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Tom Monto

STV an unusual abbreviation. Do you prefer "transferable preferential voting"?

Updated: Jun 28, 2021

I have looked through old Alberta newspapers and don't find any use of the abbreviation "STV" in newspapers from 1920 to 1960. Many other terms were used instead.


STV is the abbreviation of Single Transferable Voting, the name of a system that produces proportional representation through election of multiple members using transferable votes. The system was invented by Thomas Hare in Britain in 1859 and independently by Danish politician Carl Andrae at the same time. Hare envisioned an election where Britain was one single district electing all the MPs at one time in one large contest.


A major modification was made by Catherine Helen Spence of Australia (who lived 1825-1910). She saw the advantages of district elections, each district electing multiple members. There would be local representation (at city level for example); reasonably-sized ballots; only a reasonable number of candidates offered to each voter. STV was sometimes called Hare-Spence in Australia and even in Canada.


Another pioneer of pro-rep was Andrew Clarke, an Australian politician. Due to his importance, in Australia STV was sometimes called Hare-Clark.


A cataloguing of references to proportional representation is confused by the fact that a different system also used transferable preferential votes.


Alternative Voting AKA Instant Runoff Voting is the election of a single member through transferable preferential votes AKA preferential voting AKA single transferable voting. Sometimes it is called "Preferential Voting." This was the name it appeared under when it was adopted for the 1913 Lethbridge city election, the first municipal election where ranked (preferential) voting was used in Canada. (Ponoka Herald, February 19, 1914 and Empress Express, March 27, 1914)


Under Alternative Voting, to be declared elected you must have support from a majority of the voters. Lethbridge switched to this when it adopted the stream-lined Commission form of government. Lethbridge was one of few places in country to adopt the commissioner system so strongly that it literally disbanded its city council when it did so.


Calgary never did disband its city council but instead adopted STV for the election of its councillors. The system was simply called proportional representation at this time.


With the proven success of ranked voting in Lethbridge and Calgary city elections, and with the electoral victory of the UFA, in part on the promise of electoral reform in 1921, the provincial government turned to ranked voting when it organized a referendum on Prohibition in 1923. The use of ranked voting was surely caused by the fact that john D. Hunt himself was its organizer, as clerk of the legislative council.


Alternative Voting was used at the provincial level for the first time in 1923. The term "single transferable voting" appears in coverage of the 1923 liquor referendum. This is a bit different than "real" Single Transferable Voting because the referendum was the "election" of one of four options presented to voters, not multiple winners.


By 1923, STV had been used in two provincial elections in Manitoba, in three Winnipeg city elections and in six city elections in Calgary, and in many city elections in BC.


And by that time it had been approved for city elections in Edmonton. In 1922 Edmonton voters had voted on whether or not to bring in STV (election of multiple winners through transferable voting) for Edmonton city elections, for the election of city councillors elected at-large in one city-wide district.


STV was described in a peculiar way in 1922.

The referendum question would be for or against "election of mayor and alderman of the City of Edmonton by the system of Proportional Representation System, known as the Single Transferable Vote."

...

"at every such election every elector shall have one vote only, which may be transferable in the manner provided in such bylaw and may express a second, third or other choice to the extent of as many choices as there are candidates." (Edmonton Bulletin, Dec. 2, 1922).


Things were less clear back then, and the terminology used in the old days was fuzzy.


The election of mayor was to be by the use of single transferable votes but not "Single Transferable Voting." The mayor, being a single person, could never by elected by a proportional system and STV is proportional.


Instead the Edmonton mayor was to be elected by Alternative Voting AKA Instant runoff Voting. Already by that time Alternative Voting had been used in several city elections in Canada.


