The single transferable vote

• where is it used?


  northern Ireland and the Scottish local government elections
• How it works:

  1. each party can put as many candidates forwards as wish ( it has to meet the amount of seats available)
  2. voters then put in order who they most want to who they don't want
  3. winning candidates are chosen if they meet the quota of pass it ( votes divided seats + 1 )
  4. if there is no one who has won then the candidate with the least first preference id eliminated
  5. they then try to see id more people have met the quota
• How it works in NI

  1. provinces are divided into 18 multi member constituencies
  2. each constituency elects 5 members in
  3. voters cast their votes
  4. quota is calculated in each 18 regions
• Outcomes:

  largely proportional to the first preference

  results in multi - party systems

  encourages coalitions
• 3 advantages

  1. simple to understand - proportional outcome
  2. gives a wide choice of candidates - their other choices are taken into consideration
  3. as there is a number of representatives per constituency - people often find they have someone to represent them from a party they support
• Drawbacks from this:

  1. calculating the results can be long and complex
  2. more likely to result in a minority or coalition
  3. lines of accountability is not clear