Election Systems - Strengths and Weaknesses (An Electoral Reform syllabus/short course)
Updated: 2 days ago
work in progress....
What is purpose of voting and elections?
perhaps many answers
but two main ones we want to hear are:
- to fill seats in legislative chambers
- to record voters' sentiment.
in last election, did your vote achieve anything for either of these goals?
Under the election system we use, the chances are good that your vote was disregarded and elected no one. This means no one represents you directly in the legislature.
Despite public appeals for you to vote, when you do bother to vote, often your vote is simply ignored.
You might as well not have bothered.
But it does not have to be that way.
in Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand and many other countries, almost all voters see their vote used to elect someone.
They use systems known as Proportional Representation - parties are represented in accordance with their share of the votes cast, and a large proportion of votes cast are used to actually elect someone.
Parties learn to work together, voters are mostly satisfied, and the voter turnout rate is high.
Pretty much the exact opposite is happening in Canada today.
Many parties get much fewer seats than they deserve based on their vote share; in many districts the member is elected with the support of only a minority of voters in the district.
Some districts have elected Liberals for decades seemingly with no chance for others to be elected; other districts have elected Conservatives with the same unvarying regularity. Voters who support other parties have given up, and voter turnout rate is low.
A party with less than half or sometimes less than 40 percent of the vote is elected to majority government. This is minority rule as the majority of votes did not support the government in power.
Sometimes whole cities and whole provinces elected polticians of jsot one party with all others simply unrepresented.
Parties do not work together and elections re called early so the government can try to benefit from what might be fleeting rises in popularity. Even a 5 percent or ten percent rise in popularity might mean an increase in 20 or 30 sets under our chancy dysfunctional election system. while under a rational science-based system a five or ten percent rise in popularity should mean only 4 to 10 more seats.
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Where a single member is elected in each district, perhaps two thirds of voters in the district voted for someone else.
On the campaign trail and on election night, the victorious candidate will say they will represent every one in the district.
So then in the first vote in the legislature, the elected member stands up and says he is one third wholeheartedly in favour of the project, a third totally against and one-sixth against it at this time, and one-sixth in favour as long as it does not cost too much.
The other members laugh at him and say you must say either yes or no.
he realizes there is no way he can represent every voter in the district.
He is not a bad sort and says he just wishes that three or four others would have been elected in the district so that all his constituents could have a representative that would truly represent them.
A storm comes in, and half the other members are hurt and go to the hospital. Then a sickness comes and most of the others lose their voices and have to stay home, to rest and drink chicken soup.
The few remaining members in the legislature have to organize a new election.
The elected member says let's try some thing different. it works in most European countries and it works in many countries in Africa, in South America and in Asia. Let's get rid of the single member districts and have districts where several members are elected. Then the voters can sort themselves into various groups , which they do any way, and then each group can elect its own representatives a small group will get just one member; a larger group will elect two or three.
And no elected member has to pretend to represent a group tht did not vote that way.
But they say if we have five members in each district, we will need five times the number of elected members.
There is another way, Kelly says -- we just use larger districts -- We use whole cities or groups of counties to draw new larger districts. maybe a city only has four members now, then that city just gets four members. Say another city currently has six members each elected in separate district; under the new system six will be elected in a city-wide district. Five will be just an average or a target and some flexibility is allowed. later if populations change, the district will stay the same and the district's members will go up or down by one member.
But drawing whole new districts will cause fights and arguments.
No I don't think so, if each party gets its fair share of seats in each district, it does not matter so much how you draw the boundaries. And if you use city boundaries or counties as building blocks for districts, there is much less scope for drawiing boundaries in such a way as to benefit one party or another.
"Okay, so we have five-member districts then we just tell each voter they can cast five votes right?
No we see in other elections that that kind of Block Voting simply means the largest group perhaps only a third of voters can elect all the members in a district. To prevent this and ensure fairness, each voter must have just one vote.
people sputtered and gasped at this
Kelly held up his hand would you rather see each large group elect a member so almost all are represented, or have one group elect all five members when chances are that you will not be in that one large group?"