Lethbridge was the first city in Canada to use Alternative Voting in 1913, when it was (again inaccurately) called Hare-Spence. Hare-Spence was the Australian name for STV, in which multiple winners are elected. But Lethbridge was electing its city commissioners in single-winner contests at that time. (Lethbridge Herald, Oct. 8, 1913)


The United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) contemplated the adoption of STV, what it called the "Hare system of transferable voting," to elect its seven vice-presidents at large. The ranking of vice-presidents (first vice-president, second v-p, etc.) would be set by the number of First-Count votes each received. The proposal was put forward by the Fertile Plains UFA Local Union No. 210. (Grain Growers Guide, Nov. 19, 1913)


The 1914 UFA convention was held in Lethbridge, the centre of preferential voting in Canada. But even so the proposal was voted down. (Grain Growers Guide, Jan. 28, 1914)


Within a couple years the UFA did adopt STV for the election of its executive, but leader Henry Wise Wood successfully pushed for its removal at the 1919 convention. (Calgary Herald, Feb. 10, Oct. 23, 1919)


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Why transfer votes?

As mentioned above, both STV and Alternative Voting uses the voting system that in the 1910s was called "transferable preferential voting," ranked ballots that could be transferred to reduce waste of votes and to increase the number of votes represented by the elected members.


When is a preferential vote not transferable?

Under the Broda count system, the preferences are not used to conduct transfers but instead to elect the most widely-popular candidates. The preferences marked by voter are weighted depending on the strength of the preference marked and then used to determine the winner. They are weighted so that the secondary preferences are not used as strongly as the voters' first preference.


The weighting can work like this:

when there are four preferences,

the most-preferred candidate is given four points,

the second-most preferred candidate is given three points,

the third-most-preferred preference is given two points

and the least-preferred candidate is given one point.

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

STV mostly simply known as proportional representation


STV was simply called "proportional representation" when it was discussed in 1916. Such was the case when John H. Humphreys addressed the Canadian Club at Ottawa in 1916. Humphreys was general secretary of the British Proportional Representation Society, of which Canada's former governor general, Earl Grey, was the president. The Edmonton Bulletin (Jan 10, 1916) reported that Ottawa voters had voted to switch to PR for city elections.


As "proportional representation", it was adopted for the election of city councillors in Calgary in 1917. That city would use STV for city elections for the next 40 years.

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The first use of "transferable preferential voting" at the provincial level was in Alberta's 1923 liquor referendum.


Because just one of the four choices would be chosen, the 1923 referendum was an example of Alternative Voting, not proportional STV.


In describing the process to be used in the 1923 liquor referendum, reformer and civil servant John D. Hunt explained Alternative Voting this way.


"By what electoral method is the issue to be decided?

By the use of the single preferential vote


"How does the vote by the single preferential vote plan differ from that of the ordinary election?

It differs in two respects -

a. in the method of marking the ballot

b. in the method of ascertaining the result.


How is the ballot marked under the single transferable, preferential vote method?


Each voter must mark 1 opposite his first choice of the four different options submitted. [these were: continued Prohibition; government sale of liquor/private bar; bars; and another slightly different option.]

The voter may stop at this if he wants to, but the method provides for him to go on and mark 2 opposite his second choice, 3 opposite his third choice, and four opposite his fourth choice, thus showing the order of preferences for all the choices.


The reason for marking his other choices, in addition to the first choice, will appear when the method of arriving at the result of the election is considered.


How is the result of an election ascertained under the single transferable preferential vote method?

[He shared a wordy and all-too-technical description of how the vote will be conducted. The method used was unusual as it was a vote held across the whole province, not just in one electoral district.]

His description can be summarized as:

Votes are inspected and vote tallies for each of the four options are produced.

if no option has a majority of votes across the province, the least-popular choice is defeated, and the ballots bearing votes marked for the defeated option are re-allocated based on the next marked back-up. This was to be repeated as necessary until one option secured majority of the votes. Because many voters did not rank all four options, it was expected that some would be incapable of transfers at a certain point, in which case the majority required for election would be decreased by the existence of such "exhausted"' ballots.)


"At the close of the poll on election day, each deputy returning officer [at the polling place level] sorts the valid ballots and makes a statement of the number of first choices, votes cast for each of the options, without regard to whether there are or are not any other choices marked on the ballots, and sends the statement to the returning official.


