The Northern Ireland Assembly Elections 2017 as an example of Proportional Representation.
Last Thursday’s Northern Ireland Assembly Elections can be used as an example of Proportional Representation for those who are new to the idea. Both parts of Ireland use a form of Proportional Representation known as Single Transferable Vote where each person has one vote which will generally get transferred to others than their first choice.
STV works as follows.
Each constituency is assigned a number of seats, in this case, each constituency has 5 seats.
Any party can nominate as many people to run for these seats and the top five vote getters are elected.
But, there is a catch. Each of the top five must get a minimum number of votes called the Quota and this is where the transfers come in.
This is an example of the Quota process last week in one constituency.
Vote counting proceeds as follows.
All the First Preference votes are counted and ordered.
If anyone gets more votes than the Quota, they are elected. If elected, any votes that you got over the Quota (the Surplus) is transferred (in different ways) to the Second Preference. If someone else goes over the Quota after the new votes are counted for them, this is repeated.
If no one is elected, the candidates with the least votes begin to be Eliminated, and all of their votes transferred.
Each iteration of counts and transfers is called a Count and often goes over 10.
This is an area that I am familiar with that needed only three Counts. There is a link below to a 12 Count election which is too big to paste into this.
Constituency: East Londonderry
I am no expert on STV and this is about all that I know. Aside from who wins the seats, the process itself is very interesting as the Transfers proceed. There is a lot of Tactical Voting (help your friends, hurt your enemy).
The idea behind this is that almost all people eventually vote for one of the elected candidates, making this very democratic. Using STV, or some other form of PR, small parties can get a foothold and possible grow to make a difference. Without PR, no small party will get a chance and only a leader driven new party can prosper.
Comments
Definitely an option we should be talking about more.
I'd like to see it combined with a national referendum system. Thanks for bringing this up. This would break up the duopoly.
I'm done with representative government and our two party system
I love it when they call for a new vote for whomever out of the blue. It would be nice to declare yourself sick of the current crop and have a new vote.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
A rose is a rose, & by any other name would smell as sweet
Single Transferable Vote seems similar to what folks in Vermont, and most of the US, would call 'ranked choice voting,' or 'Instant Run-off Voting'.
Whatever the name, they are all better than first-past-the-post voting! Sweet posting, thanks.
This would seem to be an idea whose time has come,
and should be one of the main thrusts going forward, along with money out of politics, for anyone serious about repairing this suffocated democracy. As usual America always has to contend with taking a step backwards first, as is the case now with the under-the-radar announcement that elections are going to be overseen by the Dept of Homeland Security (?!). Still, a run-off system would empower more folks to get engaged and the formation and ballot presence of new parties would put pressure if not topple the two dying fraudulent parties of the Rich.
Until we have more voices available to the electorate, and dismantle the two party duopoly that strangleholds us, we're doomed to be stuck in the ditch of the banana republic we've become.
Thanks for this clear reminder.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut