STV trial run
Antony Hodgson
An interesting news story from Vanderhoof based on an FVBC press release:
http://www.ominecaexpress.com/portals-code/list.cgi?paper=34&cat=48&id=787056&more=
STV trial run
Dec 06 2006
Does this sound familiar?
After an election, there are complaints from small parties that they
were shut out in the seat count, while the ruling party got many more
seats than it should have, based on vote count.
As well, the governing party is heavily urban, while the opposition is
mainly rural.
No, it's not British Columbia, although we are talking about Victoria.
In this case, though, Victoria is the state in Australia. There was an
election there in November, and for the first time, the
single-transferable vote (STV) system was used to elect the upper house,
the Legislative Council.
Interestingly, while B.C. would be the first province in Canada to
incorporate STV, Victoria was the last of Australia's territories to use
STV in at least one of its elections.
The initial numbers appear interesting. Final vote counts are not
available, but preliminary numbers show the discrepancies between
first-past-the-post (aka the current B.C. system) and STV. In the lower
house, for instance, the Labor party received 43.24 per cent of the
vote, which should have meant 38 of the 88 seats. Instead, it won 55. In
the upper house, with STV, Labor captured 42.12 per cent of the vote,
which should have meant 17 of the 40 seats. It won 21.
The opposition Liberals won 34.44 per cent of the vote for the lower
house, but instead of 30 seats, captured just 23. In the upper house,
its 34.74 per cent should have meant 14 seats. It got 15.
Where STV really shines is for the smaller parties. The Green party
captured 9.6 per cent of the lower house votes, which should have
translated to eight seats. It was shut out. In the upper house, however,
STV meant two Green seats with 10.07 per cent of the vote.
By contrast, the Nationals party only got 5.41 per cent of the vote in
the lower house, but won nine seats instead of the five its votes
entitled it to expect.
What does it mean for B.C.? It means one more provincial election under
the old system, then, if enough people want to see the change, we will
move to the STV system.
One of the best ways to see how the system works is in practice in other
areas, such as Australia, rather than in hypothetical exercises in B.C.
The Victoria election provides a good picture of what STV means.