The others fell back in their chairs, and it was clear that they realized having one group elect all five members would not be fair.
"So each party runs just one candidate in the district and the five most-popular are elected? What about if a party has like half the votes it should elect two or three in the district but if it runs only one candidate it cannot elect more than one one...
Kelly says yes we want parties to run a wide range of candidates, men and women, young and old, a variety that will appeal to as many votes as possible.
But what if that party with half the votes what if the voters there vote mostly for Chris and not enough vote for Terry so Terry is not does not get enough votes to take the party's second seat.
Kelly said we just need to look at the system that Ireland has used for more than a hundred years. if a candidate takes too many votes, the surplus should be allowed to be moved to another candidate. In Ireland's system each voter marks how they want the vote to be moved if it is found to be surplus, and that takes care of the problem. Voters do not need to care fully consider how others might vote, they can simply mark their best-liked candidate and mark secondary preferences as backup alternatives and then leave it in the hands of election officials. The vote cannot go where voters does not want, and the vote will not be wasted in most cases.
So election officials determined the population figure and divided it by the number of members. it was like 90,000 people per each member.
picked out the cities with more than about 270,000 people and allocate one member per each 270,000 people. each where three or more members were elected and used city boundaries to draw up new districts - each with the same number of members are previously.
They lumped counties together as best they could into districts having populations of approximately 450,000 and gave each five seats.
while before the voters were divided into 90 seats, now they were divided into just 20 districts.
where before a some votes were unable to vote for their friends or even neighbours because of the district boundaries, now many more had wide liberty to vote for exactly whom they wanted to.
The old election system mostly elected smooth-talking lawyers who ran on general principles -- good things to everyone -- and promises to give everyone exactly what they wanted.
But now it was easier to get 90,000 voters together to vote for a bike-man, a mountain blaster, a tree hugger, a callous-handed tinsmith, a person who actually knew what needed to be done to improve garbage collection, a doctor who knew about running a hospital effectively.
And with th new districts and with each voter having one vote and with voters being able to mark secondary backup preferences, the next election saw much different result.
every district elected a variety of members - some in favour of less, some in favour of more, some women, some men, some young and some old.
no longer did a 60-year-old elected member have to pretend to know about young people's problems. Young people had their own representative now.
No longer did women who ride the bus have to go to an elected man who drove a big car and try to explain the problems with buses. now there was a bus driver elected who knew the problems and was prepared to speak to other members about the issues.
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Different voting systems have a variety of different features, ranging from how proportional they are (whether seats in parliament reflect votes cast), the connection between MPs and their communities, the extent to which voters can choose between different candidates, and the proportion of votes that are actually used to elect someone.
When establishing an election system, decisions must be made as to:
-how the electorate will be districted? Or will the electorate be used as an at-large district?
Larger districts electing more members allow smaller percentage of voters in the district to elect a member. They also divide the electorate into fewer slices so waste fewer votes and allow thinly-spread parties to have more chance for representation.
-the election system that will be used to elect the members.
PR systems waste fewer votes than First Past The Post and produce more fairness to candidates and parties than FPTP.
Ranked vote systems waste fewer votes and produce more fairness to candidates and parties than X voting, especially if used in combination with multi-member districts. They also communicate more information about voters' opinion than X voting.
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In the study of election systems there are three broad families: plurality systems, majority systems, and proportional systems.
These election systems are comprised of three distinct parts: a districting rule; a ballot structure (AKA voting system); a formula to win (goal of the election system to produce a certain type of representation.
the districting choices include single or multi-member.
the ballot structure varies from nominal (x-voting) and ranked voting (marking 1,2,3 etc on the bllot); and whether vote is for candidate or party; and the number of votes each voter can cast (and where plural voting is used, whether a voter can lump multiple votes on one candidate, as is done in obscure cumulative voting system)
Formula choices (the criterion for election) include
plurality -- largest group(s) elects member(s),
majority, and
proportional - every large group gets at least one representative.
