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Tom Monto

Voters marking only one preference in STV elections not large problem

There is idea that voters able to mark only one preference under new Australia law may threaten whole goodness of STV system in use there. But I believe that the STV system - where each voter casts only one vote in a multi-member district - produces goodness even if voters only mark one preference. Here is what I wrote the Electoral Reform Society (UK) on the subject. ----------------------------------------------------- RE: "A Small change has potential to make a big difference in Australian elections"


Voters marking only one choice seems to be not as serious as is presented. Even where voters mark only one preference, STV is not like FPTP and does not produce the same results as FPTP.

It may be true that in NSW "approximately two-thirds of the NSW public vote as though it were First Past the Post." But the district election official do not collect the votes as they would do under FPTP -- and the election system produces different results than would be produced under FPTP. Just as it is wrong to think that STV is ineffective if vote transfers make no change to the front runners in the First Count, same is it wrong to overlook the importance of STV even if voters mark only one preference.


Under FPTP the single candidate with the most votes - even a minority of the vote - is elected and no others are. Compounded across several districts across a city, a single party may take all the city's seats and the other parties have no representation. But in STV, say in a city-wide district where all the city's old FPTP are grouped together, this is impossible. (Usually) no single party takes all the seats, Mixed roughly-proportional representation is produced in almost all cases, at leat as much a the number of seats allows. Voters marking only one choice under STV leads to a form of Single Non-Transferable Voting.


SNTV and STV mean each voter casts only one vote in a multi-member district. That alone provides mixed and proportionate representation of the substantial groups in the district Under STV, most of the front runners in the First Count are elected in the end even after vote transfers. In many cases, no change at all is made to front runners in the First Count. In others only as much as half the front-runners are replaced by initially lower-ranking candidates. Sometimes a front runner is replaced by an initially-lower-ranking candidate of the same party. There is no positive increase in proportionality achieved through vote transfer in that case.


Even before any vote transfers, the STV system - of each voter casting only one vote in a multi-member district - is robust enough that mixed roughly-proportional ordering of candidates is achieved already in the First Count.


A source in the UK tells me for example, in a 4-member ward most of the four “front runners” in the first count will be elected in most STV elections. The analysis of the data from the 2007 Irish elections shows that only 35 (18%) of the three “front runners” in the 190 three-member wards were not elected and that only 20 (12%) of the four “front runners” in the 163 four-member wards were not elected. These figures are particularly low because of parties’ policy of nominating only one candidate where they expect to win only one seat (which, of course, denies the voters within-party choice. So the pretty-much certain election of the front runners of the First Count is not just something that occurs in Canadian STV elections.


Proportionate results are produced by the first count, even without vote transfers. No such thing happens in the First (and only) Count under FPTP. SNTV is just taking the vote tallies in the First Count of a STV election to be the final vote tallies and the most popular candidates are declared elected. Under SNTV, of course, no vote transfers are performed. But pretty much the same result is achieved as under STV, as outlined above.


SNTV (as does STV) have the benefits of multi-member districts, obviously not seen in FPTP elections. The larger "grouped districts" mean less gerrymandering (and less reason to gerrymander as parties are proportionately represented in each district anyway). Also less dividing of voter blocks, less separation of candidate from his or her supporters who happen to be in a different district. Also parties with substantial but thinly-spread support have better chance to get at least one seat in the larger district, And less waste because there are less separate contests where splinters of a party are stopped from helping each other and are ignored.


And even SNTV means the amount of strategic voting - where voters perceive their real preference have too little chance and so throw their vote perhaps wrongly in favour of a secondary preference - is less frequent than under FPTP. The amount is decreased even more under STV where voters mark all their back-up preferences, or at least many but even under SNTV it can be seen.

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I should have also pointed out many ballots go to their first preference so having only one preference is not problem for sure in those cases. Usually one or two are elected on First Count. Thus a quota or two worth of votes find homes without recourse to second choice. As well, all first preferences placed on those who would win in the end did not have any need to have any back-up preferences marked on them. So voters marking only one preference would make no difference in the result in those cases. See my blog on the subject of benefits of multi-member districts: "STV multi-member districts produce fair and mixed representation".


Thanks for reading.

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