Editing Single transferable vote (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History and use of the single transferable vote}}

[[File:Carl Christoffer Georg Andræ.jpg|left|thumb|Carl Andræ]]

=== Origin ===
<!--a picture of an old STV voting machine would go very well here [TM-there is no such object]-->
The concept of transferable voting was first proposed by [[Thomas Wright Hill]] in 1819. The system remained unused in public elections until 1855, when [[Carl Andræ]] proposed a single transferable vote system for elections in Denmark, and his system was used in 1856 to elect the [[Rigsraad]] and from 1866 it was also adapted for indirect elections to the second chamber, the [[Landsting (Denmark)|Landsting]], until 1915.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://denstoredanske.dk/Samfund,_jura_og_politik/Samfund/Valgteorier_og_valgmetoder/Andræs_metode |title=Andræs metode &#124; Gyldendal – Den Store Danske |website=denstoredanske.dk|date=4 February 2009 }}</ref>

[[File:Thare.png|right|thumb|Thomas Hare]]

Although he was not the first to propose transferable votes, the British [[barrister]] Thomas Hare is generally credited with the conception of STV, and he developed the idea in 1857 independently of Andrae. Hare's view was that STV should be a means of "making the exercise of the suffrage a step in the elevation of the individual character, whether it be found in the majority or the minority." In Hare's original system, he further proposed that electors should have the opportunity of discovering which candidate their vote had ultimately counted for, to improve their personal connection with voting.{{sfn|Lambert|Lakeman|1955|p=245}} At the time of Hare's original proposal, the UK did not use the [[secret ballot]], so not only could the voter determine the ultimate role of their vote in the election, the MPs would have known who had voted for them. As Hare envisaged that the whole House of Commons be elected "at large", his proposal would have totally replaced geographical constituencies and local representation with what Hare called "constituencies of interest" or "unanimous constituencies" – those people who group themselves into a single voting block that actually votes for an MP. 

Although national election systems seldom use at-large districting, in many proportional representation systems the production of unanimous constituencies backing an elected member is achieved by the use of multi-member districts instead of single-member districts. By the late 1800s, [[Catherine Helen Spence]] in Australia and several others had amended Hare's proposal by adding multi-member districts instead of at-large voting.<ref>(Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 26</ref><ref>Spence, A Plea, p. 23</ref><ref>Report of meeting on "Proportional representation," or effective voting, held at River House, Chelsea, on Tuesday, July 10th 1894. Addressed by Miss Spence, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Courtney, Sir John Lubbock and Sir John Hall</ref>
Instead of a single member being said to represent a whole district of varied sentiment, as under first-past-the-post, under STV multiple members represent the range of sentiments present in a district, each one representing a "constituency of interest" made up of only those who voted for the specific elected member of their choice.<ref>Farrell and McAllister, The Australian Electoral System, p. 26</ref> In 1893, Spence described STV thusly: "the districts having been made large enough to return eight or ten members, the voter is allowed to vote for as many men as he would like to see in Parliament, but the vote only counts  for one, and that is the first candidate on the list who needs his vote and can use it."<ref>Report of the PR Congress, Chicago 1893, ''Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.'' https://archive.org/details/jstor-1009042/page/n1/mode/2up accessed 6 March 2025</ref> 

The political essayist [[John Stuart Mill]] was a friend of Hare's and an early proponent of STV, praising it at length in his essay ''[[Considerations on Representative Government]]'', in which he writes: "Of all modes in which a national representation can possibly be constituted, this one affords the best security for the intellectual qualifications desirable in the representatives. At present... the only persons who can get elected are those who possess local influence, or make their way by lavish expenditure...."{{sfn|Mill|1861|p=144}} His contemporary, [[Walter Bagehot]], also praised the Hare system for allowing everyone to elect an MP, even ideological minorities, but also argued that the Hare system would create more problems than it solved: "[the Hare system] is inconsistent with the extrinsic independence as well as the inherent moderation of a Parliament – two of the conditions we have seen, are essential to the bare possibility of parliamentary government."{{sfn|Bagehot|1894|loc=[[File:Wikisource-logo.svg|12px|alt=Wikisource page link]]&nbsp;[[s:Page:The English Constitution (1894).djvu/238|p. 158]]}}

Through the efforts of Catherine Helen Spence, John S. Mill and others, advocacy of STV spread throughout the [[British Empire]], leading it to be sometimes known as ''British Proportional Representation''.<!-- Think that was noted in Lambert & Lakeman--> In 1896, [[Andrew Inglis Clark]] was successful in persuading the [[Tasmanian House of Assembly]] to be the first parliament in the world to be at least partially elected by a form of STV, specifically the ''[[Hare-Clark electoral system]]'', named after himself and Thomas Hare. [[H. G. Wells]] was a strong advocate, calling it "''proportional representation''".{{sfn|Wells|1918|pp=121–129}} The HG Wells formula for scientific voting, repeated, over many years, in his PR writings, to avoid misunderstanding, is proportional representation by the single transferable vote in large constituencies.<ref>HG Wells 1916: The Elements of Reconstruction. HG Wells 1918: In The Fourth Year.</ref>

