STV: Single Transferable Vote
STV is an alternative method for electing officials in Legislative bodies. The most common electoral system in the U.S.A. is called First Past the Post. In this system, the candidate with the most votes wins even if it’s not a majority. This system discourages more than two candidates running and is what created our two-party system. In First past the post, if there are 5 candidates in a race, the winner can win by as low as 20% +1 voters supporting them. In STV, voters rank the candidates in order of preference. There is a difference between STV and First Past the Post, and RCV. In those systems, only one person is elected per district. In STV, multiple people are elected per district. While districts can have different numbers of representatives, each representative represents the same number of people. If district A has double the representatives of district B, it also has double the population. This means that even minority party voters in a district get someone to represent them, but the results are proportional. So, a party that wins a majority of votes gets a majority of seats in a district. So, in the current system, if you live in a dem district but are a GOP voter or vice versa, you don’t get accurate representation. In this system, even if your party doesn’t win the majority in the district, you are still represented. As a basic example, if you are in a district that gets 3 reps, a candidate must win and 1/3 of the vote to be elected. Candidate E was really popular, got 40% of the vote. So, not to punish voters for supporting popular candidates, Candidate E’s excess votes get distributed to their voters’ second choice. That then puts candidate D over the requirement. Repeat the last step. Now they eliminate Candidate B and his votes goes to the other Red party candidate, Candidate A. Candidate C is then eliminated and Candidate B is the third candidate elected. This process made sure everyone’s votes mattered and that everyone got some sort of representation.
Why STV For The House
STV provides local districts that voters want, and it is mostly proportional. STV also gives voters control over which of a party’s candidates gets elected. STV does have some limitations. How proportional a district is is dependent on how many representatives it elects. In a rural district, if you have to many reps the district becomes physically to large for the canidates to campaign. In an urban district, if there are too many representatives, voters have too many candidates to rank and are less likely to want to vote. For this reason, districts are limited to 3 to 10 reps per district. rural with less and urban with more. This does tend to favor larger parties, but not just two, as they have to have enough sport concentrated to win districts. We also need more representatives in the chamber to have decent-sized districts. This makes the House a good fit. STV reduces the power of gerrymandering, but can’t completely eliminate it. The benefit of having two chamber in the legislature is that we can elect the Senate with a different method to balance the trade offs. Just like in the current system, the House represents the people, and the Senate represents the states. In the Minnesota Plan, the House represents the individual locations, and the senate represents the Country/State as a whole. Click below to learn about Direct Party vote for the Senate.