Single Non-transferable Voting (SNTV), like most PR, is based on Single Voting -- each voter casting a single vote that is counted and potentially used to allocate multiple seats. (MMP or party-list PR does not use MM districts but does entail the equivalent - the pooling of votes and allocation of multiple seats based thereon.)
Single voting is when two or more members are elected in a district but each voter casts just one vote. Different methods could be used to elect these multiple members Single non-transferable voting is the simplest. Under SNTV, each voter casts just one vote, an X vote same as in FPTP but because more than one member can be elected - usually they are of different parties - more voters are satisfied than under a single-winner voting situation. Single Transferable Voting (STV), sometimes called STV-PR or PR-STV, is another method to elect multiple members. It is like SNTV in that multiple members are elected in the contest and each voter casts a single vote but votes are commonly marked with back-up preferences and some of the votes are transferred, some never are; usually some candidates are elected after receiving vote transfers but not always; usually some are elected without receiving any vote transfers but not always. So vote transfers may or may not produce different results than SNTV from the same votes. What is a First Count in a STV election is the one and only count in an SNTV election. when votes are counted in an STV election, vote transfers may not change the order of popularity of the front runners, the ones in a winning position, in the First Count. even if it makes no change, the process of vote transfers does prove that those in the winning positions in the First Count are the most popular, both specifically and through general opinion. STV was used to elect MLAs in Edmonton and Calgary from 1920s to 1950s (I again beat that tired old drum). During that time, in 1930 in Edmonton and in Calgary in 1930 and 1944, vote transfers did not change who was elected - the candidates in the winning position in the First Count were elected even after vote transfers were all done. This is not a failure but instead proof that SNTV, single voting in MM district - as simple as it is - is quite effective at producing proportional representation - mixed, balanced representation in each district where it is done. Edmonton and Calgary STV elections used city-wide districts. The mixed representation produced by STV and the use of MM city-wide districts meant that each voter had wide selection of candidates to vote for, every candidate running for the city was available for the voter's choice, and each elected member had direct relationship to each voter in the city, something that no single-winner FPTP election can do in a major city. Is SNTV proportional? Yes, as proportional as STV in some cases - it produced or would have produced the same result, so it must be. (so answer depends on if you think STV is Proportional. I actually do and note that the last Irish election (STV) had a more-proportional Gallagher index than New Zealand's MMP election.) vote transfers in STV did not make any difference to who would have been elected under SNTV in those three cases, and in other STV elections in Edmonton and Calgary, vote transfers made only little change. in Calgary, in eight elections never more than 2 of 5 or six members elected were different than who would have been elected under SNTV. In Edmonton, in eight elections never more than 3 of 5 to 7 elected members were different than who would have been elected under SNTV. SNTV could be considered a bit of a cheat - if single-winner FPTP produces dis-proportional results, which it does, then simply elect more members. But isn't it clever to cheat that way? and it does not hurt anyone except those who benefit unfairly from FPTP. Electing more members means larger district, which also makes for more proportional results - if voting system is at all fair. MM districts were common in Canadian history - but never was SNTV used. It was not that it was unknown - it was mentioned in glowing terms in 1912 if not earlier. Back in 1912, Robert Tyson, of Toronto, was secretary of the American Proportional Representation Society [Canada and U.S.]. He published a series of articles on PR in the pages of the popular Grain Growers Guide. First he pointed out "the evils and absurdities of electing representatives in single-member districts", the need for change from FPTP, and the need for multiple-member districts. (GGG, June 26, 1912)
(http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/GGG/1912/06/26/10/Ar01000.html?query=newspapers%7Ctyson%7C%28date%3A1912%2F06%2F26%29+AND+%28publication%3AGGG%29%7Cscore) In a philosophic vein, he said "the matter of method is of paramount importance in obtaining results, either in industrial or political operations, and the adoption of PR is merely adopting a good method instead of a bad one." In the next article in his series, he described "the remedy to the single-member districts - Proportional Representation". He wrote "I shall first put the remedy in its simplest terms - I shall state the underlying principle of the reform, show its simplest and crudest form of application, and then describe the way additional features maybe added with advantage.... The essential principle of PR may be started in a sentence. It is a single vote in a multiple district." (there it is, in black and white!) "It is the use of electoral district from which several members are elected but in which each elector has only one vote that finally counts." [the use of the term "finally counts" clarifies that voters may mark multiple preferences (or multiple votes, as is sometimes said) but only one counts in the end.] .."[Single votes in a Multiple district] is the foundation principle upon which all PR systems are based and can also be used as a voting system in the bald and simple way in which I have stated it. This forms a crude but entirely workable plan, under the name of The Single Untransferable Vote. It has been successfully used for some years in Japan... In every proportional plan, electoral districts may be formed by adding together several of the existing single-member constituencies." [currently many cities use MM districts so that change is not required to adopt SNTV in city elections there.] Tyson continued, "For example, the city of Toronto elects 8 MLAs. ... On any good PR plan, all Toronto would be one electoral district from which eight members would be elected, each voter having one vote only that would finally count. On such a plan, any one-eighth or less of the voters would be absolutely sure of electing one representative, regardless of what the other seven-eighths chose to do. And the remaining seven-eighths would have the same privilege