The method of Proportional Representation by Single Transferable Vote (STV) is very elegant from a mathematical standpoint. In fact, it was a mathematics grad student who recently led the campaign to implement STV and IRV (Instant Runoff Voting) at University of California, Davis for its student body elections. He was successful. George Hallett, a co-author of the 1926 book "Proportional Representation" and author of the 1937 book "Proportional Representation: The Key To Democracy", had a doctorate in mathematics.
Political science professor Douglas Amy has researched the use of STV for city councils in America and concluded that the reason that it was repealed everywhere but Cambridge, Massachusetts is that essentially it "worked too well" (see Amy's paper here). In other words, it frightened the existing populace because it gave women and minorities their proportionate share of seats. People in the 1940s and 50s weren't ready to handle that. But in the past 60 years our culture has made a complete 180-degree turn, and not only is diversity in our legislatures accepted, it is encouraged, with special programs designed to "get out the vote" among women and minorities, and the election of women and minorities in our culture is now celebrated.
The time is finally ripe for STV to make a comeback and to make our legislatures and city councils truly representative.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Ability To Express Preferences Among The Candidates
Perhaps the most important aspect of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and Single Transferable Vote (STV) is the ability of the voter to vote for the candidate he or she truly likes, without any fear of "wasting" his or her vote. This is because each voter is allowed to rank the order in which they like the candidates, and each person's vote goes to the highest of their choices who it can help elect. Furthermore, a voter cannot hurt the chances of any candidate he or she prefers by marking lower choices for others.
There are two ways that a vote could be wasted: (1) the candidate that the voter truly likes already has more than enough support to win, or (2) the candidate that the voter truly likes does not have enough support to win. That's why STV does two things: (1) the surplus (or excess) ballots of candidates who already have enough votes to win are each transferred to their next-highest choice, and (2) the ballots of candidates who don't have enough support to win are each transferred to their next-highest choice.
In this country we are still using our antiquated (and defective) 18th century voting methods which allow us to express only one choice on the ballot. Because we are limited to only one choice, we don't dare vote for what we truly want--we vote for what we think we can tolerate.
Ask yourself this: how screwed up is a voting method when a vote for the candidate you like best could end up helping to elect the candidate you like least? Is that right? Is that just? No! There is absolutely no justification for continuing to use our present voting methods (i.e., single-member districts and block voting).
Why do we limit ourselves? Why don't we allow ourselves the right to express our true preferences among ALL the available choices?
There are two ways that a vote could be wasted: (1) the candidate that the voter truly likes already has more than enough support to win, or (2) the candidate that the voter truly likes does not have enough support to win. That's why STV does two things: (1) the surplus (or excess) ballots of candidates who already have enough votes to win are each transferred to their next-highest choice, and (2) the ballots of candidates who don't have enough support to win are each transferred to their next-highest choice.
In this country we are still using our antiquated (and defective) 18th century voting methods which allow us to express only one choice on the ballot. Because we are limited to only one choice, we don't dare vote for what we truly want--we vote for what we think we can tolerate.
Ask yourself this: how screwed up is a voting method when a vote for the candidate you like best could end up helping to elect the candidate you like least? Is that right? Is that just? No! There is absolutely no justification for continuing to use our present voting methods (i.e., single-member districts and block voting).
Why do we limit ourselves? Why don't we allow ourselves the right to express our true preferences among ALL the available choices?
Monday, September 6, 2010
Letter To Robert Rubin of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
This letter was sent by e-mail to Mr. Robert Rubin of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights (LCCR) of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mr. Rubin,
I'm a student at San Joaquin College of Law. I've read in The Examiner about the LCCV's challenge to San Mateo County's election method. I am curious as to why LCCV has not suggested the use of Single Transferable Voting as a solution to the lack of minority representation on the Board of Supervisors. Numerous legal scholars have concluded that single transferable voting is the best way to respond to (or prevent) lawsuits which claim that there is a lack of representation of minorities in an elected body.
See, for example:
Richard L. Engstrom, The Single Transferable Vote: An Alternative Remedy for Minority Vote Dilution, 27 U.S.F.L.Rev. 781, 806 (1993) (arguing that the Single Transferable Voting systems maintain minority electoral opportunities);
Steven J. Mulroy, Alternative Ways Out: A Remedial Road Map for the Use of Alternative Electoral Systems as Voting Rights Act Remedies, 77 N.C.L.Rev. 1867, 1923 (1999) (concluding that at-large ranked-ballot voting systems avoid minority vote dilution);
Steven J. Mulroy, The Way Out: A Legal Standard for Imposing Alternative Electoral Systems as Voting Rights Remedies, 33 Harv.C.R.-C.L.L.Rev. 333, 350 (1998) (arguing that preferential voting systems enhance minority representation); and
Alexander Athan Yanos, Note, Reconciling the Right to Vote With the Voting Rights Act, 92 Colum.L.Rev. 1810, 1865-66 (1992) (arguing that Single Transferable Voting serves to preserve the minority's right to representation).
