" through strategic voting; better, more direct representation
I could go for a system like that.
Malta uses post-election top-up in its STV system. Because it uses thirteen 5-member districts, some dis-proportionality creeps in, despite its use of PR-STV. (This is due to having many districts, with not very high District Magnitude (low number of seats in a district).) They give a couple seats after the election to a party if it has majority of the vote but had not taken a majority of the seats. Very fair and simple.
Canada could do that too. Seldom though would a Canadian party take a majority of the votes. often under MMP, top-up is more all-encompassing than just ensuring majority votes equals majority of seats.
Canada could apply the top-up with beneficial results. (There would be some technicalities to work out as far as preserving provincial constitutional representation and who would win, though).
I suggest that more fair district elections (through multi-seat districts and Single Voting) would make top-up easier to use.
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How does STV work without party lists?
STV does not derive its proportionality from being based on parties.
Instead STV derives its proportionality by its high rate of effective votes, votes actually used to elect someone - no way each party or voting block does not get about its due share of seats if 80 to 90 percent of votes are used to actually elect someone and if each elected member is elected with same or about the same number of votes, as is done under STV.
(admitted under STV the vote may be used to elect someone not the voter's first preference (but half or more of the votes are used to elect the first preference, or show first preference for a candidate who is elected ). instead under STV the vote may be used to elect someone else for whom the voter marked a preference.)
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