in the same way." He points out the advantage of such would not accrue to the voters alone. "No candidate would have to straddle two horses [try to appeal to all the diversity of opinion among voters in the district]." "As to size of district ... no constituency should elect fewer than five members and as many more as you like, as long as you don't have too bulky a ballot or bewilder the voter with too many candidates. The Biblical number 7 is the ideal number of seats..." [with 7 seats, Tyson expected ballots would have 12 to 16 candidates listed - likely no party would run more than four candidates as it would have no chance of filling that many seats.] He ran through a demonstration SNTV election, five members and 10 candidates, each voter casting just one vote. The most popular in the First Count were elected. "The most important point is that there are ten separate and distinct groups of electors, each supporting a different candidate, and that the voters in each group come from all across the large district. They are grouped by opinion not forced to group themselves by mere locality. And because the five successful candidates are of five different opinion, Tyson says, the supporters of the unsuccessful candidates likely find someone among the successful candidates whom they agree with at least to some degree - not likely the case if all five members had been elected by just one group as can happen under Block Voting or FPTP. Tyson points out how the non-transferable votes don't allow the fine exactness allowed by transferable votes - a group with 2/5ths of the votes might elect only one instead of the two members it is due among the district's five members. But he said, "such a crude and simple plan would eliminate most of the evils of the Single-winner district": - Bribery - rendered unprofitable - Gerrymander - with all districts producing PR, shifting boundaries would not accomplish much. - Partisan bitterness - "would wither for want of nourishment as each group would get its due share of seats." - Best people would be elected because to be successful you would only need a quota and not a majority [he means plurality]. [When wise people are a small group, if they can elect one member, it is better than if the foolish elect all the reps which they can under FPTP. And in a MM district, voters can make their choice from among multiple members of the same party, picking the best, not just going by party label] - party monopoly of nomination would cease - anyone with quota of voters behind him or her could snap his finger at party nomination screening. - and more advantages may occur to the reader, he said in closing. (GGG, July 10, 1912)
(http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/newspapers/GGG/1912/07/10/8/Ar00800.html?query=newspapers%7Ctyson%7C%28date%3A1912%2F07%2F10%29+AND+%28publication%3AGGG%29%7Cscore) In his next article in the Grain Growers Guide, Tyson outlined how Canadians could use the powers of Direct Legislation to get PR. [BC does have the power of Initiative right now.
Here's info on this from Initiative | Elections BC "Registered voters can use the initiative process to propose a new provincial law or changes to an existing provincial law. The voter must collect signatures from 10% of the registered voters in each of the province’s electoral districts for an initiative petition to succeed. The initiative process is unique to BC – no other province or territory in Canada has initiative legislation." so perhaps there is hope that way, although hopes did get dashed when last BC referendum was beaten. 10 percent of voters means 352,000 signatures to collect.... in the 2018 referendum, 534,000 voted for PR.... ================= Current Use of SNTV SNTV is currently used in a few countries - Puerto Rico, Jordan, Vanuatu, Libya and others. Puerto Rico elects some of its members using SNTV.
Jordan used SNTV from 1993 to 2017 or so. (more on this below)
Vanuatu (former New Hebrides) is a British Commonwealth country that uses it today. Like Canada, Vanuatu, a Polynesia nation, has French roots. But that is about the only way the two countries are similar.
Vanuatu's recent elections produced more diverse and balanced representation than Canada's recent FPTP elections, in each district, on each island and in each part of the country. Vanuatu's multi-member districts (two to seven seats) produced mixed representation No party received more than two seats in any district. The greatest diversity was produced in Santo where candidates of seven different parties were elected to the district's seven seats.
Much more fair than the present-day one-party sweep of Saskatchewan MPs under FPTP. my blog on Vanuatu's SNTV: Alberta | Tom Monto Montopedia | Canada I wrote "If anything, Vanuatu politics are criticized as being too fair, producing what is seen as unstable minority governments due to its fairness and to the voluntary splintering of the country's voters to a multitude of different voting blocks. [But in recent years Vanuatua has held fewer elections than Canada has had, so actually who should be called unstable?] ... After the 2016 election there were 17 parties in the 52-member chamber with none holding more than six seats. Coalition governments have been a feature of government in Vanuatu for quite some time...."
after the 2020 election, 19 parties had seats in the parliament.
in Vanuatu's system, there are 10 multi-member districts with the number of seats in each ranging from 2 to 7, and 8 single-member districts. Each district produced mixed, diverse and balanced representation.
Tyson would have liked it!
(more on Vanutua below)
=====================
More notes on SNTV
Single voting - two or more members are elected in each district but each voter casts just one vote.
That is Single Non-Transferable Voting, simply put.
SNTV
No single party can take both seats if any other candidate has at least half of that party's total and likely the largest party vote would be spit unequally, making it very unlikely two candidates of a party would each have more votes than any other candidate, which would have to happen for those two candidates to take both seats, under SNTV...
Two different parties having representation means very large proportion of voters would likely be pleased by result.
Simple as that...
with use of transferable voting
with each voter casting a single transferable vote, the certainty of mixed representation becomes much greater - any candidate who takes at least 33 percent of the vote (whether first preferences or combination of first preferences and votes transferred to him or her due to secondary preferences) would be elected.
Very likely that two parties would each have a bit more than 33 percent of the vote - thus likely that two different parties would each elect one member.
