STV transfers - are they lots of work or not much? Are they pretty much unavoidable if ranked votes are used?

I say the work involved in STV transfers is not so much, despite how many people exaggerate it. Elsewhere a blog points out how they are not as complicated as many seem to think.

Ranked votes have purpose of reducing waste and increasing effective votes (both mean same thing but each is important in different ways.)

ranked votes also (may) change who wins, as to make more voters happy, diff people may be elected than at first indicated.

high number of effective votes through ranked votes means 

IRV in single-winner district, majority is happy with result - majoritarian

STV in MMD means 80 to 90 percent are happy, although majority of votes is rep. by mixture of diff parties normally

Allowing ranked votes but only within the same party is similar to how Malta STV works in practice (leaving ouit un-important small parties)

!st Count - First preferences, the votes for each of the two major parties is determined, and therefore its seat share.

thereafter, the vote count pretty much becomes two separate contests, with votes not crossing party lines, and votes in each party eventually concentrating behind the number of members that was determined to be the party's share of seats in the district.

But Malta has two party system.

Canada already even with FPTP has 3-5 party system federally.

If say Greens have not quota in a district and therefore lget no seats, should the vote be simply discarded instead of being able to go to say Lib or NDP to try to help a candidate of that party get elected?

STV says let it go to where voter chooses as back-up if circumstance allow

ranked vote process is not so complicated.

Ireland upper house elected 25 in one STV contest back in 1925, just with pen and paper and longhand division when necessary!)

as one source recently noted, only time all the votes are counted is in the first count, 

thereafter most transfers are simply looking at the ballots  of the eliminated candidate and moving each ballot to pile identified as the next usable marked backup preference, or to exhausted pile.

transfers of elected candidates (only 24 of them at the most in a 25-seat contest) are derived by reductionist math, but simple to do.

to derive X (transfer to candidate B), calculate  [X is to surplus votes] same as [votes marked for B is to relevant votes].

FORMULA:

B                            =             X                      

relevant votes                    surpus votes

"relevant votes" is sometimes only last parcel of votes received by elected candidate, 

say in Cavan-Managhan district, 2020 dail election

(access: 2020-05-01_33rd-dail-general-election-results_en.pdf)

 1st Count 72,000 votes were counted.

2nd Count transfer of the surplus votes of Carthy who won in the 1st Count, 

about 16,000 votes were consulted to see next usable marked preference on each and 4200 votes were transferred to other candidates.

3rd Count Tully's surplus votes transferred

last parcel received was 3300 votes, so a bit, for sure, but not the tens of thousands of votes that might be thought to be  "relevant".

3300 votes consulted.

her surplus was 1000, so 1000 of those 3300 votes  were added to other candidates. 

7 of the other 8 transfers were simple look-and-move-vote method. (about 16,000 votes in total consulted and transferred)

Count 5 Humphreys' surplus votes transferred, 13,000 votes consulted, 777 votes moved to other candidates. 

(Humphreys was elected in 1st Count, and received no more votes after that, but not until Count 5 was the surplus important enough to be transferred.)

last two seats filled at end, ending vote count process.

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Carthy's 16,000 votes that had to be checked for back-up preferences might seem like a lot, 

the buik of work was done in first count when in Cavan-Monaghan's case, 72,000 votes were counted.

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