Using Single Transferable Voting (STV) would allow San Mateo County to retain its at-large approach to elections, but at the same time would ensure that minorities elect their fair share of representatives. (Under STV, if 5 candidates are to be elected, then any group which makes up slightly more than one-sixth of the population is guaranteed a representative). And, STV possesses none of the problems that arise under District methods (e.g., districts which often need to be gerrymandered in order to achieve the right number of "safe" districts for one particular ethnicity). It should also be noted that increasing the number of supervisors to 7 or 9 would increase the likelihood that minorities are elected, whether Single Transferable Voting or Districts are used.
Thanks for taking the time to read my e-mail. I hope that you would like to discuss the issue further, either by e-mail or over the telephone.
Sincerely,
Ryan Dunning
I am pleased to report that I received the following response:
This is very exciting! I hope to work with LCCR in advocating Single Transferable Vote as a remedy to violations of the California Voting Rights Act. Or better yet, as a way to prevent lawsuits under the CVRA!
Mr. Rubin,
I'm a student at San Joaquin College of Law. I've read in The Examiner about the LCCV's challenge to San Mateo County's election method. I am curious as to why LCCV has not suggested the use of Single Transferable Voting as a solution to the lack of minority representation on the Board of Supervisors. Numerous legal scholars have concluded that single transferable voting is the best way to respond to (or prevent) lawsuits which claim that there is a lack of representation of minorities in an elected body.
See, for example:
Richard L. Engstrom, The Single Transferable Vote: An Alternative Remedy for Minority Vote Dilution, 27 U.S.F.L.Rev. 781, 806 (1993) (arguing that the Single Transferable Voting systems maintain minority electoral opportunities);
Steven J. Mulroy, Alternative Ways Out: A Remedial Road Map for the Use of Alternative Electoral Systems as Voting Rights Act Remedies, 77 N.C.L.Rev. 1867, 1923 (1999) (concluding that at-large ranked-ballot voting systems avoid minority vote dilution);
Steven J. Mulroy, The Way Out: A Legal Standard for Imposing Alternative Electoral Systems as Voting Rights Remedies, 33 Harv.C.R.-C.L.L.Rev. 333, 350 (1998) (arguing that preferential voting systems enhance minority representation); and
Alexander Athan Yanos, Note, Reconciling the Right to Vote With the Voting Rights Act, 92 Colum.L.Rev. 1810, 1865-66 (1992) (arguing that Single Transferable Voting serves to preserve the minority's right to representation).
Using Single Transferable Voting (STV) would allow San Mateo County to retain its at-large approach to elections, but at the same time would ensure that minorities elect their fair share of representatives. (Under STV, if 5 candidates are to be elected, then any group which makes up slightly more than one-sixth of the population is guaranteed a representative). And, STV possesses none of the problems that arise under District methods (e.g., districts which often need to be gerrymandered in order to achieve the right number of "safe" districts for one particular ethnicity). It should also be noted that increasing the number of supervisors to 7 or 9 would increase the likelihood that minorities are elected, whether Single Transferable Voting or Districts are used.
Thanks for taking the time to read my e-mail. I hope that you would like to discuss the issue further, either by e-mail or over the telephone.
Sincerely,
Ryan Dunning
I am pleased to report that I received the following response:
We are not opposed to STV (the CVRA allows for it) and would advocate for such a system under appropriate circumstances. Thanks for your interest.
This is very exciting! I hope to work with LCCR in advocating Single Transferable Vote as a remedy to violations of the California Voting Rights Act. Or better yet, as a way to prevent lawsuits under the CVRA!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Amazing and Tragic Story of Sacramento's Use and Loss of Proportional Representation
THE AMAZING AND TRAGIC STORY OF SACRAMENTO'S USE AND LOSS OF PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION
(An excerpt from pages 204-207 of Proportional Representation by Hoag & Hallett [1926].)
