Ever wonder why Trump was elected in the first place? Even though he lost the popular vote, he still won due to the electoral votes, which is ultimately what is needed to win the Electoral College. The Electoral College is just one example of many other voting systems that can be found around the world. With Biden’s victory in the current US election, let us take a look at some of them and gauge their usefulness and effectiveness, particularly in relation to proportional representation. Simply put, proportional representation is a gauge of how accurately various sects and constituencies of a country represent a certain government position.
1. First-Past-The-Post system
Don’t let the name confuse you; this is the voting system most of us are used to. Its name comes from horse racing, where the winner is the one who first passes a specific post. This system may look proportional at first, but it is actually one of the most flawed. Its disadvantages are vote splitting and as a result, tactical voting. Tactical voting is a method wherein people try to vote against the candidate they dislike by voting for the opposition candidate with the most votes. A negative implication is that smaller parties will not get any representation as their supporters know that a vote for them likely won’t matter. Tactical voting usually results in very disproportionate councils and elected offices.
2. Alternative Vote system
This system follows the steps indicated below:
When casting ballots, voters will order their liked candidates by preference (1 for most liked, 2 for second most liked, etc.).
Any candidate with more than 50% of votes of the highest preference gets elected.
If no one fits the criterion above, the candidate with the least votes will get his/her votes distributed according to the second choices of the voters.
Repeat until a candidate fits the criterion for step 2.
This system is not really optimized for use in voting councils. Thus, it also leads to disproportionality in councils. Nevertheless, it eliminates the need for tactical voting since everyone can be assured that their votes matter.
3. Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.
This is very similar to the Alternative Vote system, except for a few minor changes.
Electoral boundaries are removed and districts/provinces are merged.
More representatives are added per district/province.
A quota is set to 100 divided by the number of positions per district/province.
Citizens order their votes starting from 1 (most liked), just like in the Alternative Vote.
Candidates that have a percentage of 1st place votes above the quota get elected.
Surplus votes go to the candidates ranked second on the ballots.
If there is no one above the quota, the votes from the least-liked candidate get replaced with candidates ranked second.
Repeat the 4th and 5th steps until all of the positions are filled.
A key difference between STV and the Alternative Vote is that the former divides one hundred by the number of positions per district while the latter only divides the number by two. This makes STV a more suitable voting system for boards. Another is that candidates who have a surplus of votes will have some of them transferred to their second choices. Essentially, the votes of candidates who win by landslides won’t go to waste. Lastly, STV shares the same advantages that the Alternative Vote System has, namely, no vote splitting nor tactical voting.
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Various Systems
Is it best for electing Vote Tactical
candidates for one position Splitting? Voting?
or a council? (In terms of
proportional representation)?
FPTP Voting None Yes Yes
Alternative Vote One Position No No
STV Councils No No
The Alternative Vote system is generally more suitable than both FPTP and SVT when electing singular candidates, but STV triumphs when it comes to elected councils.
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