Multiple-member seats combined with any single voting system system -- STV or SNTV or I suppose district-level MMP, like Scotland's "Additional Member system" -- produces mixed representation in each district and thus mixed representation in each large city and thus mixed representation in each province, so it would prevent our present artificially-created regionalized representation (one-party sweeps of whole provinces or multi-province regions).
Block Voting can lead to one-party sweeps.
Edmonton had that experience in 1921 when the city's five MLAs were elected in one city-wide district and each voter could cast up to five votes. The Liberal candidates each received more votes than each of any other candidate, and that party took all five seats.
Due to the multiple voting, it is unknown whether each voter gave at least one vote for a Liberal candidate, with some casting perhaps three votes for Liberal candidates and splitting their vote, using their other four, or three, or two votes for candidates of other parties ...
or perhaps just about a third of the voters gave almost all their votes to Liberal candidates. Either way is possible.
However it was, the five Liberal candidates took all five seats, leaving no representation for any other groups.
just as bad as any FPTP election...
Only benefits of Block Voting being
- voters had wide offering of about 30 candidates. They were not arbitrarily divided from any candidate who under FPTP might have been running in a different district
- easy to switch (in 1924) to STV -- officials could simply leave the district as is and just change the method of voting from multiple X-voting to Single Transferable Voting.
Even if a voter still just marked one preference, and some did just that, mixed representation was produced, due to MM district.
(Single-member districts, even under IRV/"ranked voting", as proposed for future Ontario provincial elections and as was used in 2018 London Ontario city election, will never produce mixed representation in a district.)
Under STV in 1926, candidates of four parties were elected among Edmonton's five members.
immediate and positive improvement.
high proportion of votes used effectively to elect someone.
only change for voters was use of single transferable voting versus X voting.
Only change for system as a whole was introduction of quota and performance of vote transfers, where needed.
===============================================
Jordan's SNTV
I thought Jordan used SNTV. it no longer does. it did from 1993 to after its 2016 election but not now. it now uses a voting system that is even more fair... An article issued before the 2016 election announced that a recent report showed there were many wasted votes under SNTV - (although there were no more wasted votes than under Canada's FPTP system - if Jordan thought change was necessary for that reason, it is long past time for Canada to change, as I am sure you would agree) ...She argues in the study that the tribal nature of Jordan's electoral politics, as well as the regime's strategic manipulation of the electoral rules, undermined strategic coordination and subverted the expected effects on the number of electoral competitors in parliamentary elections. The result: an overabundance of candidates competing in many districts, which, in turn, has led to a high proportion of wasted votes. "As a result, the majority of Jordanian citizens cast votes for candidates who do not win, leaving them without a stake in the current political system," Buttorff said (from https://news.ku.edu/2016/01/14/jordanian-election-law-changes-led-wasted-votes-professor-says) and due to the wasted votes, that same article said Jordan was expected to go to a different voting system that is equally wasteful of votes. "...The Jordanian government actually proposed a new electoral law last year, which will return to the block-vote system used in the 1989 legislative elections while retaining the reserved seats for women and minorities." Why the writer did not think Jordan would not just add transferable votes - I have no idea. Such a change would produce STV, and under STV there are only a small number of wasted votes. But luckily Jordan did not go to Block voting as expected, but instead (Wikipedia tells me) Jordan's 2020 election was held under an even more fair system, one much fairer than Canada's: The 130 seats in the House of Representatives consist of 115 members elected by open list proportional representation from 23 constituencies of between three and nine seats in size and 15 seats reserved for women.[8]
Nine of the 115 proportional representation seats are reserved for the Christian minority, with another three reserved for the Chechen and Circassian minorities. The 15 seats reserved for women are allocated to the woman in each of the twelve governorates and the three Badia districts who received the most votes but failed to be elected on their list. So that is good news. Canada could learn from Jordan's example. SNTV would address many of the problems we now endure in Canadian elections but Jordan has moved even past that. Canada is now the only major country that uses FPTP and only FPTP in federal and provincial elections in the world. Even UK and US have moved on. new slogan:
Electoral Reform - Get into it.
============= If SNTV is so simple and good, why don't we have it?
Mostly because we don't have PR of any sort.
and if we did have PR, would people choose a simple system that produces crude PR in each district or would people prefer a more complicated and technical system where nearly-exact PR is produced at the overall or at the province-level?
The reaction of even Electoral reformers to discussion of SNTV shows where people's affection lies.
Cries of SNTV only being effective by coincidence or when parties game the system are heard when evidence points to its actual effectiveness
- based on STV first counts (where no such gaming takes place) and
- based on its effectiveness in actual SNTV elections where each district produces mixed and balanced representation, where most of the most-popular parties get representation and the most-popular candidate(s) within the party is/are elected.
SNTV is proportional - to a degree - certainly more than our present FPTP - but it is not exact PR - in best case it produces same rep. as STV, and often but not always STV produces results as P as MMP.
but my blog on Vanuatu does point out how some parties got more votes than other parties but get fewer seats (or the same number of seats) than other parties.
But SNTV results are light years ahead of ours in terms of voters in an average district who saw a candidate of the party they supported - often even the actual candidate they voted for - elected in their district - not to mention the variety of parties who had at least some representation in the national chamber and thus general satisfaction in that regard. The five parties in Canada's 338-seat HofC is nothing compared to the 19 parties in Vanuatu's 52-member house.
I think perhaps people - especially people in power - do not care about proportionality or do not understand or care about it, and only the question of simplicity or complication comes up after that hurdle is overcome.
