[EL] Single-Transferrable Vote

Fri Jan 25 13:17:33 PST 2019

Glad to see this piece by Steve Mulroy generating some discussion.
Fortunately, we do not need to speculate on how difficult this would be for
voters, since it has a history of use. In addition to decades of successful
use in Cambridge, it's also used by Minneapolis for a few multi-seat
boards. They put together a nice voter education video some time ago (
https://youtu.be/lNxwMdI8OWw), and the post-election report from
Minneapolis's most recent elections show that voters find it simple and
they support its use in their city:
https://www.fairvote.org/minneapolis_voters_give_ranked_choice_voting_high_marks_after_third_rcv_election.
And every voter votes in an STV election at some level of government in
Australia, Ireland, Malta, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.

I'd note that when New York moved to switch from STV to a more traditional
at-large method of election for New York City's 32 community school boards
in 1998, the DOJ denied preclearance under Section 5. STV has a history of
promoting better representation for minority communities.

As for voter use of ranked ballots more generally, all of the most recent
elections with ranked ballots in the United States (in Minneapolis, St.
Paul, Cambridge, Takoma Park, Santa Fe, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley,
San Leandro, and statewide in Maine) have had high turnout, very low rates
of ballot error, and high rates of voters ranking multiple candidates. The
places that have had exit polls have all shown voters reporting they
understand how to rank candidates and support having the right to do so.

Best,
Drew

On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 3:28 PM Ruth Greenwood <ruthgreenwood2 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I grew up in Australia and we all used STV (federally where you were
> required to rank all candidates and in states where you could rank as many
> as you like) and we managed it just fine. In my experience, you don’t need
> to know how a car works to drive it and you don’t need to be able to count
> and transfer the votes to know who you like the most and least!
>
> Another little quirk I loved about STV in Australia was that I could be
> more expressive in my vote. I would often like to vote for a single issue
> candidate as my number 1 then number 2 for one of the big party candidates,
> that way they knew they were getting my number 2 and that I really cared
> about a particular issue and wanted them to change their position on it (we
> ended up with so many people backing the guy who wanted to take slot
> machines, or "pokies <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ogj5ztTE0zw>" as
> they are called in Australia, out of clubs and pubs that he got enough
> number 1 votes to be a federal senator!)
>
> Cheers
> Ruth
>
> *Ruth Greenwood*
>
> Co-Director, Voting Rights & Redistricting
>
> rgreenwood at campaignleglcenter.org
>
> 202.560.0590 | @ruthgreenwood <https://twitter.com/ruthgreenwood>
>
>
>
> Campaign Legal Center
>
> 73 W Monroe St, Suite 302, Chicago IL 60615
> campaignlegalcenter.org <http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/>
>
> On Fri, Jan 25, 2019 at 1:37 PM Edelman, Paul <
> paul.edelman at law.vanderbilt.edu> wrote:
>
>> The US has over 80 years of using the Hill method for apportionment.  Any
>> guesses on  how many people understand it?
>>
>>
>>
>> Paul H. Edelman
>>
>> Professor of Mathematics and Law
>>
>> Vanderbilt University
>>
>> paul.edelman at vanderbilt.edu
>>
>> 615-322-0990
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
>> Behalf Of *John Tanner
>> *Sent:* Friday, January 25, 2019 1:30 PM
>> *To:* Jack Santucci <jms346 at georgetown.edu>
>> *Cc:* Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>
>>
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Single-Transferrable Vote
>>
>>
>>
>> Well, the Belgians have had nearly 120 years to get used to the H’ondt
>> system, so most of them probably understand its operation
>>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2019, at 2:16 PM, Jack Santucci <jms346 at georgetown.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> Doug and Vlad et al,
>>
>>
>>
>> It sounds like Doug is describing a fractional transfer method, which is
>> not what Cambridge (MA) uses. From a candidate with surplus, ballots are
>> randomly chosen for transfer. Others on the list know these details better
>> than I.
>>
>>
>>
>> To Vlad's point, how many Belgians can explain the mechanics of a D'Hondt
>> seat allocation under that country's closed-list PR system? I suspect most
>> cannot. Rather, a sufficient set of parties is happy enough with the system
>> to avoid referring to "lottery effects" and other confusing mechanics.
>> Parties simply tell their voters to vote for the party -- not unlike what
>> we saw here, when many cities had STV.
>>
>>
>>
>> Jack
>>
>>
>> On Jan 25, 2019, at 13:42, Kogan, Vladimir <kogan.18 at osu.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Doug raises a very important point. I think the educational challenge in
>> terms of explaining the system to voters is only a piece of it. Imagine
>> also the voter education challenge in actually learning enough information
>> about a sufficient number of candidates to be able to rank them in a way
>> that makes your vote effective. I think that challenge is impractically
>> difficult for a significant minority of voters, especially for
>> lower-salience down-ballot races, and this explains why we see such high
>> rates of ballot exhaustion
>> <https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fu.osu.edu%2Fkogan.18%2Ffiles%2F2014%2F12%2FElectoralStudies-2fupfhd.pdf&data=02%7C01%7Cpaul.edelman%40law.vanderbilt.edu%7Cc11e43abb8204a6fea5108d682fb9ea3%7Cba5a7f39e3be4ab3b45067fa80faecad%7C0%7C1%7C636840414542236800&sdata=VyskEtAIFq7JX3pbG%2Bs7tygzdhvHjNVp7TSjpM6Bf2U%3D&reserved=0>
>>  when IRV/RCV is used in local elections.
>>
>>
>>
>> An important, and I think woefully understudied, question is whether this
>> affects certain voters more than others. The answer has obvious political
>> and legal implications.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
>> Behalf Of *Douglas Johnson
>> *Sent:* Friday, January 25, 2019 1:34 PM
>> *To:* 'Rick Hasen' <rhasen at law.uci.edu>; 'Election Law Listserv' <
>> law-election at uci.edu>
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Single-Transferrable Vote
>>
>>
>> While single-transferable vote sounds nice in the simple description
>> below, I encourage list readers to consider how it works in practice, while
>> keeping in mind how hard states are working to remove obstacles to voter
>> participation and causes of voter confusion with our existing very simple
>> elections. Now swap that current simple system for this:   If there are
>> 5 seats open and 1,000 votes cast, then it takes 201 votes (1/5 + 1) to
>> meet the “quota” that guarantees a win. Now imagine a candidate receives
>> 287 first-place votes. The candidate only needs 201 (70% of 287) votes to
>> win, so 86 votes, or 30%, of the candidate’s votes will be allocated to the
>> voters’ 2nd choice. But not all of the 287 voters have the same 2nd choice.
>> So for each of those 287 voters’ ballots, the 2nd choice receives 0.3
>> votes (30% of one vote). So a candidate who was listed 2nd on 95 of
>> those 287 ballots would gain 28.5 votes toward the 201 vote target in the
>> second round of vote-counting (and yes, we would now be announcing
>> fractional votes).   I suppose it is no surprise that such a complicated
>> system is used in the city that is the home of MIT, but can you imagine the
>> voter-education challenge explaining all of this anywhere else?
>>
>>
>>
>> -          Doug
>>
>>
>>
>> Douglas Johnson, Ph.D.
>>
>> Fellow, Rose Institute of State and Local Government
>>
>> at Claremont McKenna College
>>
>> douglas.johnson at cmc.edu
>>
>> direct: 310-200-2058
>>
>>
>>
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