STV IN (ANIMATED) ACTION

BC-STV IN ACTION

Welcome to some animations that illustrate BC-STV and its vote-counting system, and the current First Past the Post system. They are illustrative, and are not mathematically precise models.

To view these animations, you'll need a Macromedia Flash plug-in. You can download it, free, for PC or Mac, from this page .  And when opening the animations, please be patient. They are hefty files.

» OUR ANIMATIONS

1. BC-STV

This animation explains key features of BC-STV, and shows the counting system in representative action. There's also a "Skip to counting" button that you can use to go directly to the segments on counting. In the counting section, you can use the "Next" and "Back" buttons to walk through the counting process at your desired pace.

2. BC-STV (short version)

This illustrative animation omits the key features of BC-STV, and shows only the counting system. You can use the "Next" and "Back" buttons to walk through the counting process at your desired pace.

3. SMP (First Past the Post)

This animation looks at the current Single Member Plurality system that B.C. has used for most of its history. (It's often called First Past the Post.)

» OTHER ANIMATIONS

The Electoral Office of South Australia produced its own animations of a generic STV system and of First Past the Post, and then kindly adapted them to give them a little B.C. flavour. The STV one covers the counting process, and the transfer of votes, in more detail than our BC-STV animation.

1. STV (Australian animation)

2. SMP (First Past the Post) (Australian animation)

(For the ultra-technically minded, the Australians use a slightly different method of calculation for transferring "surplus" votes from one candidate to others. The Assembly's proposed method is more fair for both voters and candidates.)

Those two Australian animations are on this website only until the end of June 2005. Then they come down. But the original non-BC versions will remain online, and you can find them as follows:

STV (Australian animation)

1. Go to http://www.seo.sa.gov.au/flash.htm and click on the "Continue" button

2. On the page that then comes up, click on "Proportional Representation" in the left-hand column

3. Then you can use the "Continue" buttons to follow the process and procedure. When the Australian animation uses the words "Proportional Representation", think "BC-STV"

4.  (For the ultra-technically minded, the Australians use a slightly different method of calculation for transferring "surplus" votes from one candidate to others. The Assembly's proposed method is more fair for both voters and candidates.)  

SMP (First Past the Post) (Australian animation)

1. Go to http://www.seo.sa.gov.au/flash.htm and click on the "Continue" button

2. On the page that then comes up, click on "First Past the Post" in the left-hand column

3. Then you can use the "Continue" buttons to follow the process and procedure

» MORE ON BC-STV