- What's the basic idea?
-
Single Transferable Vote methods are designed to produce satisfactory representation
for everyone, with majority rule.
If your favorite candidate has too
few votes to win, your vote will be transferred to your next
favorite, if possible.
If your favorite candidate has more than enough votes, some ballots
may be partially transferred so that all winners represent roughly
equal numbers of voters.
- What is DemoChoice for?
- In a democracy worthy of the name, everyone's voice is heard (or
represented with their explicit consent), and decisions require at least majority
support: more
people should support an idea than oppose it.
If you elect your representatives by majority vote, and they make
decisions by majority vote, a small group can overrule the will of almost
75% of voters - and up to half of all voters don't even have
representatives who will express their protest.
In the United States and Canada, we usually elect people by "most votes wins" instead of majority, so it
can be even worse. And worse than that, the people in power can group you
with others who will vote against your favorite - they can decide
which voters gain representation. No wonder so many people have
lost faith and don't bother to vote: this approach miserably fails to meet
our goals.
But it can be done! DemoChoice gives you the freedom to express your
preferences in detail among many viable choices, and then OpenSTV counts your
votes in a way that pursues the democratic goals noted above. It can
usually accommodate almost everyone. As a result, voting actually becomes
a fun, positive, and rewarding experience!
- How do Single Transferable Vote methods pursue these goals?
- STV attempts to assign everybody to their favorite
representative. To make this work, a few adjustments need to be made.
- Not all candidates can win.
There are usually (and hopefully) more candidates than offices, so voters
for candidates with the fewest votes must choose their next favorite.
- Representatives should have equal support.
(This doesn't apply to single-winner elections.)
Because representatives have equal voting power, they should each represent
an equal number of voters, in order to satisfy the first goal listed
above. In pursuit of this, if a candidate receives more than enough votes
to get elected, the extra votes will be counted toward their next
favorite candidate instead.
- How are the results tallied?
- It's easiest to understand this by just watching how the votes move on
the results pages, but the OpenSTV website has descriptions and links to the details.
- Hey! This is too complicated!
-
The rules behind STV appear complex, but only because they put
nearly all of the electoral controls within reach of the voter. With
currently used methods, the outcome of most elections is determined
primarily by political consultants who use sophisticated computer
algorithms and large databases to manipulate district boundaries and
reduce competition. Casting a DemoChoice vote is straightforward, but
with current methods, voters must fret over strategy to avoid wasting
their vote on a loser or on someone who would win anyway. Don't give up!
- What happens if there is a tie?
- Ties are not a very significant issue in public elections, because the
number of ballots is large and ties are statistically rare. However, in a
demonstration poll like this, they can happen frequently. OpenSTV usually
resolves by random lot.
- Is STV the same as Instant Runoff Voting?
- Yes, if there is one winner. This method works well for electing
mayors, governors, or presidents.
The multi-winner version should be used for boards, councils, and
legislatures. This gives more people representation than the
usual method of dividing voters into districts and using
single-winner elections in each.
- How well does it work?
- STV methods can routinely assign more than 90 percent of voters to
representatives they support. This usually means that a decision by a
majority of representatives reflects the will of a majority of voters.
Winners receive nearly equal shares of votes, so that each vote
corresponds to a nearly equal amount of legislative power. Each
representative has the unanimous support of his/her voters. Voters have a
large number of options because there is no appreciable 'spoiler' or
'vote-splitting' effect to scare away candidates.
See for yourself by
looking at the results pages on the DemoChoice site!
- Where did you get this newfangled idea?
-
A single transferable vote method was first proposed in 1821, within a generation of
adoption of the US Constitution. Similar methods were proposed
independently in the US, Britain, and Denmark, and were used in a few
public and private elections in that century. John Stuart Mill, the most
well-known scholar on the theory of representative government, tried
unsuccessfully to enact it when he served in the House of Commons.
Australia and Ireland have used this method since the early 20th
century.
About two dozen US cities including New York and Cincinnati elected their
city councils this way in the first half of the 20th century. It was very
effective, but the principle of an equal voice for all was ahead of its
time - women had only just been allowed to vote, and this was well before
the civil rights movement - so it was repealed in almost all cases. The
only remaining case is Cambridge, MA. In 2002, San Francisco adopted
instant runoffs to determine a majority winner for mayor and other
offices. Other cities, including Burlington, VT and Minneapolis, have done the same.
- Let's do this in our local, state, and federal governments!
- If you are interested in promoting this method of voting, the
Center for Voting and Democracy can
provide more information and help you find like-minded people.
- How can I print (or save) the results?
- To print the bar charts, you may need to change your browser settings to
enable printing of background colors. For example, in Microsoft Internet
Explorer, choose "internet options" from the "tools" menu, go to the "advanced"
tab, and check the "print background colors and images" box. If the dotted
threshold line doesn't print, add "&thickdot=on" (without the quotes) to
the page's web address.
If the poll has a large number of candidates, the results may be broken into
pages. To disable this in order to save or print results, use "&page=0" (no
quotes) in the page's web address.
- Why didn't the totals change after I voted?
- They did - try pressing your browser's 'Refresh' button.
- I still don't get it!
- We want
to make sure that everyone who uses this site leaves with a comfortable
understanding of how it works. Please feel free to
ask a question.
- What do you do with my email address in a private poll?
- Your email address will be used to send a confirmation of your vote.
In the rare event that your vote is not properly recorded, you may be contacted.
Voter address information is not used for any other purpose.
- Send us your feedback!
- DemoChoice is an ongoing project, and user feedback is an essential
part of it. Everybody has a slightly different experience and it helps
to hear what parts you found illuminating and what parts you found
confusing or cumbersome. Please share your thoughts!