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usual IRV single-member district; one vote per each voter,
ranked voting (1,2,3 etc.), with secondary marked preferences used as backups for transfers of vote if placed on un-electable candidate if necessary;
majoritarian - to be elected, candidate has to have support from a majority of votes.
MMD IRV (seat/post method) - separate majoritarian contest for each seat; multi-member district, in each contest one vote for each voter; ranked voting (ordinal), with lower preferences used as backups if necessary
STV multi-member district; one vote per voter, ranked voting (1,2,3 etc.), with secondary marked preferences used as backups for transfers of votes if surplus or placed on an un-electable candidate, if necessary; goal is proportional representation
partially from "Ghost of ..." Ben Issit
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Brief history of election systems used in Canada
first recorded election -- Halifax 1748 block voting in multi-seat districts; each voter has many votes; votes cast by voice and non-transferable; votes cast for candidate; pluralities represented by members (but under block voting usually one party takes all the seats)
Confederation 1867
almost all seats in House of Commons elected in single-member districts
through FPTP -- single-member riding; each voter has one vote; X voting for candidate; plurality is used to fill the seat, the plurality represented, even if not majority
But one riding elected two MPs.
Halifax was two-seat district electing using block voting -- each voter had two votes; X voting; votes cast for candidate. pluralities are used to fill the seat.
(later more ridings would have two members.)
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Mixed FPTP/Block voting used until 1970, when federal elections switched to using FPTP in single seat districts to fill all seats.
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Provincial elections at first used either all FPTP or mixture of FPTP and Block voting; or just Block Voting
Tt was realized in Ontario that both FPTP and Block Voting over-represented the most-popular party in each district.
to ensure more fairness, Limited voting brought in for Toronto MLAs in 1886.
the three Toronto MLAs elected in a city-wide district
three-seat district electing using Limited Noting -- each voter has two votes (not three as under Block voting); X voting; votes cast for candidate. pluralities are used to fill the seat, but two parties elect MLAs.
This was dropped prior to the 1894 election.
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next innovation was post/seat election system, multi-seat districts used but each seat elected in separate contest using FPTP. used in Toronto starting in 1908, Winnipeg starting in 1914.
in MMDs, voters were given separate ballots, each with just a subset of the candidates running in the district to choose from.
no improvement in fairness.
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STV Single Transferable Voting adopted to elect some MLAs in Manitoba and Alberta, 1920 in Manitoba and 1924 for Alberta
STV multi-member district; one vote per voter, ranked voting (1,2,3 etc.), with secondary marked preferences used as backups for transfers if necessary;
goal is proportional representation through each member being elected with same number of votes, so each party gets its fair share of seats.
STV was the election method used in MMDs in cities (Winnipeg, Edmonton and Calgary).
elsewhere IRV was used in single-member districts, starting in 1924.)
all voters in both provinces cast preferential ballots, although under two different election systems.
these were first use of preferential ballots in Canadian elections.
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BC adopted Instant-Runoff Voting (AKA Alternative Voting) in early 1950s.
BC had used a mixture of FPTP and Block Voting since the 1800s.
BC 1952 some districts used usual IRV
others used the MMD IRV variant (seat/post method).
usual IRV single-member district; one vote per each voter, ranked voting (ordinal), with lower preferences used as backup alternatives if necessary; Majoritarian - to be elected, candidate has to have support from a majority of votes.
MMD IRV separate majoritarian contest for each seat; multi-member district, in each contest one vote for each voter, ranked voting (ordinal), with lower prefs. used as backup alternatives if necessary. Majoritarian - to be elected, candidate has to have support from a majority of votes cast in his or her own contest.
AV (BC’s 1952 voting system) and STV used the same type of voting system – preferential ballots.
in 1952 BC used multi-member AV districts as well as single-member AV districts,
in MMDs, voters were given separate ballots each with just a subset of the candidates to choose from.