STV in large constituencies and multiple-member districts permits an approach to the Hare-Mill-Wells ideal of mirror representation. The UK National Health Service previously used the [[first-past-the-post]] system in local or regional elections, and only white male general practitioners were elected to the General Medical Council. In 1979, the UK National Health Service used STV to proportionally elect women and immigrant GPs, and specialists, to the General Medical Council.<ref>Electoral Reform Society, 1979 audit, which records the gratitude of the British medical profession for introducing STV.</ref>

=== Australia ===
[[File:Victorian-senate-paper-folded-01.png|upright=2.25|thumb|right|Australian Senate ballot paper used in Victoria for 2016]]

[[Tasmania]] first used STV for election of members of the [[Tasmanian House of Assembly]] from 1896 to 1902. In 1909, it began to be used on a permanent basis for House of Assembly elections and to elect all House of Assembly members. (Instant-runoff voting was used for elections to the [[Tasmania Legislative Council]] (its upper house), with some of the members elected through [[Hare-Clark electoral system|STV]] prior to 1946.)

In 1948, single transferable vote [[proportional representation]] on a state-by-state basis became the method for electing Senators to the [[Australian Senate]]. This change has led to the rise of a number of minor parties such as the [[Democratic Labor Party (Australia, 1955)|Democratic Labor Party]], [[Australian Democrats]] and [[Australian Greens]] who have taken advantage of this system to achieve parliamentary representation and the balance of power. From the 1984 election, [[group voting ticket|group ticket voting]] was introduced to reduce a high rate of informal voting but in 2016, group tickets were abolished to avoid undue influence of preference deals amongst parties that were seen as distorting election results<ref name="ABC">{{cite news |last=Anderson |first=Stephanie |date=25 April 2016 |title=Senate Voting Changes Explained in Australian Electoral Commission Advertisements |url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-26/aec-advertising-campaign-on-way-senators-are-elected/7356308 |work=ABC News |access-date=30 August 2017}}</ref> and a form of [[optional preferential voting]] was introduced.

Beginning in the 1970s, Australian states began to reform their upper houses to introduce proportional representation in line with the Federal Senate. The first was the [[South Australian Legislative Council]] in 1973, which initially used a [[Party-list proportional representation|party list]] system (replaced with STV in 1982),<ref>{{cite book |last=Dunstan |first=Don |year=1981 |title=Felicia: The political memoirs of Don Dunstan |publisher=Griffin Press Limited |pages=214–215 |isbn=0333338154}}</ref> followed by the single transferable vote being introduced for the [[New South Wales Legislative Council]] in 1978,<ref name="LA">{{cite web |title=Role and History of the Legislative Assembly |publisher=Parliament of New South Wales |url=http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/common.nsf/key/LARole |access-date=9 September 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110423094710/https://parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/web/common.nsf/key/LARole |archive-date=23 April 2011 }}</ref> the [[Western Australian Legislative Council]] in 1987<ref>Electoral Reform expected to alter balance of power, ''The Australian'', 11 June 1987, p.5</ref> and the [[Victorian Legislative Council]] in 2003.<ref>Constitution (Parliamentary Reform) Act 2003</ref> The single transferable vote was also introduced for the elections to the [[Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly]] after a [[1992 Australian Capital Territory electoral system referendum|1992 referendum]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.elections.act.gov.au/elections_and_voting/act_legislative_assembly_referendums/1992_referendum |title=1992 Referendum |date=6 January 2015 |website=www.elections.act.gov.au |access-date=5 June 2019 |archive-date=5 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190605042958/https://www.elections.act.gov.au/elections_and_voting/act_legislative_assembly_referendums/1992_referendum |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The term ''STV'' in Australia refers to the Senate electoral system, a variant of ''Hare-Clark'' characterized by the "above the line" [[group voting ticket]], a party list option. It is used in the Australian upper house, the [[Australian Senate|Senate]], most state upper houses, the [[Tasmania]]n lower house and the Capital Territory assembly. There is a compulsory number of preferences for a vote for candidates (below-the-line) to be valid: for the Senate a minimum of 90% of candidates must be scored, in 2013 in [[New South Wales]] that meant writing 99 preferences on the ballot.<ref name="prsaHC">{{cite web |title=The Hare-Clark System of Proportional Representation |url=http://www.prsa.org.au/hareclar.htm |access-date=21 November 2014 |publisher=[[Proportional Representation Society of Australia]]}}</ref> Therefore, 95% and more of voters use the above-the-line option, making the system, in all but name, a party list system.<ref name="uwaAbove">{{cite web |title=Above the line voting |url=http://elections.uwa.edu.au/glossaryc.lasso?CondensedGlossary=abovethelinevoting |access-date=21 November 2014 |publisher=University of Western Australia |archive-date=20 October 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020142242/http://elections.uwa.edu.au/glossaryc.lasso?CondensedGlossary=abovethelinevoting |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name="abcGlossaryGVT">{{cite web |title=Glossary of Election Terms |url=http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2010/guide/glossary.htm#group_voting_ticket |access-date=21 November 2014 |publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hill |first1=I.D. |date=November 2000 |title=How to ruin STV |url=http://www.votingmatters.org.uk/ISSUE12/P7.htm |journal=Voting Matters |issue=12 |access-date=10 August 2013}}</ref> Parties determine the order in which candidates are elected and also control transfers to other lists and this has led to anomalies: preference deals between parties, and "micro parties" which rely entirely on these deals. Additionally, independent candidates are unelectable unless they form, or join, a group above-the-line.<ref name="anthonyGreen04">{{cite web |last=Green |first=Anthony |date=20 April 2005 |title=Above or below the line? Managing preference votes |url=http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3359&page=0 |access-date=21 November 2014 |publisher=On Line Opinion}}</ref><ref name="ersDog">{{cite web |last=Terry |first=Chris |date=5 April 2012 |title=Serving up a dog's breakfast |url=http://devers2.speedster-it.com/blog/serving-up-a-dogs-breakfast |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171007220903/http://devers2.speedster-it.com/blog/serving-up-a-dogs-breakfast |archive-date=7 October 2017 |access-date=21 November 2014 |publisher=[[Electoral Reform Society]]}}</ref> Concerning the development of STV in Australia researchers have observed: "... we see real evidence of the extent to which Australian politicians, particularly at national levels, are prone to fiddle with the electoral system".<ref name="AusOVC">{{cite book |first=David M. |last=Farrell |title=The Australian Electoral System: Origins, Variations, and Consequences |author2=Ian McAllister |date=2006 |publisher=[[UNSW Press]] |isbn=978-0868408583 |location=Sydney}}</ref>{{rp|86}}