PR - whether simple or complicated - is not usually considered, until need for PR is pushed and then any (possible) complication or problem is inflated to prevent such reform from going forward.
Does STV or SNTV produce too large ballots?
I believe STV and SNTV would encourage the presence of same number of candidates.
The number running in any one district under STV or SNTV would be many more than in any one district under FPTP.
But if you collect all the candidates in an X number of various districts under FPTP, their number would not be much different than the number of candidates in STV or SNTV in a single district electing the same X number of members. other than the fact that the greater fairness of STV (or even SNTV) means that (sometimes) there are more parties running candidates.
Large ballots where they happen are result of having many parties So yes ballots are sometimes larger than under FPTP. This would have to be the case due to the wider selection that votes have under STV compared to FPTP.
Voters are not constrained by small district size to small selection of candidates.
Under STV, voters do vote more freely due to not being constrained (even in looser SNTV) to a strategic choice between the likely winner versus one other candidate who is likely to be his or her most popular opponent and the number of parties usually does rise compared to FPTP. but even under FPTP Canada has many parties.
Canada has more parties who run multiple (more than one) candidates than Ireland does
Canada
21 parties ran multiple candidates in the last Canadian election
1700 candidates in 338 districts average 5
St. Boniface had 21 candidates! (but you might recall that was inflated on purpose to prove a point - that many want the Electoral Reform that Trudeau promised)
Ireland
Nine parties in the last Irish election. about 510 candidates in 39 districts average 13
Cavan-Monaghan, one of largest districts, had only 13 candidates.
New York
Oversize ballots might have been said to be cause for New York dropping STV in its city elections. New York has historically had a fractured, splintered and crochety politics. so I'm not surprised many small parties would emerge under loosened and freer PR environment but that is not what it would produce always everywhere.
And a reason more commonly given for New York dropping STV is the admittedly biased stand by many against blacks and Communists having representation, which STV was effective at producing. Even Australia is having so-called tablecloth elections where ballot for Senate is a metre across and about 30 cms tall. if that is problem, raising the required candidates deposit is a way to stop it. The deposit could be refunded if candidate receives say half of quota, so that new cost would only be imposed on less-popular ballot-filling names. But note that about 6 Senators are elected in each district (state) so there is some reason for the multitude of candidates.
Many names on ballot does not necessarily mean more work for voters.
Voters can mark fairly quickly but at loss of control...
voters can mark just for party slates and then have their vote potentially slide around from party to party according to party decisions - In Victoria Senate election, a vote for Green party would if transferred go to Pirate Party before possibly going to Labour Party.
In Victoria, Greens did use their own votes to elect one member so no such transfer took place (and no Pirates were elected) but it could have happened if voter votes "above the line" for Green party.
STV reflects political culture STV or any fair system produces the kind of political culture preferred by voters.
Malta despite STV is a two party system (although six parties do run candidates).
Ireland is multi-party system (more than Canada's) with nine parties getting at least some representation and no party taking more than 25 percent of the vote. if voters want fair and balanced two-party fight, it can be that. if voters want fair and balanced multi-party rep., it can be that.
Do ranked votes lead to more co-operation? if ranked votes (transferable votes) do produce co-operation - it would be from lack of domineering majority due to fragmented and thus more representational results and or - from more cautious posturing by candidates and members due to hope to get vote transfers from others but extent of that is determined by political culture where parties do not share beleifs, they would likely expect fewer transfers and act under that expectation. in Malta the two main parties get very little - I mean very little - vote transfers across party lines between them, perhaps a few hundred votes in a district with 22,000 votes cast.
but pretty much all of the votes initially cast for candidates of smaller parties do move to one or other of the main parties.
likely lack of cross-party transfer between main parties is due to deliberate polarization that is natural to competing for most seats (zero sum game) but also it is due to policy decisions -- the Nationalist and Labour have ideological differences. They likely expect little overlap between their supporters and do not try to appeal to supporters of the other party.
So not much co-operation there.
and that polarization feeds on itself as we know
===============================
I don't wish to engage in discussion of whether or not SNTV should be considered proportional or even if STV should be.
The meaning of proportional varies from person to person.
It is clear to me that SNTV is as proportional as STV in some cases because - in certain elections the same exact people would have been elected under SNTV as STV. This was the case in certain STV elections in Edmonton and in Calgary in the past.
But it is clear to me that SNTV is as proportional as STV in some cases because if SNTV instead of STV had been used, the same exact people would have been elected in certain STV elections in Edmonton and in Calgary in the past.
And to say that SNTV produces P results, when it does, that it is due to people gaming the system overlooks that when this actually happened in Calgary and Edm, the people did not game the system - they were voting under STV.
==============
The question is - would people vote the same under STNV as they do under STV?
Voters don't necessarily vote (choose a candidate) in such a way as to see their vote have good chance of use. That is, they mark whom they want elected whether it has a chance or not. so whether fringe candidate has chance or not, he or she still get votes.
For that reason or just because a candidate with only five percent of the vote in a district can win a seat under SNTV, as many as 10 or so candidates may take sizable amounts of the vote (that is, say more than one percent of he vote) in a Vanuatu district. something not seen in a FPTP district.
I have not done study comparing what is needed to win under SNTV versus STV, but perhaps it may be easier to win under SNTV with a micro amount of vote than under STV - as counter-intuitive as that seems.
in part caused by higher waste of other votes perhaps?
