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A Voting Scheme Made for the Rural Right

The Single Transferable Vote proposal contains a quirk that could guarantee a permanent rural and right wing advantage in future elections.

Kevin Potvin 3 Mar 2005TheTyee.ca
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The Republic

A dangerous potential for a permanent partisan bias in B.C. elections could result if voters approve a May referendum proposing a new electoral system for the province.

A commission established by the right-leaning Liberal government and comprised of randomly selected citizens from around the province has returned with a recommendation that B.C. throw out its current voting system and adopt what they call the BC-Single Transferable Vote system. Citizens will vote on whether to do just that in a referendum that will accompany the general election in B.C in May, and if the referendum passes, B.C. will vote with the BC-STV system in the 2009 election. But the BC-STV system threatens to lock in a permanent advantage for conservative parties—and leave the left side of the spectrum with a permanent disadvantage. The permanent partisan bias results from the use of the transferable vote system in the highly fragmented political and physical geography of the province. The conservative side lock results from the varying sizes of split-member ridings that are a core feature of any STV system. The STV balloting and counting system offers to transfer a ballot to a voter's second choice if their first choice renders their ballot wasted—either on a candidate without a chance of winning, or on a candidate with more votes than needed to win.

Math test In order to improve the value of each ballot, the voter is asked to provide a second choice—to choose another candidate who should receive their vote if the ballot would be wasted on their first choice. Since this only makes sense if there is another candidate who can also win besides the one who has an excessive number of votes to win, each riding in B.C. will have, under STV, at least two seats representing it. To keep the overall number of seats the same as we have now, the STV proposal is to combine existing ridings that each have one member into larger super-ridings that have multiple members. The larger the number of members representing a riding, the more valuable each STV ballot is, since in a five-member riding, for example, a voter's fourth or fifth choice could play a role in final results. Therefore, STV proponents want to maximize the number of members in any riding. In Vancouver and Surrey, there will likely be seven-member ridings. Vancouver Island will likely feature three super ridings each with five members each. But as one moves further away from the higher densities of urban areas, it becomes more difficult to make larger groupings of existing ridings. Rural areas will likely have vast 3-member ridings. The Peace River area, now two ridings, will likely be a single riding with two members, as will other remote regions of B.C. The number of members a riding will host is an absolutely key factor in all considerations about the partisan fairness of STV. To ensure votes are not wasted on a candidate who has more votes than is necessary to win, excessive ballots for a clear winner are to be transferred from a voter's first choice candidate to whoever the voter has listed as their second choice candidate. But how do the vote counters know when a candidate has enough votes to win to allow second choice candidates to start receiving excessive votes? It's a mathematical formula. In a two-seat riding, a candidate in the STV system needs 34 percent of votes to ensure victory. That's because no combination of the remaining 66 percent of votes can possibly give two other candidates both more votes than him. Once a second candidate also has 34 percent, the remainder is 32 percent—less than what is needed for anyone else to ever catch the top two. In a three-member riding, a candidate needs 26 percent to win; a four-member riding has a 21 percent threshold. In a seven-member riding, only 13 percent is required to win. It is in that variable threshold for victory where the political bias of BC-STV emerges.

The rural advantage Traditionally in B.C., as well as throughout the world, more rural areas tend to be more conservative politically, and more urban areas tend to lean more to the left. That phenomenon is magnified in B.C. In rural ridings, the right wing party is often seen winning between seventy and eighty percent of the popular vote. In urban ridings, the votes tend to be more balanced, with a slight edge to the left wing parties. But that slight edge in the high urban populations is enough to offset the huge imbalance in the sparse rural areas, so that in B.C. the left and right wing parties come out close to each other, each in the mid-40 percent range in the overall popular vote.

Under STV, the rural ridings will have smaller numbers of seats, as few as two, and the urban ridings will have larger numbers of seats, as many as seven. As a result, the threshold for victory in rural ridings will be high—as much as 34 percent—but the threshold for victory in urban ridings will be low—as little as 13 percent. This means that for the traditionally challenging party in the rural areas—typically the left wing party—where today they get less than 30 percent of the vote, 34 percent will be required under STV. But for the traditionally challenging party in urban areas—typically the right wing party—where today they get close to 40 percent of the vote, only 13 percent will be required under STV. The left wing parties will remain as locked out of less-dense areas as they are now, since the right wing party will simply run two candidates in the sure knowledge both will get 34 percent at least after vote transfers. But right wing parties will break through in highly dense areas where they are locked out now—like in East Vancouver—because it's likely some can get at least 13 percent once transfers have occurred. If 13 percent was the threshold for victory in rural areas, it's likely left wing candidates could pick up a seat or two. But it isn't: the threshold there is three times higher as here.

With STV, the conservatives maintain their lock in their strongholds, but the left wing lose their lock in their strongholds. In a fairly evenly balanced place like B.C., any even slight unnatural advantage to any side would be enough to hand that side a permanent lock on the governing side of the legislature. The only way to avoid this terribly skewing result with STV is to ensure all ridings have the same number of seats. But this would be impossible in geographically fragmented B.C. That's why STV cannot work here.

Kevin Potvin is publisher and editor of The Republic Newspaper in Vancouver.  [Tyee]

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