STV: A Smart(i)er way To Vote

A tale about voting…

Some voters like really like the Red Party …

while others like the Yellow Party …

and still others like the Green Party* …

*any resemblance to real parties is purely coincidental

but most voters have a wide range of views that don’tnecessarily match up perfectly with any party.

We don’t usually live next to people who think exactlythe way we do …

so wherever we live, our neighbours will have a widerange of opinions.

This makes our neighbourhoods diverse and interesting, but it’s a problem when it’s time to vote.

What we do now is divide up our province into ridingsbased on where we live.

Riding A Riding B Riding C

In an election, each of the parties usually puts up acandidate in each riding.

We each cast our vote for the candidate in our ridingthat we support the most (or dislike the least).

In each riding, the candidate with the most votes wins, even if they don’t have even 50% of the votes.

* * *42%

45% 42%

The winning candidate is then supposed to ‘represent’ all the voters in that riding…

but a lot of voters (typically half) voted for different can-didates and so don’t believe their MLA shares their views.

Even some who did vote for their MLA aren’t all that happy with them & wish they could choose someone else.

Provincewide, one party usually wins far more seats thanthey deserve based on their share of the vote, and …

so wins power far out of proportion to their level of popularsupport, often winning a majority on well under 50%.

So, how would the Single Transferable Vote (STV)fix these problems and satisfy more voters?

First of all, STV recognizes that neighbours don’t alwaysshare the same political views, so it tries to make sure thatas many voters as possible can choose the specific MLAthey want.

The first step is to merge adjacent ridings into largergroupings, usually called districts. Each district will electmore than one candidate (three in this example).

Each party will typically run more than one candidate, andpossibly as many as there are seats in the district.

Voters anywhere in the district consider all thecandidates, so they have much more choice with STV.

Voters usually identify several candidates they are mostly supportive of & decide which candidate they most prefer.

They list that candidate first on their ballot (by marking their ballot with a ‘1’) …

and then rank any other candidates they support using a ‘2’,‘3’, and so on. They can rank across parties, if they wish.

To get elected, a candidate needs their fair share of thevotes. In this example, there are 35 voters…

so a candidate needs just over 1/4 of the votes (= 9) to be elected. No more than 3 candidates can win 9 votes.

Unlike our current system, voting is done in rounds so thatno voter’s ballot is tossed aside if their 1st choice doesn’t win.

Since no-one has received 9 votes on the first count, wehave to eliminate the candidate with the least votes.

The voter who supported the eliminated candidate thengets to transfer their ballot to their second choice.

Still no-one has 9 votes, so the process repeats.

This time, the two voters have different secondpreferences, so the votes go to different candidates.

Next, a Yellow Party candidate is eliminated…

and their supporters go both to Yellow & Green candidates.

Now a second Green candidate is eliminated...

And the remaining Green candidate picks up enough votesto be elected.

This candidate’s supporters gather round to celebrate!

Now a second Yellow Party candidate is eliminated…

and the remaining Yellow candidate picks up enough votesto be elected also.

More celebrations!

Finally, the Red candidate with the least support iseliminated…

and the remaining Red candidate is elected.

The remaining voters also support this candidate, so(almost) all the voters are happy.

To recap:

Our current voting system leaves about halfthe voters unhappy with the outcome…

and tends to give one party far more seats than theydeserve based on their level of popular support, …

while STV lets voters choose the candidates they supportmost regardless of which party they belong to …

and produces a province-wide outcome that’s much closerto each party’s level of popular support.

STV: A Much Smart(i)er way To Vote

Please vote ‘Yes’ on May 12, 2009 & visit STV.ca for more info