=================================================
Some confuse ranked voting with multiple voting and have idea that each voter must endorse multiple candidates for a system to be proportional representation
Proportional representation is about mixed representation elected by voters across a district or across the jurisdiction - province, etc. not about each voter electing multiple candidates.
Some might say
"The Single Non-Transferable Vote is a non-proportional voting system. All proportional voting systems allow voters to support multiple candidates." I think PR does depend on multiple members elected by pooled votes or grouped districts. But a voter does not necessarily have to behave any differently in PR system versus other system, such as FPTP.
It is the counting of votes and the allocation of seats that creates PR, not necessarily how the voter casts a vote. (More on this below.) MMP, especially when each voter casts only one vote, do not see voters supporting multiple candidates except in so far as their vote is used as support for a party slate that may or may not contain multiple names - but usually does.
Some say STV allows a voter to rank candidates, obviously missing the fact that "STV" stands for Single Transferable Voting - the voter only has one vote that will be used to elect someone in the end (or none at all).
And the successful candidate under STV will be elected by relative popularity over the other candidates - really just simple plurality, but with quota being used to shave off surplus votes for those elected early and usually one or a couple of candidates being declared elected in the end by literal plurality.
STV only allows each voter to have only one vote used effectively, and many STV systems use optional preferential voting where no voter has to mark back-up preferences if he or she does not want to. so STV would operate just like SNTV in those cases whee voter plumps. SNTV does have advantage that it can be brought in where ranked votes are prohibited but where a city does retain the right to set number of wards and the number of votes a voter can cast. The casting of a single vote is obviously acceptable. That is the number of votes a voter would have under SNTV!
BC cities for example, and Alberta cities, too.
==========================
if Block Voting is hard to discuss, how does SNTV have a chance ?
If Block Voting was an animal, it would be the elephant in the room. And SNTV would be that slight scent of flowers or perfume wafting in from the hall.
SNTV (single voting in multiple district using X voting) is a difficult concept.
I am not being sarcastic.
Despite its simplicity it is clouded in fog and mystery -- and not something you discuss in polite company.
Even the online The Explainer video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU9TULIp2Nc) calls it Multiple FPTP. The strangeness of how a thing that uses "Single" in one name could possibly have another name that uses "Multiple" must have been overlooked by the writer.
If SNTV is Multiple FPTP, what do you Block Voting?
As the video indicates, Block Voting is often just plain overlooked.
Encyclopedia Canada "Electoral reform" refers to these types of voting used or considered in Canada:
single-winner FPTP,
Alternative Voting or Ranked Ballot,
three types of PR - STV, MMP, party-list PR.
SNTV is not mentioned - I resignedly say whatever about that.
But oddly that widely-respected reference book does not mention Block Voting at all. And Block Voting was used in past provincial elections in every province in Canada (Quebec pre-1867) - sometimes even used to elect all the members of a provincial legislature. It was used to elect two or more MPs in every election previous to 1968. And it is currently used in many cities across Canada.
The idea that voters would, do or have in the past cast multiple votes to elect multiple members seems odd (perhaps almost as odd as the idea of a system where a voter casts just one vote in a district where multiple members are elected.) This is despite the fact that Block Voting is, or was, actually quite common in Canada.
So if Block Voting is so overlooked, how can we hope people to get SNTV right off the bat?.
I want to clarify what I said above about SNTV with reference to my idea that elections are actually five levels.
(Note: elections are held only if two or more candidates have put their names in for an election and the numbers of candidates are larger than the number of spots.)
The five levels are:
- a voter's vote, or the voter's ballot if voter does more than simple single X voting
-vote transfers if any
- who is elected in a district contest and/or through party-list PR
-large-district top-up
- who has majority in the chamber.
First level: what a voter's vote or ballot does
The style of ballot or vote used is determinant about the whole voting system.
Single X vote (FPTP or SNTV) it selects one candidate that the voter wants to see elected. (both these systems have clarity that a voter is either a support of the successful candidate and no other or the voter is a supporter of an un-successful candidate and no other. any system where voter casts multiple votes allows voter to "split their vote" and no such clear hit or miss result is produced.)
Depending on the system used,
instead of a single X vote,
a ballot can contain
-multiple X votes (Block Voting), or
-a first preference and several back-up preferences (a completed ballot in a STV election).
As well, a ballot may contain just one first choice preference marked with a 1. This is a plumped ballot (not fully-filled-out STV ballot) but still legal in some STV systems.
A ballot of any of these types may be used to elect someone or may not be used to elect someone.
Under any (practical) system, not every voter will see their vote used to elect member(s).
Vote transfers
Who is elected in a district or contest
How many and who is elected in a district depends on system used.
single X vote - FPTP single winner only the most popular candidate is elected. all other voters are un-represented. voter will see his or her choice elected or not.
A party may elect one or none at all.
single X vote - SNTV multiple winners only the most popular candidates, multiple in number (two or more), are elected. all other votes are un-represented. voter will see his or her choice elected or not.
A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs multiple candidates), or none at all.
As the looseness of the SNTV system affects all parties who run more than one candidate, result seems relatively proportional. and smaller parties run just one candidate so suffer no harm from vote splitting, which is potential problem in SNTV.
