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Tom Monto

STV would work for large country like Canada

Updated: Nov 17, 2023

it is said that STV is only totally used in two small countries - Malta and Ireland. Australia also uses it at national levelbut just for the upper house.


Could it work in Canada?


STV is a district-level system so size of country should not have significance.


In the history of the world, STV has been used in a district electing 21 members, and is still being used at that scale today.


New South Wales has 8M people and is 810,000 sq. kms in size.

the election of the legislative council is done at-large state-wide.


Districts - multi-member districts - could be used to break up the voting body if that scale is seen as too large.


But actually such would seldom be necessary.


Populaiton size

Only Ontario and Quebec have more people than NSW.

All other provinces have fewer people and thus fewer voters so that is not an issue.

if it works in Australia, it could work in Canada.


Land area

Only Ontario, Quebec and BC -- and NWT and Nunavut -- are larger in size than NSW.


NWT and Nunavut and Yukon each have just one MP so PR is not a possibility if each territory is treated as a separate district. (and they are generally regarded as too large to join together in a MMD anyway. But maintaining each as a single-member district would have no big effect on proportionality - they are only three seats anyway.


Alberta, Sask, Man, NFLD and Labrador, NB, NS and PEI are each smaller in size than NSW.


Number of members

When it comes to number of members, most provinces do have more than 21 MPs.


Sask, NFLD, NB, NS and PEI each have fewer than 21 MPs so a province-wide district is possible, if it is desired.


AB and Manitoba have more MPs than 21 so they would need to be divided into two or more districts, if 21 is taken as the largest possible MMDs in a new Canadian electoral system.


As well, as mentioned, Ontario, Quebec and BC would also have to be divided into two or more districts if 21 is taken as maximum possible DM.


The maximum of 21 members as District Magnitude likely is important due to complication of voters having to mark preferences for a hundred or more candidates - especially that is true in Australia where sometimes any ballot not bearing full marked preferences is declared rejected. (Canada in the past has never used STV where every canddidate has to be ranked.)


But if Indirect STV is used, the maximum practical DM could be likely much larger. Or conversely the job for voters would be much easier even if 21 seats were still filled in a contest that was conducted under Indirect STV.


see my blog "Indirect STV - the happy medium between full STV and typical X voting"


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In defence of optional-preferential STV


if people don't like ranked voting they don't have to under the optional-preferential STV system used in ireland, malta and historically in Canada -- if you do not or did not want to mark back-up preferences you do/did not have to. (You just mark your first preference just like in FPTP.


Even at that STV works and worked better than FPTP - in STV you have choice of 15 or more candidates to choose from and choice even within each party slate.


Most votes go to first preferences anyway and most candidates in winning position in the first count go on to be elected, so back-up preferences and vote transfers make little difference.


but what transfers do is either confirm the fairness of the first count positions or make small changes so that more voters' choices are actually used to elect someone.

(any change in candidates in winning position arises from electing someone more generally acceptable or if same candidates remain in winning positions the vote transfers shift votes so more votes go to the people already in winning positions.


Those two different possible outcomes are what drives transfers -

- which will it be? will an initially-less-popular candidate pass someone initially in winning position or not?)

Single voting in MMD is the backbone of STV and does not depend on vote transfers.


STV vote transfers do change candidates' vote tallies, and vote tallies at the end are different from vote tallies in first count.


Whether candidates' first-count vote tallies or candidates' votes at the end are used to collate and compose parties' due share of seats, the result is broadly proportional in either case. (I have not seen a case where that is not true - if DM is more than 3.


I say this because in every election the candidates in winning positions in the first count are of different parties (more than one party is represented) so mixed representation is already established in the first count.


Advantage of MMD and fair voting (STV or district list PR or SNTV) is that each voter has an elected member whose sentiment he or she shares, or someone very similar, actually representing the district where the voter lives.


No SMD can do that. but of course no one is defending FPTP.


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1913 New South Wales, Australia

Sydney Evening News (June 27, 1913)

A writer laid out the reasons for PR (STV) - how the election results are absurd and the wrong kind of men are being elected - those who can win in the nomination process and then rely on the party machine ot get them elected.

He outlined the three steps needed to bring STV into use:

1. change to multi-member distrcits (he sees DM of 5, 4 to 7, or city-wide districts (of 11 for Birmingham, 10 for Liverpool, etc. he says odd number of seats is best as it allows a party with a majority of votes to easily take a majority of seats.)

2. have votes mark ballots with numbers instead of crosses

3. prepare election officials for vote counting with ranked votes

He says the first is comparatively simple, the second is simplicity itself, and the third concerns only the officials - and as the process is laid out with established rules, "the process to be followed can be understood by anyone possessing ordinary intelligence."



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