§ 136. Sacramento. The next city to adopt P.R. [Proportional Representation using the Single Transferable Vote] was the capital city of California [Population of 65,908 in 1920]. Formerly Sacramento had had the majority system in a form which gave it every opportunity to produce good results if it was capable of doing so. As only one commissioner was elected each year, the people could focus their attention on his selection; a non-partisan ballot was used; and the wastage of votes was kept down by having the final election between the two highest contestants after an elimination primary. Under this “majority system,” however, a well organized political minority was in complete control. If their special nominee did not survive the primary, they could bargain with the surviving candidates before the final election. They could deliver enough votes to turn the election either way, and seldom if ever did both of the chief contenders withstand the temptation to reach an agreement with them.
Furthermore, the usual defects of the commission plan, which makes each commissioner both a legislator and the administrative head of a department, were much in evidence. In the words of Irvin Engler, then manager of the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce:
Accordingly, a movement to revise the city's plan of government was started, and a representative slate of independent citizens elected, under the home rule provisions of the California Constitution, as a Board of Freeholders [what a “Charter Commission” or "Charter Review Committee" was called in California at the time] to draft and submit to the voters a new charter. The Board set out to secure for Sacramento the most perfect form of government that could be devised. It decided early on the manager plan. After an explanation by Cameron H. King, Deputy Registrar of Elections in San Francisco, it included P.R. [Proportional Representation] also. The charter finally agreed upon was patterned in most essentials after the “model city charter” of the National Municipal League [now the National Civic League], which is based on the manager plan and proportional representation.
The campaign for the charter was led by Lewis C. Hunter, Chairman of the Board of Freeholders [Charter Commission], and Mr. Engler. Organized labor and two of the city's three papers, the Star and the Union, cooperated. In spite of violent attacks on P.R. by the city's leading newspaper, the Bee, the charter carried on November 30, 1920, by a vote of 7,962 to 1,587.
The Sacramento city election of May 3, 1921, was the largest and most convincing demonstration of P.R. that the United States had had up to that time. After the adoption of the charter, the minority in control of the city government had made a careful study of the new system of voting and tried to discover a way to beat it. But in the election, though the votes of their opponents were scattered over many more candidates that there were seats to be filled, the minority succeeded in electing only two of the nine councilmen. Most of the block of votes with which they had previously held the balance of power was used up in providing the quotas for their two favorite candidates. They had little effect, therefore, on the selection of the other seven.
Those others included the first woman ever elected to a Sacramento council or commission and the first representative of organized labor. Four of them were members of a ticket brought forward by the Board of Freeholders, which had framed the new charter, as candidates who would be sure to give it a fair trial. A large majority of the voters were undoubtedly in general sympathy with the Freeholders and their ticket, but many of them, without danger of playing into the hands of the enemy, exercised the privilege given them by P.R. to make their own selection of candidates. Three of the successful candidates had run independently of both major tickets.
Satisfaction with the result seemed to be nearly universal. Two of the three papers, the Union and the Star, printed large collections of endorsements of the new system by prominent citizens. Even the third, the Sacramento Bee, which had vigorously opposed the adoption of P.R. [after P.R. had been adopted, however, the Bee cooperated wholeheartedly in the campaign to teach the voters to use it intelligently], expressed only satisfaction with the personnel of the new council. The two candidates for whom it had campaigned were the first ones elected.
Major J. W. Wooldridge of the California National Bank commented on the election as follows: “Everybody feels that they are represented, that their voice was heard, and they are satisfied. It was the only election I have ever known of in which this feeling holds.”
The first act of the new council was to choose a city manager unanimously. This put to rest prophecies that a council representative of all elements would be made ineffective by constant disagreement. The man chosen was Clyde L. Seavey of the State Board of Control, a state official with an enviable reputation for integrity and ability.
The new government, which took office in the middle of the calendar and fiscal year 1921, started with 70% of the year's revenue already used by the outgoing commission. It completed the year without a deficit and with increased efficiency in the adminstration of the city's business. The next year it started on a large program of permanent improvements, gave the city the best service it had ever known, raised the wages of firemen and police, and reduced the tax rate.
Manager Seavey, to whom a large part of the credit for these accomplishments is due, testified publicly to the part played by P.R. in securing the cooperation of the people. When he faced the council of Sacramento, he said, he felt that he was talking not merely with a dominant political element, but with the entire city. “The one thing that has impressed itself upon me,” he wrote at another time, “is the apparent elimination of a decided pro- and anti-administration feeling as a result of the [P.R.] election.”
Before the second election under P.R. could be held, the new system had been declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. [This is not exactly true: the system was actually declared unconstitutional by the third appellate district of California, after which the state Supreme Court declined to review the case. SEE BELOW] The election of 1923, therefore, was carried out by the block vote. Five of the P.R. council were reelected, but labor lost its representative and the council membership was entirely restricted to the nominees on two opposing slates. One of these slates polled 54% of the votes and elected eight of the nine members; the other polled 39% of the votes and elected only one. Only 54.5% of the valid votes were effective in electing members as compared with 86.6% under P.R. two years before.
