Questions About STV, Electoral Reform

[treveller]

It's time I started answering questions about STV.

If you're wondering whether or not to vote for STV and you have specific questions I should be able to answer them.

Fair warning, I am extremely biased in favour Of STV. I like to think that this is because I have used it half a dozen times over the past five years for elections and the more you know about it the better you like it.

I will also put up some links early next week.

Please stick to questions and answers in this thread. I will start another thread for the arguing. And yes, STV does sound like STD and none of us want an STD.

 

[Arrrg]

Where were you when I started this thread?

https://perb.cc/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=106810

 

[wilde]

It's hard enough for some people just to figure out who to vote for, now you want them to rank each candidate? Good f@#king luck with that one.

.

 

[island-guy]

there is only ONE good thing about STV.

It creates governments that are SOO dysfunctional that they can't even agree on tax increases.

If you like the way everything is and you want to be SURE that no government will ever be able to pass a new law ever again because of all the special interest groups and political BS involved, then go for it!!

If you want examples, check out what happens in the Irish parliment or to see what true proportional representation does, check out the Isreali Knesset (sp?). They have to have elections every time they try to vote on anything just about.

 

[MissingOne]

I already voted, and I voted against STV. The current system has its flaws, but STV introduces layers of complication that are just unworkable in my opinion.

 

[littlejimbigher]

I voted for it last time but I might vote no this time.
The Green party was against it last time and probably that cost them electing any MLA's for the next 20 years.

 

[not2old]

The best advice that I have heard on it is "If you don't understand it, don't vote for it"

 

[HankQuinlan]

God knows the last thing anybody needs in this current environment is a fragmented and indecisive government.

Nope. The last thing you need is a decisive government that has its priorities all fucked up.

 

[treveller]

It's hard enough for some people just to figure out who to vote for, now you want them to rank each candidate? Good f@#king luck with that one.

.

Have you ever heard of strategic voting? How about wasting your vote? One choice with First Past the Post looks simple but it is brain dead useless when you have more than two parties and if you try to compensate for that it gets difficult or impossible. When the polls tell you that your candidate has 40% of the vote and the Green Party candidate has 15% of the vote you know you are screwed. You may as well not bother voting because the other candidate's 45% beats your parties 40%. If there are three equally popular candidates, one can win with 34% of the vote while the other 66% of the voters are screwed.

With STV you vote for the candidate you like best by putting a 1 beside their name. Then look at the ballot again and put a 2 beside the name of the candidate you like best. And So On. That is only difficult if you can't count to 5. Elementary school children who know how to count have no difficulty with STV. What grade are you in? As a bonus there is no need to follow the polls, no need or opportunity for strategic voting and little chance your vote will be wasted. All it requires is writing numbers in order rather than marking an X.

In fact if all you want to do is mark an X with STV that will work just fine. You get one vote just like you do now. If you can't handle marking an X beside the name of the person you like best I don't want you voting.

I don't want to go on insulting people who know they are voting for FPTP. This thread is for questions from people who are not sure which way to vote.

 

[treveller]

Sorry I missed it.

Where were you when I started this thread?

https://perb.cc/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=106810

I will copy some questions from the other thread and provide some answers here.

 

[treveller]

Try for a question next time

there is only ONE good thing about STV.

It creates governments that are SOO dysfunctional that they can't even agree on tax increases.

If you like the way everything is and you want to be SURE that no government will ever be able to pass a new law ever again because of all the special interest groups and political BS involved, then go for it!!

If you want examples, check out what happens in the Irish parliment or to see what true proportional representation does, check out the Isreali Knesset (sp?). They have to have elections every time they try to vote on anything just about.

I wanted questions, not mis-information.

STV gives you a good degree of proportional representation in government. Most countries in Europe use proportional representation. It works well.

And you want to complain about a government that doesn't give you a tax increase?

If you like the way everything is you need to vote for the voting system we are using now, First Past The Post. It is the foundation of the screwed up system we have now.

If you want something better then vote for STV. It will be an improvement.

Ireland does just fine with STV. They have been using it since the 20s when the English pulled out. The English put STV in the Irish constitution. Politicians don't like STV because it gives voters more power than the other systems. With STV required by the Irish constitution the politicians have to hold a referendum if they want to get rid of it. The politicians have called two referenda trying to get rid of STV and both times the Irish voters have told the politicians to get stuffed.

If you want to support the boys in the party back room at the expense of voters then by all means vote for the present system. That is what I call a really narrow Special Interest Group.

Isreal does not use STV. Neither does Italy. STV is just one form of proportional representation. The other popular system is MMP, which gives the politicians more power relative to STV.

On average countries with proportional representation have no more elections than countries with First Past the Post.

Ireland, with STV has no more elections than First Past The Post countries.

 

[treveller]

You Are Too Old

The best advice that I have heard on it is "If you don't understand it, don't vote for it"

Better Yet, If you don't understand it please don't vote at all, anywhere, for anything.

God forbid we should try to improve something!!!

If you don't care enough to try to understand or you are not able to cope with the concept of a preferential ballot then you are part of the problem and the rest of society does not want you voting.

 

[bcneil]

I miss sctv

 

[treveller]

It benefits the smaller parties trying to get a foot in the door but does nothing for the average voter who would like their government to be functional.... the BS statistics that the backers of STV use display overall numbers of voters in the province as a whole, overlooking the fact that each riding has it's own election and votes for its local representation. The people in each riding get the local representation that they vote for, and that, in its entirety, comprises the provincial government. Heavy popular vote favouring individual candidates in specific ridings skews the overall number of provincial votes, creating an unrepresentative picture when all the votes are thrown into the same pot. If you add to that the fact that the average person doesn't understand the process, or how their votes could cascade, then as an earlier poster said, that in itself is sufficient reason not to back the initiative.

