If you wanted more proof of the Wisdom of Crowds, you got it last week when the Citizens’ Assembly of BC, a representative group of 153 citizens selected at random from the voter rolls to identify the best electoral system for that province’s voters, issued its report on Thursday. By an overwhelming 90% plurality, the Citizens Assembly selected a system called PR-STV, which stands for Proportional Representation through Single Transferable Vote. Their recommendation will be put to a vote in a referendum as part of next Spring’s provincial election, and the ruling government has agreed in advance that if it is approved, PR-STV will come into effect in the following election in 2009. The opposition NDP, which has been a long-time supporter of PR, is almost certain to agree to be bound by the results if they are elected in the Spring election as well. The only real question now is whether existing power groups will lobby hard enough to convince the people to defeat the resolution.
PR-STV is an attempt to accomplish three things reasonably well; and while other systems accomplish each better, no other system even attempts to achieve them all:
This is a difficult balancing act. PR-STV requires larger constituencies than the first-past-the-post system we in North America are accustomed to. It isn’t fully proportional: A party with a plurality (more than any other party) but minority (<50%) of the popular vote can still end up with a small majority of seats, and new parties must have significant support (at least 20%) if they hope to get candidates elected. Still, PR-STV does get much closer to the ‘perfect compromise‘ of the three objectives above, than any other system. In a recent study for the Blair government in the UK, whose fragile majority would disappear under PR-STV, the commission clearly recognized the superiority of this system over any other (and in the UK, at various levels, there are many options to choose from). More importantly, the commission’s report shows that PR-STV works in practice, and does so with a ballot for voters that’s ‘as easy as 1-2-3’. Here’s how it works:
Here’s an example of how the ballot counting under PR-STV would work, courtesy of the UK Electoral Reform Society (another organization that speaks highly of PR-STV). If you want to play around with it, there’s a computer program that registers all your test votes and does all the calculations for you here. I’ve tried it, and it works, as long as you have a reasonalbly large number of voters in your test. And it’s really hard to explot to a party’s advantage: If a major party publishes lists telling party members what order to list its 3-7 candidates in, that can backfire and put the lower-ranking candidates on their list out of contention before the second and third-place votes get counted. What are the drawbacks of this system? Other than the less-than-perfect way it addresses each of the three objectives bulleted above, these are the criticisms and challenges:
If this summer’s Canadian election had been conducted using PR-STV, the Liberal minority would have been even smaller than it was, but the separatist Bloc QuÈbecois would have won many fewer seats, and the Liberals and NDP, along with a handful of Green Party electees, would be able to govern as a coalition without the need for support from either the anti-federalist Conservatives or Bloc QuÈbecois. The opposition parties all favour some form of electoral reform for Canada, and the NDP has made a referendum on reform a condition of its continued support for the Liberals. The BC report is likely to give this national initiative tremendous momentum, and make PR-STV the preferred alternative for consideration for the country as a whole. If the 2000 US election had been conducted using PR-STV, Gore would be president (there’s no room for an anachronistic electoral college under PR-STV), since he would have received the lion’s share of second-place votes when Nader was eliminated. Democrats would probably also have won more seats than Republicans in Congress (which under PR-STV would be combined into a single ‘House’), though it’s possible that some third parties and independents would have held the balance of power, reining in the House from some of its more flagrantly partisan and pork-barrelling actions. What’s more important, a lot of the old hacks would have been turfed out in favour of more moderate, competent candidates from their own party, bringing new ideas, youth and collaboration to the House. The study for the Blair government looked at the entire history of various PR voting around the world. Here’s what they found:
I know it’s hard for Americans to think about electoral reform with the critical election pending next week. But I predict that, whoever is ultimately declared the winner in that election, controversy, litigation and acrimony will ensue for months, even years. The sad truth is that the US electoral system is simply incapable of accurately reflecting the will of the electorate, either in the vote for president or the votes for Congress. If Americans finally wake up after a second consecutive electoral debacle and vow “never again”, modern electoral systems like PR-STV that are immune to most of the abuses that have destroyed the credibility of the American system, might merit a closer look. |
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Davewe don’t use closed party lists in Ireland as part of PR-STV. And PR as we fondly refer to it does mean that people get elected for ‘minority issues’. But that’s one of the wonderful parts of democracy. Twice it was put to the people in a referendum to change the voting system and twice it was rejected. If you’ve any questions drop me an emailDermot
Hey, how can I get elected as a wing-nut? I’m a big hardware freek.Seriously, this sounds like a pretty good system. Would it work at the county level? or would the state level be the smallest level it’d be appropriate for?
Proportional representation, and the lack of it was the sole reason for the partition of India into India and Pakistan — and resulted in a host of problems — including the rise of terrorism on that region of the worldIndian Congress leaders were too enamoured of the British system to make the necessary adjustments. Even now, an Indian system based on proportional system would work much better
Dermot: Thanks. We in the Green Party are committed to PR, and the leaders seem poised to embrace PR-STV as the preferred solution for Canada. We’ll need lots of help explaining it to voters.Derek: It’s been used at all levels where there are at least 3 people to be elected. In situations with only 1 person to be elected (like the vote for the US President), it can still be used, but turns out to be identical to Instant Runoff / Alternative voting, i.e. the bottom candidate keeps dropping off and votes redistributed to second choices until one candidate accumulates >50%. It still works better than the current system, but not as well as PR-STV.Rajiv: Useful history lesson, and links — thanks.
What? No punch cards or paperless electronic voting machines? Why can’t we enjoy the fun of being leaderless for up to a month after the election just like those guys to the south.In all seriousness though, I think it is time that we look at reforming how we elect our leaders and hopefully force them to be more accountable to the people (and not their lobbyists and political donators).
I’m not sure if you can characterise the coalition government in Israel as not been extreme. A minority government can be extremely susceptible to high pressure groups. In Australia, Senator Harradine, an independent for years held the deciding vote. Often he’d only vote for a bill if some other conservative issue was included in the bill, this can be about sex-education, discrimination of gays, etc.The current system, bad as it is, allows the government to be swept out of power without any backroom manouevering to try to stay in power.
Dave, this is a great post, and it addresses some of my skepticism about the ‘wisdom of crowds’ thesis you’ve been advancing recently. It seems to me that crowds have as much madness as wisdom. Traders on the U.S. stock market weren’t ‘wise’ when they drove up the market in September 1929, and they were no wiser when they drove it down in October. The trick is to create a system or a procedure that maximizes the amount of wisdom and minimizes the chances of madness. It’s a hard trick, witness the constant evolution of securities regulation, and the continued inflation, and bursting, of bubbles. The voting system you describe shows great promise.
The system is looking real strong. The concern over backroom politics isn’t that strong, as voters determine who their representatives will be, and can reject MLAs who don’t represent their constituents.stvforbc.com
I live in London, in England, but grew up in both parts of Ireland. In Northern Ireland all elections are held by stv, including elections to the European Parliament. Only elections to the Westminster Parliament in London are held by the first past the post system familiar to North Americans. In the Republic of Ireland all elections are held by STV. Not only does the system work but I find voting in London elections very frustrating as I am only allowed a single choice; I cannot rank the candidates, which once you are used to it, seems the obvious way to vote as it reflects the reality of most people’s opinions.It is however so different from the closed list system used here for electing Euro MPs that calling them both PR just confuses. I prefer First past the Post to closed list, and STV as my first preference (You see ranking is natural!)I would have thought that it would be a really good way of electing the House of Representatives in the USA but I dont see how you would get the reform through against vested interests. You see politicians hate it. It makes them directly accountable.