(e.g. in a two-member riding, the two CCF, Liberal, SC candidates were split between the two ballots).
Arguably the crucial difference between the two systems, and thus why the family names take on this particular characteristic, is formula used to fill the seats.
In IRV it is a majority formula (the majority taking the one seat).
while in STV it is a proportional formula (each party getting its fair share of seats).
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Tree of election systems
Single-seat district
two choices:
x voting Plurality winner FPTP
preferential ballot Majoritarian IRV
(1,2,3 etc.)
Multi-Member District
seats filled in one contest
x voting, multiple votes Plurality winners Block Voting (not proportional)
x voting, single voting Semi-Proportional SNTV
preferential ballot, single voting Proportional Rep. STV
x voting (for party), single voting Proportional Rep. List PR
each seat filled in separate contest
x voting plurality in the separate contest FPTP
preferential ballot majoritarian in the separate contest IRV
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A variety of PR systems are used in the world today.
They are all more or less equally fair.
The choice of which to use likely will arise from political culture and history, and such fundamental questions as
-Do you want to go to multi-member districts, perhaps based on existing communities on the ground?
-Do you want to keep districts much like they are and add top-up?
-Do you want to keep X voting as under FPTP, or switch to ranked votes so as to reduce waste and increase fairness?
-Do you want to let the voter vote for a candidate or for a party list, or do you want to give voter the choice of voting for a candidate or a party?
-How much do you want to change of the present FPTP system, and how much do you want to keep the same at expense of fairness?
-What changes will voters accept?
-What changes will elected members accept?
In the following presentation, I made the decision that:
Each voter is to have one vote. (It makes counting easier and allows clear analysis of proportionality.
In MMP systems, sometimes the voter is allowed one vote in the district contest and one vote to help allocate the top-up seats. This still could count as voter having one vote because those two votes are used in different contexts.)
Single-member districts with multi-member top-up, or multi-member district with or without multi-member top-up, would be valid choices.
Voting for a candidate or for a party list or label are both valid, although some like one more than the other.
Ranked voting or X voting are both valid, although some like one more than the other.
Some of the factors to consider when formulating an election system and some of the math involved is presented below.
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Proportional representation entails multiple-member districts or some sort of pooling of votes
and a mechanism for fairly allocating seats to parties or candidates.
If each successful candidate is elected by the same number of votes, then each party gets its fair share of seats. Such is the principle behind STV.
If each party gets a seat for each set number of votes, then each party gets its fair share of seats. Such is the principle behind list PR.
District Magnitude should be set at a level where each substantial voting block in district gets at least one seat. Thus if you have three parties, each district should have at least three seats.
But whether an electorate is split by districts or is elected as one at-large district, the number of votes required to take a seat is about the same. This is true if fair voting is used and if each district has the same vote-to-member ratio. But it may be desirable, due to geographical limitations, to have districts with widely-ranging voter-to-member ratios. If the district election system used is fair enough, even with such variance there should still be much better proportionality than under FPTP.
Using districts allows local representation but divides the electorate, thus wasting some votes and inconveniencing parties with thinly spread support, thus giving an advantage to a party with geographically-concentrated support
Using at-large district means a party that has scattered support is able to concentrate its votes behind one or more candidates, if pooling or transferable votes are used.
The use of several districts may divide a party's support and reduce its support in any one district to below the threshold needed to elect even one member anywhere.
Candidate-based election systems
Proportional representation reflects votes cast, so in normal cases, it produces mixed representation where no one party takes all the seats, each party with substantial support takes one or more seats.
Such mixed representation is produced by the simple system known as
Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV).
Each voter marks a preference for a candidate.
Each voter has just one vote and marks just one X.
Multiple members are elected in a single contest.
However under SNTV some parties may suffer from vote splitting and the parties do not necessarily receive their proportional share of the seats.
With ranked votes, it is possible for votes to be transferred from less-popular party candidates to other candidates of same party, so parties do not generally suffer from vote splitting.