Each returning officer [at the district level] at the proper time and place makes a statement (from the statements of the deputy returning officers) of the number of first choice votes cast for each choice in his electoral district and sends the report to the clerk of the executive council. The clerk of the executive council makes a statement from the statement of the returning officials of the number of first choices cast for each option in the province.


Under the ordinary method of ascertaining the result of the election, the option having the largest number of first choices would be declared carried, irrespective of whether it had a majority of the votes cast or not.


Under the single transferable preferential vote method, the option having the largest number of first choices is not declared carried [passed] unless it has more than half of the total number of first choices cast.

...

If none of the piles of votes cast for each option contain more than half the votes cast, he declares the choice having the least number of votes defeated.

..

[After the votes are gathered together in Edmonton] Each ballot belonging to the defeated candidate is inspected and put in one of the other three remaining piles indicated by the voter's second choice marked on it.


If there is no second choice on some of the ballots, they are set aside and not counted, and the voters who marked 1 only for the defeated option lost their votes.

[The votes that bear no usable back-up preferences are put on a pile marked "exhausted."]


If any of the three piles now contains more than half the total number of votes ballots in the three piles, the option represented by it is declared carried.

...

The voter has but one vote. It is only in the event of his first choice being declared defeated and the ballots in the pile distributed to the other piles that his second choice is counted, and only in the event of his first and second choices being declared defeated that his third choice is counted and so on.


In that case are second choices never counted?

The second choice on original ballots cast for the winning option are not taken into consideration when the first choices are counted, and the second choices on the original ballots cast for the option that is beaten in the final count are not taken into consideration when the first choices are counted. [As well, second choices marked on ballots are not taken into consideration if an option wins a majority on the first count.]

...

Unless an option is declared defeated and the ballots on the pile distributed to the other piles, second choices are not counted. In other words, the second choice is not counted unless the first choice is out of the contest." (Wetaskiwin Times, Oct. 4, 1923)

-------------------------------


This explanation was followed by a full pretend run-through of the referendum election using single transferable preferential votes to choose just one option.


In the event, government sale of liquor and private bars was chosen by a majority of votes in the first count so no transfers were required.


In fact voters in favour of Prohibition were discouraged from marking back-up preferences. Methodist leaders encouraged their church members to "plump for Prohibition." This seems to go against proper strategy under preferential voting, but in fact it was just commonsense, based on accurate forecasting of the vote, as it turned out. (Wetaskiwin Times, June 7, 1923)


Any back-up preference marked on a Prohibition ballot would be used only if Prohibition was the least-popular choice. Any marked back-up preferences could do no harm to Prohibition's cause but they were a waste of time according to Prohibition leaders. They correctly foresaw that Prohibition would be very popular, and if it did not win, it would be either the first or second choice, so votes cast for Prohibition would never be transferred to another option, even if no option received a majority of votes on the first count.


In this they were correct - Prohibition was the second-most-popular choice. No transfers were conducted in the count anyway because the most popular choice - government sale of liquor and bars - took a majority of the votes on the First Count.


So that was how Alternative Voting was described back in 1923.

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Before the next Alberta provincial election, proportional representation (STV) was brought in to elect MLAs in the province's main cities. The system was simply described as proportional representation or in more detail as "voting by the transferable or preferential ballot" or "the application of the preferential vote where there are several members to be elected." That was what John D. Hunt called it in his 1924 pamphlet A Key to P.R., which helped people understand the new system when Alberta adopted it for election of twelve of its MLAs - five MLAs in Edmonton, five in Calgary, two in Medicine Hat.


In these three cities in 1926, and for the next seven elections just in Edmonton and Calgary, quota was used to produce successful candidates. Quota was the important thing, not a simple lead in votes as in FPTP, nor achievement of a majority of the vote as in Alternative Voting. The quota is mathematically derived but is not complicated, simply a little more than the number of valid votes divided by one more than the number of seats. Using the quota ensures that mostly members are elected by the same number of votes, an easy way to ensure fairness.


Together the successful candidates in each city in each election did represent the majority of the voters. This is not achieved by the winners in First Past The Post elections used today where more votes are wasted than go to elect winners. Such was the case in the 2017 Edmonton city election.


