Single Transferrable Vote Flashcards
What is Single Transferrable Vote?
How does the process work?
A STV is claimed to be the most attractive type of electoral system, according to political scientists.
STV uses multi-member districts with voters ranking candidates in order of their preference in the same manner of AV.
But, voters are not required to do the ranking system, they can only mark one if they want.
After the total number of first-preference votes are counted, the count then begins by establishing the ‘quota’ of votes required for the election of a single candidate.
Where is STV used?
Malta, Ireland and Estonia once.
Who discovered PR?
Thomas Hare in Britain
What happens if no one achieves the quota?
If no-one has achieved the quota, the candidate with the lowest number of first preferences is eliminated, with his or her second preferences being redistributed to the candidates left in the race.
At the same time, the surplus votes of elected candidates (i.e., those votes above the quota) are redistributed according to the second preferences on the ballot papers. For fairness, all the candidate’s ballot papers are redistributed, but each at a fractional percentage of one vote, so that the total redistributed vote equals the candidate’s surplus
What are the advantages of STV?
STV allows for choice between parties AND choice between candidates within parties
The final results retain a fair degree of proportionality
Most areas which use STV are small multi-member districts so there is a good geographical link between candidates and the voter.
Voters can influence the post-election coalition of governments as seen in Ireland.
Provides a better chance for the election of popular independent candidates than List PR because voters are choosing between candidates rather than between parties.
What are the disadvantages of STV?
STV is unfamiliar to many societies thus even though it may be a nice system, democracies won’t want to adopt it because they dont know about it really
Counting STV is quite difficult to understand
Extremists into gov
Pressures for fragmentation within political parties as voters choose for candidates within parties not the parties themselves, thus competition of popularity. Would this work in the UK? Probs not. Would this work in the US? Probs yes
But, none of these issues have seemed to matter in real life practise.