As well, votes may transfer across party lines so that, say voters of the right can concentrate behind a right-wing candidate, and same for voters of the left, etc.
Ranked votes are used in single-winner (Instant-Runoff Voting) or multi-winner applications (STV).
Ranked votes in IRV and STV are intended to provide back-up preferences/contingency preferences for use if voter's first preference is not useful.
In STV, each successful candidate is elected with the same or about the same number of votes so each party gets its fair share of the seats. Some candidates may receive votes when candidates of other parties are eliminated so a party may take more seats than its initial vote tally would indicate.
Candidate-based voting but party electing
Even where a voter votes for a candidate, the party label of the candidate can be taken as indication of support for the party. Then seats can be allocated to the most-popular party or parties. This would limit dangerous effect of vote splitting.
In a multi-member contest, the seats can be allocated as a party ticket (with all seats going to the most-popular party) or pro-rated proportionally within the district.
Party-based First Past The Post (ley de lemas)
In a single-member contest the seat can be awarded to the most-popular party (and to the most-popular candidate within that party). Thus a party could run multiple candidates even though only one would at most be elected.
In world history, one place did use single-member district in which each party could put forward a multi-name slate without suffering from vote splitting. The most-popular candidate on the list of the most-popular party was elected. Uruguay used the ley de lemas system to elect the president from 1985 to 1995, and still uses it in a multi-winner variant today.
More on candidate-based voting/party-electing in the next section: List PR.
Party-based systems
List PR as used in many places has a voter vote for his or her preferred party list. Each party gets its due share of seats based on party's vote tally. This is closed-list PR.
Portugal, Romania, Guatemala, Macedonia and many more use closed-list PR in districts.
Israel uses closed-list PR in a country-wide at-large contest.
Party-and-candidate-based list PR
Open-list PR allows voter to indicate preferred party list and also for a preferred candidate. Sometimes voter marks preferred candidate and the candidate's party label indicates to which party his or her vote should be recorded. And the most-popular candidates of the party fills the party seats if any.
Many open-list PR systems allow the voter to mark a preference for a party list if desired. But others make voter mark preference for individual candidate or candidates.
Sweden, Finland, Switzerland and Austria uses open-list PR to fill the seats in districts.
Netherlands uses open-list PR to fill the seats in at-large contest covering the whole country (albeit it is a small country).
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Mixed Member Proportional
In Mixed Member Proportional systems, some members are elected in districts; others are elected as top-up. The top-up members are elected in compensatory fashion to address dis-proportionality or under-representation of parties produced by district contests and to adjust for how votes indicating party preference may differ from votes cast in local district contests.
New Zealand, the Scottish Assembly, Bavaria (Germany) and Denmark use different versions of MMP.
The New Zealand MMP system uses both districts and at-large pooling.
Election in district is by First Past The Post. In local district, voter has choice of one name of each party at most.
In at-large pooling, voter has opportunity to choose just one party list.
Top-up members are elected based on country-wide pooling.
Scottish Assembly MMP uses both districts and top-up in regions.
The top-up members are allocated at the regional level, a grouping of the districts smaller than nation-wide.
Bavarian MMP
in the Bavarian MMP system, the district election is same as for New Zealand.
in the top-up seat voting, the voter can show preference for an individual candidate.
In the at-large pooling, "top-up" members are elected by list PR.
Denmark's mixed-member proportional system uses multi-member districts where members are elected by list PR, each voter casts one vote and the party label of the candidate marked is taken as a party vote.
Then the same vote is then used to allocate seats based on at-large pooling where "top-up" members are elected by list PR.
Denmark uses open-list PR to fill the seats both in districts and at-large top-up, by taking account of popularity of individual candidates when filling party seats.
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Choice is whether to elect at-large, or in multi-member districts, or in single-member districts, or in combination of single-member and multi-member districts.
If multi-member districts are used, top-up may not be necessary.
If single-member districts are used, then top-up must be used to get PR.