Under STV, transfers are used to ensure as few votes are wasted as possible.


(Check my other blogs for information on the use of STV in elections in western Canada.)


But the term "Single Transferable Voting" was never used much.


In the Edmonton 1922 referendum, city voters did vote in favour of switching to STV. During the five elections it was used to elect Edmonton city councillors, 1923-1928, it was merely called "proportional representation" or the "Single Transferable Vote."


STV the British form of PR

STV was called the British form of PR, because under it voters elect individual candidates. This is unlike the party-list PR used in continental Europe, where merely party affiliation was polled and individual people elected by choice of the party involved.


And in the British Empire, STV was the usual system used where PR was adopted. It was used in Malta, Ireland, Australia and Canada at both city and lower state elections.


Other systems have been used in the British Empire. FPTP of course. Occasionally even Block Voting, where multiple members are elected in a district (but without transfers and with each voter casting as many votes as there were seats to be filled).


It is said that five systems are currently used in UK, including at the city level.

"The five electoral systems used are: the single member plurality system (first-past-the-post), the multi-member plurality system, the single transferable vote, the additional member system and the supplementary vote." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_the_United_Kingdom#:~:text=The%20five%20electoral%20systems%20used,system%20and%20the%20supplementary%20vote)

The various usages are:

Single-member plurality system is used for elections to the House of Commons, and elsewhere as well.

Multi-member plurality system (Block Voting) is used in some local elections in England and Scotland (community councils).

STV is used in Northern Ireland Assembly elections and in some local elections in Scotland (local authority councils).

Additional Member system is used in Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and London Assembly elections

(Additional Member systems are of two types:

London Assembly elections - Mixed-Member Proportional system (one London-wide district)

Scottish Parliament elections -- regionalized MMP -- Scotland divided into 8 electoral regions.)

Supplementary Vote system is used in London mayoral elections.

Of the four systems, STV and the Additional Member systems are proportional.


Also when Britain was part of the European Union, election to the European Parliament was conducted in a closed-list party-list system. Each country in the EU could determine how its members would be elected. However the system must be a form of proportional representation, under either the party list or the single transferable vote system. UK adopted a party-list system, where voters cast votes that allocated the seats to parties but the parties themselves filled the seat by naming individuals. But those elections are now no more with Britain leaving the EU.)


STV's deep roots in the British Commonwealth

But other than FPTP and Block Voting, STV has the deepest roots in the British Commonweatlh countries. STV was used to elect government members in Tasmania starting in 1890s and is used in elections to the Australian Senate. It is also currently used in election of local boards of government in New Zealand and a few other places in the world. For a short time around 1920 it was used in elections in Northern Ireland, and is now again in use for elections of member of that body.

(See Wikipedia: "Single transferable vote").


STV was also used in several Canadian jurisdictions, at both the city and provincial levels.


The cities of Edmonton and Calgary elected their MLAs through STV from 1924 to 1956, when the Alberta provincial government changed those elections to use first-past-the-post.


The city of Winnipeg elected its MLAs through STV from 1920 to 1955, when the Manitoba provincial government changed those elections to use first-past-the-post.


Less well known is STV use at the municipal level in western Canada. The cities of Calgary and Winnipeg used STV for more than 40 years before city elections were changed to first-past-the-post or Block Voting. (In these plurality systems, a relative lead in votes over the contenders determines the winners, with no guarantee that they have the support of a majority of voters.)


Eighteen other municipalities, including the capital cities of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, also used STV in about 100 elections during the 1918-1931 period.


STV was also used in city elections in South Africa.

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STV has also been used outside the British Commonwealth.


It was used for election of government representatives in Denmark in the 1800s and for city elections in the U.S. from 1913 to the present.


STV is used currently in city elections in Cambridge, Massachusetts. New York City has recently moved away from First Past The Post but did not change to STV but instead moved to Alternative Voting.


Recently an Ontario city also switched to Alternative Voting. London, Ontario used AV for its 2018 city election. But has now been forced to switch back to FPTP.


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Thanks for reading.

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