The term Single Transferable Voting (STV) includes voting systems with different rules. It is not a single system but instead a family of voting systems. But it is a family. These systems are related so I still find STV to be a useful term.
According to Farrell and McAllister Australian Electoral System origins, variations and consequences [a book in my collection]:
STV has the potential to promote intra-party factionalism and excessive attention by politicians to localist, particularist concerns [says Taagepera 1999] p. 58
"Designing Electoral Institutions STV..." Farrell Political Studies March 1996
according to an abstract, this article indicates that STV varies so widely in its form and application, differing on no less than five major characteristics, that it is impossible to identify any single generic type. These differences are also reflected in the party strategies that are used to maximize the vote under STV.
A regression analysis of the various types of STV shows that Malta is the most proportional system, followed by Ireland and Tasmania.
Ireland has the largest party system among the countries that use STV, net of other factors.
Malta has a two-party system despite the fairness for small parties produced by STV. Due to its two-party system and the need to try to make the two-party system work fairly, Malta has brought in a top-up for the most popular party. This compensates for any possible unfair seat tallies caused by the splitting of the voters into districts. The splitting of the voters is lessened but not eliminated by the use of multi-member districts (five is the typical District Magnitude used in that island-nation), and without the compensatory top-up it has happened that a wrong winner is produced (a less-popular party wins the most seats).
District-based PR in Canada, such as STV, would result in only roughly proportional seat tallies party by party, in part this is necessary as seats would be filled at the provincial scale at the highest, due to the constitution. And disproportionality would increase the smaller and more multitudinous the districts used.
But still the result would be more proportionate and regionally balanced than under our present single-member plurality system.
Provincial balance could be achieved in a Mixed Member Proportional system such as the provincial-based MMP system I propose elsewhere. If each major party is assured at least one seat in each of the larger provinces, even if that is produced by an arbitrary top-up, it would go a long way to produce fairness and reduce the regionalism that is causing discord today.
If Canada's PR system combined STV in city-wide districts and a party-vote derived provincial top-up, even if it helps the four major parties in each province equally, it would be much more fair and would help Canada as a country much more than the present non-proportional SMP system.
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