Top-up can be either at-large or in grouped districts larger than single-member districts but smaller than at-large.
At-large members are thought to have wider interests, while local district members seek advantages and rewards for the local district over wider concerns.
Local district election forces member to have direct accountability to local voters or at least to a large voting block within the district, but to say a single member represents a district overlooks the variety of sentiment held by voters in the district.
As well, a single member in a district can never by himself or herself produce proportional representation.
A district large enough for multiple members may be thought too large for a member to represent properly, but modern transportation and telecommunications make such much easier than in past times. Certainly a city where a mayor represents the whole city should be easy to make into a multi-member district, because if one person can represent the whole city, then surely multiple members should be able to do the same.
Under fair voting in a city-wide district or a large chunk of rural real estate, a small portion of the district voters may be enough to elect a member. So if a candidate appeals to local voters of just a small corner of the city, the voters there may be numerous enough to elect the member just by themselves.
Thus, under STV or list PR where a set number of the votes cast in the district determine the quota or electoral threshold, then any part of the district where most of the voters vote for candidates from there, and where those voters make up a quota, or are more than the threshold, would elect a member from there, no matter what the voters elsewhere in the district do.
The Math
Say you have a city of five members where 50,000 voters live.
Under FPTP the city is split into five districts, a member is said to represent a fifth of the city, and is elected by a majority of voters in the district or by just a plurality of the votes cast in the district.
And perhaps voter turnout is just 60 percent (30,000 votes are cast).
Say 6000 votes are cast in each district.
A member may be elected by just 40 percent of votes cast in the district, so perhaps 2400 votes, less than half the votes cast in the district. (The small number required to elect the member may be thought to mean that any small group can get representation but actually it is only the largest group in each district that will get representation. A group with fewer votes than the largest group, even if just one less, will get no representation at all.)
It is possible most of the votes, 3600 votes, will not be used to elect anyone in a district.
But still it is thought the member is able to be a voice for all the people living there.
Across the city or rural area, perhaps as few as 12,000 votes elect the five members, and as many as 18,000 are disregarded and produce no representation.
And the choice of the party candidate, one each in each district, rests on the party brass. So FPTP can be thought of as actually a "list plurality" system where each party puts forward a one-name party slate.
under STV or list PR, where a whole city or large rural area is just one district,
the member is said to represent only the voters who support him or her.
Voter turnout rate may be 75 percent or higher.
So perhaps 37,000 votes will be cast across the city or rural area.
under STV, with five members being elected, a member is generally elected with support of at least one-sixth of votes cast in the district, so perhaps 6,000 votes.
Almost always about 30,000 votes of the 37,000 votes that are cast would elect the five members.
Perhaps one-sixth of votes cast (6,000 in this case) would not be used to elect anyone.
(so under STV about 37,000 of the 50,000 voters vote and 30,000 votes are used to actually elect one of the five members;
under FPTP only 30,000 are cast and only about 12,000 - more or less - are used to elect the five members.)
under list PR, a member is elected with support of about one-fifth of votes cast in the city so perhaps 7,000 votes elect each member, perhaps fewer due to wasted votes that were cast for less-popular parties or candidates.
Any party that gets at least 7,000 votes will elect at least one member.
Likely about 33,000 votes of the 37,000 votes cast elect the five members.
Perhaps only five-ten percent are not used to elect anyone (or more than the ten percent, so pretty much the same as in STV)
under MMP, single-member district used same as now but that district is larger, all other things being equal, due to having to free up seats for top-up members.
so perhaps a city or rural area that now elects five would elect just three members, each elected in separate district. (The other two members have been freed up to join with others as top-up seats.)
voter turnout rate may be 75 percent (37,000 votes cast).
About 12,000 votes are cast in each district.
With a district of that size, under FPTP, the member within each district may be elected by just 4800 votes, with 7200 votes being ignored and producing no representation.
As well, about 40 percent or more of seats are top-up so parties are allocated seats to produce proportionality overall.
At the district level, perhaps as few as 14,000 votes elect the three members.
