Single Transferable Voting explained in Alberta context
Single Transferable Voting is put forward by many as a replacement for our present electoral system. STV uses multi-member districts where each voter casts only one vote. This produces mixed representation in each district where it is used, with each party receiving about as many seats as its vote tallies warrants and no one party taking all the seats in a district. As well, voters mark their ranked preferences for individual candidates so the most popular of a party's candidates take any seats a party is due.
This was how it consistently operated in the 46 Calgary city elections it was used between 1917 and 1971. STV was also used by 19 other Western Canadian cities, including the capital cities of all the western provinces. It was used in eight provincial elections to elect Calgary and Edmonton MLAs between 1926 and 1955 and to elect Winnipeg MLAs in 9 elections.
STV, a district-level electoral system, is voter-driven and candidate-based. It is credited with ensuring that every substantial group within a city/district has at least one seat, that no party receives much more than its vote tally; that in each substantial party the candidates most popular among voters are elected; that to win a majority of seats a party must have a majority of votes. These things are not produced consistently under FPTP.
The multi-member districts required by STV can be easily created by grouping all the electoral districts of a city, for example. The number of seats in each city-district will vary depending on the size of the city.
Under our present First Past The Post elections, only one representative is elected in each district and all the votes cast for other candidates are ignored. These wasted votes sometimes exceed two-thirds of the votes cast. To prevent waste of votes, votes under STV are transferable so when placed on less-popular candidate they are transferred when possible to help decide winners. As well, surplus votes received by those elected are transferred to other candidates based on back-up preferences marked by voters. In a five-member district, surplus votes would be those over and above about one-fifth or one-sixth of the votes.
The Single Voting and the vote transfers ensure that 75 to 90 percent of voters participate in determining winners under STV.
Under STV, more than one representative is elected in a district, and a variety of sentiments reflecting the variety of voters' sentiments are represented by those elected. All the balanced representatives elected in districts across a province or the country will combine to create a proportional legislature or House of Commons.
But extreme candidates and small extreme parties do not get a windfall of seats under STV. No party gets much more seats than its vote tally indicates. A small party may get a seat or two that it would not have received under FPTP. But without a majority of the votes it will not take a majority of seats. And the other parties with a combined majority of votes and seats may join together to pass laws approved by a majority of voters. Under FPTP, the leading minority party usually receives a windfall of seats and a majority of seats, thus creating minority rule.
To bring STV into use in any part of a province or the country is as simple as grouping some of our existing districts together to make one multi-member district. This can be done by simply saying that all the districts in a city will be grouped to make one district and then giving the new city-wide district the same number of seats that the old districts had. Or counties or other already-existing territories could be used as base for the new large districts.
Elections in that district would use transferable votes, so a change of look to the ballots and instruction of the voters would be necessary. A voter would mark numbers, as many or as few as they want, instead of an X, but know that only one of his or her choices could be used to elect someone.
The vote count at the polling places would be exactly the same as under the present system except that the number 1s, not the Xs, is the only thing counted. Election officials at the district office would be trained to deal with any vote transfers that may be needed. All of this was done before so it is not mysterious.
And the result is mixed representation from each district, with each party receiving a number of seats relative to its popularity, as demonstrated by first choice or a combination of first choices and transferred votes.
A variety of representatives being sent from each city to the legislature and to the House, and a mixture of representatives being sent from each province to the House would deflate regionalism and generally prevent a province or part of a province being left out of a government caucus.
Voters would have a wider range of candidates to choose from, being able to choose among a variety of parties and a choice of candidates of individual parties. And voters would have liberty to do this, because if the vote is initially cast for an unpopular candidate, it could be transferred to another where it might be useful, if the voter has indicated his or her desire for that to happen. Voters would not be prevented as much by district boundaries from voting with their neighbours or for their neighbour.
STV results in a large percentage of votes being used to help elect the candidates, with a minimum wastage of votes. This produces higher voter turn-out and generally more voter satisfaction.
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