As little as five percent (party total) is enough to win a seat in seven-seat district,
as little as 7 percent in five-seat district, at least in a political environment where about 20 parties run for seats (Vanuatu's SNTV 2020 election as described below).
Multiple X votes (Block Voting), multiple winners
only the most popular candidates, multiple in number (two or more), are elected. all other voters are un-represented. voter will see all, some or one of his or her choices elected, or none of them.
Successful candidates usually have overlapping groups of support and election results do not record how many voters had at least one of their choices elected, other than the one with the most votes - that group obviously had at least one choice elected. Each of the rest of the successful candidates could have been elected by subset of that greater number or may have been elected by others or some of each.
A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs multiple candidates), or none at all.
Preferential votes
a first preference and several back-up preferences, or no back-up preferences marked at all.
Back-up preferences are contingency votes - used only if the vote would other wise be wasted. usually a vote comes up for transfer if the candidate to whom it is marked is eliminated from the running due to being the least popular candidate.
not all votes are transferred; not all votes if transferred are used to elect someone; not all votes that are never transferred at all are wasted.
ballot (vote) used to elect just one member in the end, or none at all.
A contest that uses preferential ballots may elect either single member (IRV/Alternative Voting) or multiple members (STV)
IRV contest single winner uses preferential voting
- no proportional representation produced. only one group in the end is represented.
to be elected, successful candidate must have majority of votes that are "in play" at that point in time. - perhaps not a majority of votes cast in the district if many votes are exhausted.
A party may elect one or none at all.
STV contest multiple winners uses preferential voting
multiple members elected.
Proportional representation (or at least mixed and balanced representation) produced - always in cases where more than three members elected and usually even where only two or three members elected. multiple groups in the end are (almost always) represented - have at least one member elected in the district. A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs multiple candidates), or none at all. To be elected, successful candidate must at any time have quota (a mathematically-derived pre-set fraction of the valid votes) or be among remaining candidates when field of candidates is thinned to number of remaining open seats. all successful candidates are the most popular candidates in relation to the other candidates, but by the end, vote transfers may have changed the order of popularity of candidates from their original order of popularity set in the First Count. Party-list PR or large-district top-up in MMP multiple winners
usually X voting used to choose a party slate. (Back-up party slates may be marked on ballot in some systems.)
Votes as cast in district contests or in separate polling of voters are used to allocate seats to parties.
This is usually X voting where vote is placed on a party slate with individual candidate finding success through party favour or more direct voter approval. A party may elect one, or more than one (if it runs or registers multiple candidates), or none at all.
Who has majority in the chamber Members elected through various district election contests, if any, and/or members elected through party-list PR, if any, and/or MMP top-up, if any, collect in the chamber. a single party may have majority or a party may collect working majority through gaining support from other elected members and so on....
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SNTV is exotic variation Each of the electoral systems mentioned above have been used in government elections in Canada, except SNTV, party-list PR and MMP large-district top-up. All the systems listed have been used successfully in government elections recently somewhere in the world. As mentioned, SNTV is one of the more exotic variations despite its simple construction -- X voting in a district that elects multiple members It is exotic because in Canadian history a district that elects multiple members usually has system that allows voters to cast as many votes as the number of open seats, but that natural style means perhaps five times more votes are collected and counted in five-seat district than if SNTV was used.
In Halifax's first election in 1758, 16 times the votes were cast (likely orally) than would have been done under SNTV - because the district elected 16 members and Block Voting was used.
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Vanuatu's SNTV Vanuatu uses SNTV to elect its members, sometimes as many as seven in a single district. looking at Vanuatu's SNTV 2020 election, we see generally fair and representative results.
Despite the seeming looseness of the SNTV system, the measure of satisfaction seem consistent from district to district even with different District Magnitudes (number of seats in the district): =============== Santo seven different parties represented among the seven seats in the district. Parties (in order of popularity of party's leading candidate) candidates party total seats won percent of votes approx Parties represented RMC 2 15 1 Liberal movement 1 8 1 Land and Justice 1 7 1 Vemarama 1 6 1 Cultural Self-reliance 1 5 1 Negriamal 2 9 1 Progressive Party 1 5 1 Parties not represented Leaders Party 2 7 0 Union of Moderate Parties 3 8 0 16 other parties, Independents 21 not calc. 0 Each other party and Independent candidate got less than 5 percent of vote
Candidates Elected Rick RMC 12 percent of votes (lion share of the party's 15 percent of the vote) Pikione Liberal Movement 8 percent of votes Maoh Land and Justice 7 percent of votes Nano Venarama 6 percent of votes Samson Cultural Self-R 5 percent of votes Joshua Negriamal 5 percent of votes (just more than half of the party's votes) Sakaes Progressive Party 4.82 percent of votes Candidates not elected Jocob Leader Party 4.8 percent of votes (missed last seat by 10 votes) Lum Negriamal 4.4 percent of votes (just less than half the votes.)* many more unsuccessful candidates with fewer than 4.4 percent of the vote
* if the two Negriamal party candidates had exactly evenly split their votes, neither of the party candidates would have been elected. Parties varying from 15 to 5 percent of the vote each got one seat. Two parties with more than five percent of the vote did not get any representation, seemingly due to vote splitting due to running more than one candidate. although there is no telling that the party would have received the same level of support if it had run just one candidate. The balance is off:
- parties are not necessarily represented according to party vote share,
- all represented parties got same number of seats despite variation in vote share.