But the top-up is used to produce proportional representation of parties as much as possible. Any party that gets at least 3 percent of the vote will elect at least one member to the chamber, in normal circumstances (but limited by the number of top-up seats)
Perhaps only five-ten percent of votes cast overall are not used to help elect anyone at the top-up level.
Using Denmark's mixed-member proportional system, fewer top-up members are needed as district results are already very fair.
perhaps city or rural area has four members, all elected in one district.
voter turnout rate may be 75 percent (37,000 votes cast).
within the city or rural area under list PR, each member would likely be elected by 8500 votes.
Likely about 36,000 votes elect the four members.
1000 votes might be ignored and produce no district representation.
As well, about 20 percent of seats are top-up. The one seat freed up in the example city is pooled with other seats freed up across the country.
Parties are allocated these seats to produce proportionality overall.
Perhaps only five-ten percent of votes cast overall are not used to help elect anyone at the top-up level.
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A Short Course on PR for Unions and Others of broad minds but little previous knowledge of Electoral Reform.
Put up a short list of key words:
Representative democracy
Elections converts votes to seats
Majority
Votes
Proportional Representation
Districts
Limited voting
Single Voting
STV
List PR
Open-list PR
MMP
Here is talk on each of the terms listed:
Representative democracy
government is composed of members who represent their supporters
Some do better job than others
Some switch policies or parties and try to find new supporters
The members are elected.
The elected members are specific people, and people change and vary from control by others.
In addition to the human factor, the election system we are using is flawed.
the point of this little talk is to show how it is flawed and how Canada can be converted to using a system of proportional representation, that is, a system where seats are allocated in such a way that each party gets is fair share of the seats and where a large percentage of votes are used to actually elect someone.
Elections -- convert votes to seats
our current system is First past the post or winner take all.
only one member is elected in each district
myth goes that they are elected by majority choice but that is myth - usually in more than third and sometimes in more than half the districts the member is elected with only support of a minority of voters in the district.
Majority
majority is more than half.
you will never have a member elected with support of all the voters
pleasing most of them - more than half - is best you can do.
but when three or more run, usually the largest groups is merely a minority, less than half.
and in that case the majority of votes cast - even if split over two or more parties - is not represented while the minority is.
in Canada's situation we see the Liberals and NDP parties together getting half the votes that is where they are now in many districts. They are quite similar in outlook, at least right now,
and we see the Conservative candidatre sometimes taking the seat with less than half the vote in the district.
on such occasions, less than half the votes are used to elect the district members.
Votes
People want their vote to count - they want their vote used to elect someone.
They also want to express their opinion and vote for someone who will if elected represent their view in the chamber.
Some are prepared to vote for someone they don't hate to help prevent someone they hate from being elected; Others stick to their opinion and vote, hell or high water, for the candidate that represents their views, even if they believe that that candidate has little chance of being elected.
with any voting system, only votes cast for the most popular candidates are elected.
First past the Post takes this very strictly - only one is elected in each district.
Only votes cast for the one winner in the district are used to elect anyone.
other election systems allow more flexibility. as we'll see.
FPTP uses X voting.
With X voting, if you vote for a candidate who comes in second or lower in popularity, then the vote is wasted.
Some proportional representation election systems overcome those problems by using:
multi-member districts - so more than one group can elect representation in a district
ranked transferable voting - where if a vote is cast for someone who is unpopular, the vote may be transferred to another candidate who has more chance to be elected.
In other systems, multi-member districts are used and seats are allocated to specific parties based on the percentage of votes they receive. the winners being those uppermost on the party lists assembled by the party brass.
Both of those see a large proportion of votes used to elect the winners. and both ensure that each party gets about its due share of seats.
They do it in two different ways, but both are about as effective as the other under the same circumstances. We'll get into that later.
What is Proportional Representation?
Parties whose candidates take many votes take many seats,
Parties with few votes take just one seat or none at all.
