Why I'm opposed to using STV as a voting system in Wales

Thanks Mike, A well reasoned case opposing STV.

I answered that in September in Nation Cymru

No electoral system is perfect. The party list system that I understand the Labour party wants is better than the Belarus system of FPTP but only just as it puts too much power in the hands of centralised party bosses and disadvantages independent candidates removing power from electorate to place preferences. The Single Transferable Vote system (STV) supported by Plaid Cymru / the Liberal democrats / Green Party / SNP / Sinn Fein puts the power of ordering the party candidates in the hands of the electorate according to individual preference. STV also does not exclude independent candidates. There can also be a 'Reopen Nominations' option to indicate further rejections. We know the Conservatives want to keep the Belarus system. It is clear therefore the STV system is best for democracy and that is why it is recommended by the Electoral Reform Society.

Interesting argument. My suggestion is to use the Supplementary Vote system (like the former system used for electing PCCs). Having much smaller constituencies electing a single member each, who must get above 50% of the vote would, in my opinion, ensure the local-level link between the member and his/her constituency, thus improving local accountability. It would be interested to hear other people's opinions on this. What is your opinion on that voting system, Mr Hedges?

I'm not too sure how helpful the Govan result is without knowing more about the context of the seat. It could well be the winning Labour candidate was extremely popular and the other Labour candidate was not so highly regarded or was new and not that well known. The two SNP candidates were seen to be a lot better than the second Labour candidate by the electorate and so were elected. In these council seats a candidate's local history can be very important. I have seen results under the current FPTP system in a multi member ward there is a runaway victory for a candidate for one party and the other two or three candidates for another party have won the rest of the seats and the top candidates party's other candidates have not been elected. In the Carmarthenshire 2022 elections two Labour candidates were defending their seats. The electors had seen both candidates in action for five years. The electors returned one Labour candidate with 606 votes and then elected a Plaid candidate with 548 votes. The other Labour candidate received 426 votes and lost his seat. You can have a variety of reasons why voters cast their votes and I get the impression that Mr Hedges feels that because Labour did well with one candidate in Govan all those votes belong to his party, but voters are smarter than that and their votes belong to them.

Any voting system that does not operate on the basis of 1% votes gets 1% of the seats is not PR. To those who dislike closed lists reflect on the position that voters do not really want to get involved in ranking candidates. One election one X. Closed lists do not prevents I dependant candidates or those from small parties.

I must have read hundreds of articles on STV, and I have never, ever heard anyone say that 'guessing the number of candidate to field', was an issue.

This article presents six arguments against STV, none of which holds much water: (1) one example where a party (Sinn Fein in an Irish general election) lost out through putting up too few candidates. That's a pretty unusual occurrence, and you can't blame the system for the party's miscalculation. (2) On the basis of this one example he claims that in the republic of Ireland STV is not proportional. To the contrary, data for all Irish elections since 1950 show that their STV system, together with that of the Northern Ireland Assembly, has been significantly more proportional than any of the other PR systems used in the UK, and especially than MMP as used in Wales, where Labour have on three occasions won 50% of the seats with between 36 and 37 % of the vote. (3) a claim that STV is a guessing game because a party can lose out by putting forward too many candidates. I've looked extensively for examples to support this suggestion and found none, so I think it's just a myth. I'll be very interested if anyone has any clear example to support it. (4) "in Scotland they use it for council elections but have decided not to use it for the Scottish Parliament elections" This is not true: there has been no Scottish parliamentary discussion or decision on whether to change their electoral system to STV - something they have only had power over since 2016. A change to STV remains the policy of the main party in government, the SNP, and is what they propose for an independent Scotland. Meanwhile in Wales there has been much discussion of changing from the present MMP system, with the Senedd's independent McAllister Panel recommending STV. (5) The example of the 2017 election in Glasgow Govan is an interesting one, but provides no argument against STV. First, Mike omits to mention that there was a third SNP candidate, so that the totals of first preference votes were 44% for the SNP, and just under 32% for Labour; nor does he mention that Labour's second candidate was initially in 7th place behind that third SNP candidate, the Conservative and the Green. From first preferences it was clear that the SNP would easily win two seats and Labour would easily win one, with the final seat a close contest between Labour, the Conservative and the Green. You can follow the details of the count at https://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~denis/stv_elections/SC2017/Glasgow/Govan/index.html [It's interesting that under slightly different STV rules Labour would have won that last seat, but that just shows you how close the contest was.] (6) the example of one (of several) very large council areas in Highland Council in Scotland. This example actually cuts the other way. If the electorate are happy with their representation - as I think they generally are - in Highland, which is 20% larger in area than the whole of Wales but with less than 8% of the population, this is strong evidence that wards being too large would not be a problem in Wales.

if a party does not nominate enough candidates under any system, the party will be shortchanged. under STV, each party knows they will take only the same share of seats as their share of votes so based on that expectation, they narrow their nomination to only what they expect plus one or two more in a typical district. if a party does much better than they expect, they can lose out. But that scientific forecast of seats won is possible only because STV is scientific. Under FPTP, every major party runs a candidate for every seat, hoping to get one of those lucky breaks that happens randomly. BUT - the use of ranked votes means a party does not suffer if it over-nominates. In Malta both main parties nominate as many as twice the seats in the district. But in first count, you can pretty well see how many seats each of those parties will take in the end.. It then becomes two separate contests to see which candidate of the party is more generally popular, to take the party's seats in the district tht have not been won in the first count. Comparing party seat share taken to first-preference vote share overlooks the benefit of ranked votes. That is - if a voter likes a smal party he or she has liberty to vote for whom they truly support (no strategic voting). If that small party does not take a seat in the district, the voter has consolation that their vote may be transferred to be used to elect someone of a larger party still favoured by the voter even if not his/her first choice. Those transfers skew the proportionality based on first-preference votes, as a party might take more votes later than their first-count share. large districts under STV are seen as presenting obstacle but in cities, a mayor reprsnted a whole city. if one person can do the work of representing a whole city, then why not 8 or 12 or 16? In Canada a typical single-member riding in the provinces is 16,000 sq. kms. with many much larger than that. 13 Canadian ridings are each larger than four times the size of the Scottish Highlands The Highlands are represented by one UK MP by the way -- a single member is expected to represent all that area. if one person can represent that much territory, then surely 15 can represent the area between them. Vast districts are not a problem judging by the size of single-member ridings in use now.