But there was rough fairness there. Other than the Leaders and Union of Moderate Parties parties, the most popular parties all got more seats than their due based on their overall share of the vote so that was somewhat fair.
But on the other hand the diversity of representation is astounding -- no region, city or province or district in Canada elected seven parties. sometimes just one party took all the seats in a whole province. About 48 percent of voters in Santo saw their vote actually used to elect someone. About 55 percent of voters saw a candidate of the party they voted for elected. Likely many of the supporters of other parties found someone they agreed with among the seven different members elected.
The election in the adjoining district of Port Vila gives us a comparable result.
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Port Vila
four different parties represented among the five seats in the district. Party (in order of popularity of party's leading candidate) candidates party total seats won percent of votes approx Represented parties Land and Justice 1 11 1 RMC 2 15 1 Union of Moderate Parties 4 22 2 Vanua'Aku Pati 1 7 1 Parties not represented Leaders 2 9 0 Green 1 6 0 many other less popular ones
Candidates elected
Ralph Land and Justice 11 percent of votes
Ulrich RMC 10 percent of votes*
Anthony Union of Moderate P. 9 percent of votes
Ishmael Union of Moderate P. 8 percent of votes
Kenneth Vanua'Aku Pati 7 percent of votes
Candidates not elected
Felix Leaders 6 percent of votes (missed last spot by 100 votes, running mate took 600 votes)
Bohn RMC 6 percent of votes*
many other candidates, of party and Independents
No other parties ran multiple candidates, and the vote tally for the parties' one candidate was never more than 5.4 percent.
*RMC if Ulrich and Bohn had split the party vote more evenly, both would have been elected. But that result would not have been proportional - the party took only 15 percent of the vote.
About 45 percent of voters in Port Vila saw their vote actually used to elect someone. About 55 percent of voters saw a candidate of the party they voted for elected. Likely many of the supporters of other parties found someone they agreed with among the seven different members elected. so SNTV, it seems, provided satisfactory results - certainly more mixed and balanced representation in the two districts examined than in any group of 12 seats in Canada in the last federal election. Despite X voting, relatively high level of effective votes (votes used to elect someone) and this moderately-high rate is shown as consistent at least among these two districts. although different parties were elected from district to district. SNTV system does obviously discourage parties from running too many candidates so voters do not have the choice of multiple candidates of same party as would be provided by STV, for example. But voters have wide selection of candidates for their choice, much wider than under Canada's FPTP. And in the districts that elect multiple members usually one or more parties do run multiple candidates (even if it is not the best way to game the system). From Anthony and Ishmael's experience, we see that under SNTV it is possible to elect more than one candidate of the same party if the party's popularity is above 20 percent and the party's votes predominantly go to just two candidates - even if that party runs a wildly optimistic total of four candidates.
The wasted votes among the unsuccessful Union of Moderate Parties candidate was less than enough to win a third seat. Waste and missed opportunity among all the parties who run multiple candidates meant that it was just possible for the Union of Moderate Parties to win three seats if its vote had been split just right, but anyways such a result would not have been proportional to the party's 22 percent vote share. So despite the seemingly-loose seat allocation process, the end result in the SNTV election in Port Vila was somewhat fair - other than the Leaders Party, all the most popular parties got representation, the most popular candidates within those parties were elected, and the most popular party got more representation than any other party. The result in Port Vila shows that electing multiple candidates of a party is possible under SNTV, despite the fact that SNTV's lack of transferable votes means that a party's votes cannot be concentrated behind just a party's leading candidates.
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2023 Vanuatu election
where a system has no back-up preferences and a voter casts one vote in a multi-member district, you have SNTV.
where voter can mark only one back-up preference, you have what might be called SSTV Single Semi-Transferable Voting.
with only one back-up preference allowed,
parties that have more than say 20 percent ofhe vote in the district have to carefully consider how many candidates they want to run.
a voter has to consider how to place his or her two preferences.
vote splitting can happen for any party running more than two candidates.
But small parties that run just one and hope just to get one seat have no fear of vote splitting.
supporters of such will have to decide to which party their vote shoud transfer if their first choice can't be elected (if the vote can be transferred across party lines).
SSTV will be likely very similar to Vanuatu's election SNTV
under Vanuatu's SNTV, each large party usually takes 1 or two seats in a district
seldom more
Efate -- three were taken by UMP in 2023 that is exceptional "one-party sweep"
Malekula with 7 seats elected one member of each of seven parties
altogether the winners took about 44 percent of the vote.
That one district elected rep belonging to more parties than even in the entire HofC in Canada today.
in total 17 parties and five independent candidates ran in this one district.
27 candidates in all, so you see only five parties ran even two candidates.
only V. Pati ran as many as three, as far as I can see.
But situation is different for Canada
with districts of 4 to 6 seats
with Canadian system of four or so parties,
and with SNTV,
the most-popular party might hope to elect three to four members in a district so will run three or four candidates.
so being able to mark only two preferences (as under SSTV)
means there might be vote splitting and ddisproportionality party-wise.
with such restriction of marked preferences (only first preference and one back-up), a smaller DM makes more sense. to reduce that potential for vote splitting,
The most-popular candidate for the party might take half the votes cast for that patty, leaving just relative crumbs for the others on party slate.
in Vanuatu, SNTV, 19 parties were elected to the chamber.
so DM of up to 7 makes sense.
usually the winners are dispersed over as many parties as the number of seats to be filled.
in Efate in 2023 three of same party (UMP) elected. This was every candidate that ran for that party in that district. Somehow each of the three got about same number of votesm
other parties with more votes suffered vote splitting.