A movement to get back P.R. by the formidable process of amending the State Constitution was initiated in 1923 by the Board of Freeholders which framed the Sacramento charter. [As of 1926 it had] received the formal endorsement of the Sacramento Council, Chamber of Commerce, and Retail Merchants Association, and of many prominent citizens throughout the state. An amendment to make P.R. optional for cities and counties was introduced at the 1923 session of the legislature by Senator Inman of Sacramento. It passed the Senate 32 to 5, but was lost in the legislative jam at the close of the Assembly. In 1925, a similar amendment, introduced by Assemblyman Rosenshine of San Francisco, passed second reading in the Assembly, but was crowded out at the end of the session.
[NOTE: The portion of the California State Constitution that the decision was based upon has since been repealed. Thus, the appellate court's decision is rendered moot and (at least in theory) there is no longer any question that PR-STV is constitutional in California.]
(An excerpt from pages 204-207 of Proportional Representation by Hoag & Hallett [1926].)
§ 136. Sacramento. The next city to adopt P.R. [Proportional Representation using the Single Transferable Vote] was the capital city of California [Population of 65,908 in 1920]. Formerly Sacramento had had the majority system in a form which gave it every opportunity to produce good results if it was capable of doing so. As only one commissioner was elected each year, the people could focus their attention on his selection; a non-partisan ballot was used; and the wastage of votes was kept down by having the final election between the two highest contestants after an elimination primary. Under this “majority system,” however, a well organized political minority was in complete control. If their special nominee did not survive the primary, they could bargain with the surviving candidates before the final election. They could deliver enough votes to turn the election either way, and seldom if ever did both of the chief contenders withstand the temptation to reach an agreement with them.
Furthermore, the usual defects of the commission plan, which makes each commissioner both a legislator and the administrative head of a department, were much in evidence. In the words of Irvin Engler, then manager of the Sacramento Chamber of Commerce:
Division of authority and responsibility, election of men unqualified by training or experience for executive positions, and extravagances in city affairs could be sensed at first by murmurs of dissatisfaction, then by waves of dissension, and finally by open disgust with shouts for “action” and “something for our money.” In fact the stage was reached where people were saying, “nothing could be worse than what we have,” and the commissioners were dubbed “the floundering five.”
Accordingly, a movement to revise the city's plan of government was started, and a representative slate of independent citizens elected, under the home rule provisions of the California Constitution, as a Board of Freeholders [what a “Charter Commission” or "Charter Review Committee" was called in California at the time] to draft and submit to the voters a new charter. The Board set out to secure for Sacramento the most perfect form of government that could be devised. It decided early on the manager plan. After an explanation by Cameron H. King, Deputy Registrar of Elections in San Francisco, it included P.R. [Proportional Representation] also. The charter finally agreed upon was patterned in most essentials after the “model city charter” of the National Municipal League [now the National Civic League], which is based on the manager plan and proportional representation.
The campaign for the charter was led by Lewis C. Hunter, Chairman of the Board of Freeholders [Charter Commission], and Mr. Engler. Organized labor and two of the city's three papers, the Star and the Union, cooperated. In spite of violent attacks on P.R. by the city's leading newspaper, the Bee, the charter carried on November 30, 1920, by a vote of 7,962 to 1,587.
The Sacramento city election of May 3, 1921, was the largest and most convincing demonstration of P.R. that the United States had had up to that time. After the adoption of the charter, the minority in control of the city government had made a careful study of the new system of voting and tried to discover a way to beat it. But in the election, though the votes of their opponents were scattered over many more candidates that there were seats to be filled, the minority succeeded in electing only two of the nine councilmen. Most of the block of votes with which they had previously held the balance of power was used up in providing the quotas for their two favorite candidates. They had little effect, therefore, on the selection of the other seven.
Those others included the first woman ever elected to a Sacramento council or commission and the first representative of organized labor. Four of them were members of a ticket brought forward by the Board of Freeholders, which had framed the new charter, as candidates who would be sure to give it a fair trial. A large majority of the voters were undoubtedly in general sympathy with the Freeholders and their ticket, but many of them, without danger of playing into the hands of the enemy, exercised the privilege given them by P.R. to make their own selection of candidates. Three of the successful candidates had run independently of both major tickets.
