When voters can cast multiple votes, confusion reigns over the determination of the popularity of the candidates elected.
In the Wikipedia site on the Toronto elections in the 1886 and 1890 Ontario elections, the percentage of vote received has been calculated and is recorded. But the percentage of votes received does not indicate percentage of voters who favoured the candidate because some voters cast two votes each.
If a candidate received say 37 votes out of 100 cast but 50 people voted, each casting two votes, is it fair to say that he has 37 percent popularity, or should it be 74 percent?
Red Deer in its report of its municipal election [elections.reddeer.ca], where 19,000 voters cast 122,000 votes, does the same, giving 10 percent value to a person who received 12,000 votes (implication being 10 percent popularity).
I have seen other at-large municipal election results where they calculate the number of voters who voted and give out percentages based on that, thus
A 3000 votes 60%
B 2750 votes 58%
C 2400 votes 56% and so on.
This leads one to wonder what does percentage mean if not out of one hundred?
If A and B are of the same beliefs, how much overlap was there of their two voting blocks? We cannot know from these published results.
The solution to this madness is to give each voter one vote and maintain the multi-member districts. STV could be created that easily, with addition of transferable votes. This would give proportionality, mixed representation and less confusion all around.
Thanks for reading.
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