Single T ransferable Vote in Multi-seat
Ridings
STV in multi seat riding's has been used in the republic of
Ireland for about 70 years for all elections. Because the United
Kingdom is the nearest neighbour, the media in Ireland often
compare the 2 systems. The consensus is that STV
provides a much stronger link between the elected members and their
local electorate and that the system lessens the power of central
party leadership over the members of parliament. In Ireland there
are 3 major parties and another 3 or 4 minor ones. The 3 major
parties are basically the same as they were at the foundation of
the system. Ireland is typically governed by the largest party.
(generally considered to be a centrist party) or by a right-left
coalition (Right and left nullifying each other to give a broadly
centrist government when they are in power too! There seems usually
to be 2 parties on the right and 2 on the left so there is choice
if a party goes rotten (as all parties do from time to time).
The things I like about STV are:
1. There is a strong link between voters and their elected
members
2. Strong competition is encouraged by the system. You have to
tell the voters why you should be elected to represent your party
and not one of your other party guys. (because you compete against
your own as well as other party nominees).
3. Co-operation is also enhanced by the system! Seems at odds
with point 2 but it isn't. You cannot disparage your party running
mates or rival party nominees too much because at the end of the
day, you will probably depend on transfers from those peoples
voters to get elected! You CANNOT divide and conquer.
This makes for respectful election campaigns and I feel that over
the generations it has helped the Irish mature as a people.
4. There seems to be room for about 6 stable parties under the
system. This allows to voters to have choice at all times. The
mushroom party phenomenon that is so prevalent in Canada does not
exist there.
5. More votes count. Under straight vote, 30% of the voters can
easily elect a majority government.. That is dangerous and
undemocratic. In multi seat stv, at least 75% of votes cast
directly elect people. (This is what enhances the local link
between voters and their politician.) A government under stv must
therefore appeal to a broad spectrum of the population.
6. The stv system provides fascinating and detailed information
about the political preferences of the population. This allows
parties to finely hone their polices to suit the electorate. First
past the post gives party strategists just a clumsy X to help them
detect wavering voters by comparison! This allows the
parties to change their polices in tandem with social and political
changes in society. Parties can be more in tune with their
public!
7. The System is simple to use. You can mark an x beside one
candidate if you cannot count. You can do 1,2,3 in order of choice
or go through the entire list of candidates in order of choice.
Normally, voters are not familiar with all candidates so they just
rank those that they do know. Ranking about 10 candidates probably
insures that your vote is used.
Currently local government in Wales and Scotland are both in the
midst of a change to STV after a brief flirtation with the mixed
member system.
BC should note that and go straight to STV!
MMP does not reduce party power. It will not increase voter
participation. And it will not make your vote count any more than
first past the post did.
People often try to explain single transferable vote with
complex mathematics. This is probably a mistake. When someone gets
into a car or bus, they don't need to know exactly how the engine
works. Single transferable vote is easy to use. It is about choice
and an easy way of registering it. It is the supermarket version of
voting. Or if you like, the free market version of voting. And
votes count as opposed to being counted. A vote only counts if it
helps elect someone that the voter approves of.
So you need STV in 3, 4 or 5 seat riding's to be able to hear
the voters voices. In a 3 seater, 25% of voters don't get heard,
while in a 5 seater, about 16% are not heard. In first past the
post, those figures can be as high as 70% or more!
It is a system that gives people the confidence to put down their
favourite candidate as no. 1 even if they expect that candidate to
fail miserably. It is also a system which allows you to choose
between candidates from the same party. Why is this important?
Well, if your favourite party gets taken over by a guy that you
dislike, you can still vote for a party candidate, just one who is
not allied to the bad leader. In this way, the voters can purge bad
leaders and their pawns from good party's. The party's get valuable
feedback from the voters too when single transferable vote is used.
Riding by riding, they can figure out what issues are important to
what voters by the way they voted and transferred in the last
election. They can adjust their priority's slightly to appeal to a
larger selection of the voters.
I lived under the single transferable vote for 30 years. I come
from the protestant minority in the Republic of Ireland and I feel
that stv has moderated the political climate and protected me. Here
is my experience of it.
-
Election reports gets the top TV rating of the year even in
sport mad Ireland.
-
It is very educational. I have seen a minister concede defeat to
his internal party colleague, only to win the last seat later in
the night on transfers from the candidate from his party rival. The
average voter respected him more than anybody knew!
-
The same large party's have roughly the same level of support as
they did 30 years ago. New party's do form but they are usually
splinters of an old group and they eventually rejoin. Coalitions
happen. They are not bad. In the economic boom for the last decade
or more, Ireland has been ruled by coalition.
-
As environmental consciousness grows, party's incorporate more
of it into their policy. There is free and open competition of
ideas within and between the parties.
-
Elections are close because parties try to get power while
making as few promises as possible. Broken promises are very costly
things because, unlike Canada, the same parties are there at
national, regional and local level.
-
You cannot just start afresh with a new party name and new
slogans and a powerful advertising campaign after hoodwinking the
people.
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Parties do parachute in candidates occasionally but because
there is a choice still available within the party locally on
election day, there is often a strong backlash against that
candidate. In short, takeovers from above are not that easy!
-
Politics permeates society in Ireland, it is a necessary
evil!
If you do decide on multi-seat single transferable vote as your
new voting system, please check up the electoral reform society of
Great Britain because they are perhaps the most up to date on the
best ways to organize STV. Once a system is in place, it is really
hard to tweak it! So get the most up to date one. Also,
in my opinion, a 'none of the below' option is needed. Classically
there are many candidates on a ballot paper. It is not practical to
rank them all.
A 'none of the below' option would allow you to rank the 6 or 8
candidates that you know and then stick in the none of the below
preference, Followed by those candidates on the ballot that you
truly disdain! It is a quality control option! It
provides for a measure of voter dissatisfaction too. Please think
seriously on the none of the below option if you do go for
Multi-seat STV.
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