Continuing our psephological journey we look at Single Transferable Vote (STV) and Supplementary Member (SM). But first I'd like to point out one of the challenges of this discussion. The proposals blend two things: the voting method, and the thing you're voting for. In the two proposals I discussed last time, First Past the Post (FPP) and Preferential Voting (PV), the only difference between them was the voting method; both proposals are for single member electorates. The next two systems -- STV and SM -- include multi-member electorates. One of them uses preferential voting (note the lack of caps) and the other uses first past the post (ditto).
Single Tranferable Vote (STM)
Unlike FPP and PV (but like MMP), Single Transferable Vote is a proportional system, i.e. it is constructed so that representation in the parliament is (roughly) proportional to the number of votes a team gets. So if a third of people vote Green, a third vote Labour and a third vote National, that's how the seats in the Beehive will be handed out. Of course, all the proposals look reasonable at first glance, so let's look at the details.
Suppose New Zealand gets divided into 24 electorates, each returning 5 Members of Parliament (it looks like it won't actually be quite that neat, but anyway). That means that each electorate will have around 100,000 voters. In order to be elected each candidate will need just over one sixth (for five members) of those votes, i.e. roughly 17,000 votes. That number is called the "quota". So if you like a candidate, and so do 16,999 of your fellows in that in electorate, then s/he can win a seat. Note that this is a much easier challenge than trying to convince half of the voters in an electorate.
So far it's pretty simple. The main complexity of this system comes from the fact that it is preferential as well as being proportional. In part, that's because there has to be a way to deal with surplus votes. For example, suppose a candidate gets 20,000 votes. That's more than quota, so that candidate gets elected, but what do you do with the extra 3,000 votes? The STV solution is this: the voter numbers every candidate from 1 (first preference) up till every candidate has a number. Each candidate's "1"s are added up. Any who have quota are elected, and the surplus distributed in order of preference, i.e. to whichever candidate is marked "2" on each ballot. The process continues till 5 MPs (in this example) have been found. The counting and distribution of preferences in a little technical, a more detailed description is provided by the AEC.
So the advantages of STV are that it is both proportional -- so highly democratic -- and preferential, so voters can vote for the candidate they actually want. It also has the advantage of not suffering from what seems to be the major complaint against MMP: because you can vote for individuals, you can vote individuals out. There's no coming back in on a list!
The most obvious disadvantage of STV is its complexity. In addition to the complexity of the system itself (and few people really understand any of these systems) the voter is often confronted by a ballot containing many candidates. At the 2010 Australian Federal election, South Australian voters faced a ballot paper containing 42 candidates (to elect 6 Senate members). Rather than insist that the voter number every one of the 42 candidates, Australian voters have the option of voting "above the line", outsourcing their preferences to one of the parties (or other ticket). So in NZ, it would be possible to vote National, for example, saying you're voting the way the National Party would like you to vote. In effect, it would be much like the Party vote in MMP. This desire to offer a simpler voting option does, of course, complicate the ballot: two ways to vote on the one piece of paper!
A particularly dramatic corner case for STV occurred in the 2004 Australian Federal Election. This election saw a turf war between the Labor [sic] party, the Democrats and the Greens. In an effort to slow the rise of the Greens, Labor and the Democrats both directed Senate preferences to Family First, a new conservative party. In the state of Victoria, the trickle of preferences was actually enough to elect Family First candidate Steve Fielding with just 2.63% of the first preference votes! The election of Steve Fielding was a clear failure of the system (and I'm talking purely about voter intention, not his merits as an MP), but one that required a very special collection of circumstances, including the use of above the line voting.
Supplementary Member (SM)
We could just slander SM by pointing out that it's the system used in Japan, possibly the most politically unstable of the developed nations (Japan has chewed through five Prime Ministers in the last four years, and 12 in the last 20). But that would be childish, so let's give SM a fair trial before, umm...
As I alluded to above, there are basically two competing psephological ideas: single member constituencies and multiple member constituencies. FPP and PV adhere to the first, while STV and MMP use the second. Supplementary Member is an attempt to blend the two ideas (in a way, so is the combined use of PV and STV in Australia). In New Zealand, there would be 90 electorates where the MPs would be chosen by first past the post -- "Electorate MPs" -- and then 30 members chosen proportionally (also by first past the post, but in multi-member electorates it's called Single Non-Transferable Vote), called "Supplementary MPs".
In practice, voting would be much like in MMP, with an electorate vote and a party vote, but the relative importance of these would be swapped. The Electorate seats would behave just like they would in FPP, and the major parties would also get the lion's share of the Supplementary seats, relegating the minor parties to fighting over the scraps. The Supplementary MPs would presumably be allocated using the Sainte-Laguë formula, but the Electoral Commission's website doesn't explicitly say so.
There are some nice examples comparing SM to MMP in actual elections at Kiwiblog, but the usual effect is to amplify the influence of the strongest single party and diminish that of everyone else. Some would see that as a positive, in that it tends to generate decisive results, but then, so does a coin toss. SM is neither proportional nor even preferential.
Partial Conclusion
At first sight, Supplementary Member presents an elegant compromise between the ideologies of single vs multi member electorates, however the rump of 30 Supplementary MPs will have little effect on the body of 90 Electorate MPs, especially as most of them will belong to the major parties. Voters might seek insurance by voting for a major party in the Electorate, and a minor party in the Supplementary seats, much as many Australians do by voting for different parties in the House of Representatives and in the Senate; however under SM this strategy will not be as effective, as all the MPs sit in the one house. In short, this is a dollied-up version of FPP, and has the same flaws.
Single Transferable Vote is much more democratic. It is not strictly proportional in the way that MMP is, but does allow the voter to pick and choose from the available candidates, instead of leaving it to the parties. And under STV everyone gets one vote, while in MMP some get two (more on that next time). STV incorporates preferential voting, which means voters can vote for the candidate they want without being "tactical"; but the inclusion of "above the line" voting (or "party" voting, Kiwis might call it) encourages some devious strategising by the parties. Of course, most of the time such details have little effect anyway.
Next time: Mixed-Member Proportional and Summary
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