Districts
today we are using single-member districts in federal and provincial elections
Many but not all city elections use single-member wards to elect city aldermen and councillors.
but In Canada's history, multi-seat districts were quite common.
This may be surprising so I'll say it again -- Canada had a deep and wide experience of using districts with multiple seats.
Winnipeg for 30 year elected its MLAs in a ten-seat city-wide district.
A voter anywhere in Winnipeg used the same ballot as anywhere else in Winnipeg
A voter anywhere in Winnipeg had the same choice of candidate, and the votes were pooled across the city when they were counted and seats allocated.
Edmonton and Calgary each elected more than four MLAs in city-wide district for 30 years.
Toronto was a three-seat district at one time.
Two-seat districts were common in each other province, even as late as the 1990s.
Mostly these multi-member districts used block voting where each voter could cast as many votes as the number of seats. Under such system fair results were a matter of chance.
But in several cases fair election systems were used in these multi-member districts
Limited Voting
Toronto voters could cast up to two votes to fill three seats.
Limited Voting meant no one party could take all three seats when the minority choice had support from at least a third of the voters.
The fairness of Limited Voting in a three-seat district was limited -- only two parties at most were represented in a three-seat district.
Like with any X voting, many votes were wasted, but because multiple members were elected in the Toronto district and because two parties saw one or more candidates elected, most voters had someone elected that they agreed with, even if one or both of their votes was not used to elect anyone.
Another system had all the benefits of Limited Voting but also some of its disadvantages.
Single voting
each voter marks an X, each voter has one vote.
if we have MMD of five seats but each voter has just one vote, then the five most-popular candidates are elected.
Some candidates will be super popular and they will hog the votes that go to the party they belong to. so some parties usually get fewer seats than they deserve.
Other candidates will be not so popular. with X voting being used, there is no ability to transfer votes and and some candidates who might have accumulated more votes through transfers have no chance to do so.
The five winners can be easily determined.
breakdown might be like this:
A 11
B 9
C 8.5
D 6.5
E 5.5
F 5
G 4.9
H 4.8
I 4.6
J 4.4
4
3.5
and so on down to least-popular candidate who got less than half a percent of votes cast.
Only A to E are elected. Those five candidates have only a total of 41 percent of the vote.
The five winners each came from five different parties and about 59 percent of the votes were cast for candidates of of those parties, so 59 percent of voters likely had an elected member with whom they share opinions.
But as with any X voting, many votes were wasted and the parties' share of seats was not proportional to parties' share of votes.
One party ran three candidates in this district. It received enough votes to take two seats but got only one.
The next system we look at is much like single non-transferable voting but we give it ranked votes. that allows votes to be transferred if they would otherwise be wasted.
Voters have more chance to elect someone they prefer even if not their first choice; parties get seat counts that better reflect their vote counts.
(The percentages are actual election results -- Vanuatu 2020 election - Efate District)
STV
We keep the multi-member districts and give each voter the chance to mark back-up preferences - to be used if the candidate who is their first preference has no chance to be elected.
As well, a quota is determined and candidates who receive more votes than they need to be elected see their surplus votes transferred to possibly help others of same party or of a similar party.
Because each winning candidate receives about same number of votes, each party receives about its right share of the seats. of course sometimes votes can transfer from party to party so final set count reflects how votes are transferred as well as how votes were initially cast.
Parties whose candidates take many votes take many seats,
Parties with few votes take just one seat or none at all.
The back-up preferences marked by voter gives assurance to large proportion of voters that their vote will be used to elect someone.
List PR
voters mark an X for party that they prefer.
votes are totalled.
seats are allocated to parties and parties fill their seats based on the list they made up in advance of the election.
each party gets its due share of seats.
But voters have no control over which person their vote will elect.
Open-list PR
a form of list PR allows voters control over how the vote is used.
this is called open-list PR and voters can mark vote for individual candidate.
the vote is counted as a party vote but the most-popular candidates of the party will fill the seats.
MMP
info above on how MMP works)
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see also
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