Satisfaction with the result seemed to be nearly universal. Two of the three papers, the Union and the Star, printed large collections of endorsements of the new system by prominent citizens. Even the third, the Sacramento Bee, which had vigorously opposed the adoption of P.R. [after P.R. had been adopted, however, the Bee cooperated wholeheartedly in the campaign to teach the voters to use it intelligently], expressed only satisfaction with the personnel of the new council. The two candidates for whom it had campaigned were the first ones elected.
Major J. W. Wooldridge of the California National Bank commented on the election as follows: “Everybody feels that they are represented, that their voice was heard, and they are satisfied. It was the only election I have ever known of in which this feeling holds.”
The first act of the new council was to choose a city manager unanimously. This put to rest prophecies that a council representative of all elements would be made ineffective by constant disagreement. The man chosen was Clyde L. Seavey of the State Board of Control, a state official with an enviable reputation for integrity and ability.
The new government, which took office in the middle of the calendar and fiscal year 1921, started with 70% of the year's revenue already used by the outgoing commission. It completed the year without a deficit and with increased efficiency in the adminstration of the city's business. The next year it started on a large program of permanent improvements, gave the city the best service it had ever known, raised the wages of firemen and police, and reduced the tax rate.
Manager Seavey, to whom a large part of the credit for these accomplishments is due, testified publicly to the part played by P.R. in securing the cooperation of the people. When he faced the council of Sacramento, he said, he felt that he was talking not merely with a dominant political element, but with the entire city. “The one thing that has impressed itself upon me,” he wrote at another time, “is the apparent elimination of a decided pro- and anti-administration feeling as a result of the [P.R.] election.”
Before the second election under P.R. could be held, the new system had been declared unconstitutional by the state Supreme Court. [This is not exactly true: the system was actually declared unconstitutional by the third appellate district of California, after which the state Supreme Court declined to review the case. SEE BELOW] The election of 1923, therefore, was carried out by the block vote. Five of the P.R. council were reelected, but labor lost its representative and the council membership was entirely restricted to the nominees on two opposing slates. One of these slates polled 54% of the votes and elected eight of the nine members; the other polled 39% of the votes and elected only one. Only 54.5% of the valid votes were effective in electing members as compared with 86.6% under P.R. two years before.
A movement to get back P.R. by the formidable process of amending the State Constitution was initiated in 1923 by the Board of Freeholders which framed the Sacramento charter. [As of 1926 it had] received the formal endorsement of the Sacramento Council, Chamber of Commerce, and Retail Merchants Association, and of many prominent citizens throughout the state. An amendment to make P.R. optional for cities and counties was introduced at the 1923 session of the legislature by Senator Inman of Sacramento. It passed the Senate 32 to 5, but was lost in the legislative jam at the close of the Assembly. In 1925, a similar amendment, introduced by Assemblyman Rosenshine of San Francisco, passed second reading in the Assembly, but was crowded out at the end of the session.
[NOTE: The portion of the California State Constitution that the decision was based upon has since been repealed. Thus, the appellate court's decision is rendered moot and (at least in theory) there is no longer any question that PR-STV is constitutional in California.]
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Response To Think Progess' Yglesias Post About Gerrymandering
I just discovered the Think Progess website. Here is my response to a recent post by a writer for the site (Yglesias):
Gerrymandering is another example of why we need Single Transferable Vote (STV). No method of voting does a better of job of giving each political party its proportional share of seats. (Other than a "party list" system, which I doubt Americans are willing to adopt.) That's why it is called Proportional Representation!
STV eliminates any possiblity of gerrymandering when implemented in an at-large manner (for example, for city councils, county boards of supervisors, or school boards). STV also significantly minimizes any effect from attempted gerrymandering when used with multi-member districts (especially districts which elect 5 or more representatives), for example, for Congressional elections or the election of state legislators.
I believe this article misses the point. The primary reason for getting rid of gerrymandering is not about making politics or government work better, it is about making sure each party receives its fair share of seats. A second reason for getting rid of gerrymandering is to prevent the artifical creation of “safe seats” for one particular party. Safe seats mean there is no competition among the parties. No competition among the parties means there is no accountibility to the voters because a politican in a safe seat knows that no matter what he/she does (within limits) he/she will keep getting re-elected again and again.
Gerrymandering is another example of why we need Single Transferable Vote (STV). No method of voting does a better of job of giving each political party its proportional share of seats. (Other than a "party list" system, which I doubt Americans are willing to adopt.) That's why it is called Proportional Representation!
STV eliminates any possiblity of gerrymandering when implemented in an at-large manner (for example, for city councils, county boards of supervisors, or school boards). STV also significantly minimizes any effect from attempted gerrymandering when used with multi-member districts (especially districts which elect 5 or more representatives), for example, for Congressional elections or the election of state legislators.
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