V. Pati got two-thirds of the vote total of UMP buit elected none.
Pentecost
Rural Development party got 2700 votes out of 9200 cast (three candidates) and won half the seats.
National United party got 900 votes (spread over two candidates) and took one seat.
Reunification party ran one candidate and elected that one person.
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More comments
Limited Voting is like SNTV in the size of party slates of candidates under them.
In both, parties do not put up slates equal to the number of open seats, because the party knows it cannot elect all the seats. That certainly seems the case in SNTV, perhaps not so consistently in LV. And having only incomplete slates guarantees diverse representation. because one party sweep of all seats is impossible. (And if it is impossible in any one district, it is impossible overall in the chamber!) In all PR, the elected rep. is diverse, but not all diverse rep is (strictly or exactly) proportional. But in all cases, diverse rep is more P than any one-party sweep. I think that is an accurate generalization. SNTV is like LV or a subset of LV, but it is so strict that it stands alone so should have its own distinction, I believe. LV and SNTV as names are like FPTP (as usually thought of - single-winner) and Block Voting. FPTP and BV both are said to give each voter "as many votes as the number of open seats" but a voter casting multiple votes under BV is so different than casting only a single vote under FPTP that having two terms makes sense. Same for Multiple non-transferable voting/LV and SNTV. if we need simpler term for SNTV, we could just say Single Voting. Most terms do not include what a thing is not. Therefore, SV (Single Voting) = SNTV STV = Single Voting plus transferable votes perhaps FPTP could be known as the "Single-vote single-winner system." This would distinguish it from any single-winner approval system that might be discussed. the term Limited Voting is fine as is, I think.
Single vote (one person one vote) Any single vote system has advantage that the measure of support for a candidate (or party) (the exact number of persons who support them) can be measured. any system where multiple votes (even CV) are used, the number of voters who voted for the elected rep cannot be determined with any precision. all could elected by just whole or subsets of those who vote for the person who receives the most votes or they could be elected by various groupings overlapping with that group. Multiple members Any system that elects multiple rep can produce diverse rep (a "necessary but not sufficient" cause of a proportional result) Single voting and multiple members any system where single voting and multiple members are elected always produces diverse rep (as long as number of seats are more than three and there is normal diversity of votes cast). (always being actual cases in history, not theoretical contrived cases) The more diverse, the more proportional - I think that is accurate generalization. (as long as a party can elect multiple members where numbers allow). Single Member Any system that elects just one member cannot produce diverse rep (in that contest anyway).
Multiple Member BV or LV are not guaranteed to produce diverse representation. BV for sure even producing one-party sweeps in as large as five-seat districts, such as Edmonton in 1921 prov election. Unlike BV, Limited Voting or Cumulative Voting were brought in (in the relatively rare times when they were) on purpose to produce diverse representation -- minority representation as well as representation of the largest group. But other systems have proven themselves more dependable at producing Proportional Representation than those two - party-list PR or Single Transferable Voting, for example. Multiple voting may lead to lower preference used against higher preference any system that allows multiple votes may be advised to adopt mechanism to prevent a voter's lower preference from being used against his or her first preference. This is done in STV by the lowest preference being contingency (back-up) preferences used only if the higher preference is found to be ineffective - either through candidate being eliminated or elected. in the latter case, the lower preference is used in reduced size, directly through fraction in some Australia systems or indirectly in whole vote transfer systems, used in most or all past Canadian elections and in Ireland and Malta elections. Cumulative Voting does not prevent lower preference used against higher unless voter lumps all votes on just one candidate (shows no lower preference). if everyone did that lumping, it would be in effect a return to FPTP. and dis-proportional results, which I believe was eventual outcome when CV was used in Illinois circa 1900. Any system where voter casts single vote does not have to worry about a lower preference being used against higher preference. Single vote can be transferable or non-transferable. Ranked votes retains the virtue of one person one vote while also allowing vote transfers that ensure most votes are used effectively - either at rate of 50 percent or so through guaranteed majority election where just one member is elected (IRV) (but result is still not diverse or proportional) or at rate of something like 80 or 90 percent under STV, due to election of multiple members. where result often is semi-proportional or even proportional, and almost always is diverse
- it always is diverse where more than three members are elected Single Non-transferable Voting is one person one vote, election of multiple members, use of non-transferable votes (which may be good or bad thing depending your POV). Diverse representation elected in each district, no one-party sweeps in any district. Augmented by 10-20 percent of top-up seats, certain to produce proportional result. But of course STV or party-list PR would be proportional too.
-------------------------------------------- History
Single Non-transferable Voting was first proposed in solid form by Saint-Just in 1793 in a proposal to the French National Convention. He proposed having the whole country as one multi-seat district. It was not adopted in France at that time. (Hoag and Hallet, Proportional Representation, p. 163)
Japan was the first country to adopt SNTV for election of government members a hundred years later than Saint-Just's original proposal. In 1880s Japan adopted SNTV for provincial politicians and in 1900 for national politicians (members of House of Representatives). (Hoag and Hallet, Proportional Representation, p. 45)
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