??? It benefits the smaller parties trying to get a foot in the door but does nothing for the average voter who would like their government to be functional???
You call a party with 40% of the vote getting 2 out of 79 seats in the legislature Functional Government?? You think the NDP is one of the smaller parties?? That is what we got 3 elections back with the present system.

The rest of what you say seems to be a description of the present system. I suspect you don't understand either system.

 

[aznboi9]

Pretty funny video of John Cleese explaining STV...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSUKMa1cYHk

The best advice that I have heard on it is "If you don't understand it, don't vote for it"

Well, by that reasoning, you shouldn't be using the computer that you typed your post on. Unless you're a computer tech and do understand the specific mechanism of how pressing the various buttons on your keyboard has led to the specific patterns of pixelation that I now see on my monitor?

 

[wilde]

Have you ever heard of strategic voting? How about wasting your vote? One choice with First Past the Post looks simple but it is brain dead useless when you have more than two parties and if you try to compensate for that it gets difficult or impossible. When the polls tell you that your candidate has 40% of the vote and the Green Party candidate has 15% of the vote you know you are screwed. You may as well not bother voting because the other candidate's 45% beats your parties 40%. If there are three equally popular candidates, one can win with 34% of the vote while the other 66% of the voters are screwed.

With STV you vote for the candidate you like best by putting a 1 beside their name. Then look at the ballot again and put a 2 beside the name of the candidate you like best. And So On. That is only difficult if you can't count to 5. Elementary school children who know how to count have no difficulty with STV. What grade are you in? As a bonus there is no need to follow the polls, no need or opportunity for strategic voting and little chance your vote will be wasted. All it requires is writing numbers in order rather than marking an X.

In fact if all you want to do is mark an X with STV that will work just fine. You get one vote just like you do now. If you can't handle marking an X beside the name of the person you like best I don't want you voting.

I don't want to go on insulting people who know they are voting for FPTP. This thread is for questions from people who are not sure which way to vote.

Trying telling that to the Grannies at the polling station, good luck!

.

 

[ysoenglish]

as you offered.....

I don't have a vote here so I have not bothered with the discussion but, out of curiosity, and as you offered...

Charles Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, proposed a Condorcet based system that seemed well founded when I did have an interest in such matters. I believe it got tweaked by some mathemticians a few years ago to improve it further, how does the STV system compare and why is it considered better?

I think, also a few years back, another mathemician proposed that Bayesian Regret was the best measure of voting systems, and that made range voting systems - not ranking systems - the least worst option of voting systems. What were the reasons behind the BC selection of STV or indeed what were the terms of reference of the investigating committee that produced the STV recommendation?

 

[TheSilkenBadger]

The concept of transferable voting was first proposed by Thomas Wright Hill in 1821. The system remained unused in real elections until 1855, when Carl Andræ proposed a transferable vote system for elections in Denmark. Andræ's system was used in 1856 to elect the Danish Rigsdag, and by 1866 it was also adapted for indirect elections to the second chamber, the Landsting, until 1915.


Although he was not the first to propose a system of transferable votes, the English barrister Thomas Hare is generally credited with the conception of STV, and he may have independently developed the idea in 1857.

That was 152 years ago. For 152 year this idea has sat there being used sparingly and then rejected. The Danes no longer use the STV system


Currently STV is only employed in several places

STV is used for parliamentary elections in the Republic of Ireland (since 1919), Northern Irish Assembly and Malta. It is also used for the Australian Senate in the form of a group voting ticket, as well as certain regional and local elections in Australia, local government elections in the Republic of Ireland, local government elections in Scotland and some local government elections such as Dunedin and the capital city of Wellington in New Zealand. STV has been used for local elections in Scotland since May 2007. In the United States, it is used for city elections in Cambridge, Massachusetts, various student government elections, and will be used for certain city elections in Minneapolis, Minnesota, starting in 2009.

A variation of STV known as BC-STV came within 2.4% of meeting the 60% threshold the government had set for adoption in British Columbia in a 2005 referendum, but it will be put to the voters a second time in May 2009.

Just a history lesson on STV from the good people at Wiki. Once again BC of course tries to reinvent the 152 year old square wheel that the rest of the world doesn't want.

 

[MrPeterNorth]

You call a party with 40% of the vote getting 2 out of 79 seats in the legislature Functional Government?? You think the NDP is one of the smaller parties?? That is what we got 3 elections back with the present system.

Whatever it takes to keep the NDP out of power, I'm happy. I'm voting NO.

 

[treveller]

Done

Trying telling that to the Grannies at the polling station, good luck!
.

Elementary school children and seniors do not have a problem with the ballot used with STV and it is doing just fine with the people in between as well.

There are two large cities in the eastern states that have been using STV for many years, one for city elections, the other for school board.

San Francisco was the first of the big recent adopters but a form of STV is spreading across the US in municipal elections. Many places there that used to have a second runoff election are adopting Instant Runoff Voting. This is the same as STV used to fill a single seat (district magnitude of one). In BC-STV the number of seats will range from 2 to 7 allowing the results to be proportional.

STV is used as part of the selection process for the Oscars.

Many private groups and professional associations in the States use STV for internal elections.