As a result of a parliamentary commission investigating the 2013 election, from 2016 the system has been considerably reformed, with group voting tickets (GVTs) abolished and voters no longer required to fill all boxes.

In 2023, the single transferable vote was also chosen as the electoral method in South Australia for the state's First Nation's [[Voice to Parliament]] as part of Schedule 1 of the Act.<ref>{{cite Legislation AU|SA|act|fnva2023222|First Nations Voice Act 2023}}</ref>

=== Canada ===
{{more citations needed section|date=April 2021}}
STV was used to elect legislators in two Canadian provinces between 1920 and 1955. The cities of Edmonton and Calgary elected their MLAs through STV from 1924 to 1956, when the Alberta provincial government changed those elections to use the first-past-the-post system. The city of Winnipeg elected its MLAs through STV from 1920 to 1955, when the Manitoba provincial government changed those elections to use first-past-the-post.<ref name="auto"/>

Less well known is STV use at the municipal level in western Canada. Calgary and Winnipeg used STV for more than 50 years before city elections were changed to use the first-past-the-post system. Nineteen other municipalities, including the capital cities of the other three western provinces, also used STV For elections in about 100 elections during the 1918 to 1931 period.<ref>Monto, ''When Canada Had Proportional Representation''</ref><ref>{{Cite web | first=Harold | last=Jansen | title=The Single Transferable Vote in Aiberta and Manitoba | year=1998 | url=https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/tape15/PQDD_0004/NQ29051.pdf}}</ref>

In [[British Columbia]], Canada, a type of STV called [[BC-STV]] was recommended for provincial elections by the British Columbia [[Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform (British Columbia)|Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform]] in 2004. In a [[2005 British Columbia electoral reform referendum|2005 provincial referendum]], it received 58 percent support and achieved a simple majority in 77 of 79 electoral districts. It was rejected for falling short of the 60 percent threshold that had been set by the [[BC Liberal]] provincial government.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/rpt/2005-CEOreportRefOnElectoralReform.pdf|title=Report of the Chief Electoral Office}}</ref> In a [[2009 British Columbia electoral reform referendum|second referendum]], on 12 May 2009, BC-STV was defeated 61 percent to 39 percent.

=== United States ===
{{See also|Ranked-choice voting in the United States}}
In the United States, the [[Proportional Representation League]] was founded in 1893 to promote STV, and their efforts resulted in its adoption by many city councils in the first half of the 20th century. More than twenty cities have used STV, including [[Cleveland]], [[Cincinnati]] and New York City. As of January 2010, it is used to elect the city council and school committee in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], the park board in [[Minneapolis, Minnesota]], and the board of assessors in [[Arden, Delaware]]. STV has also been adopted for student government elections at several American universities, including [[Carnegie Mellon]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://stugov.andrew.cmu.edu/elections/statics/aboutstv |title=Elect@CMU {{!}} About single transferable voting|website=Carnegie Mellon University}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://dgund.com/projects/fair-voting |title=CMU Fair Ranked Voting |last=Gund |first=Devin}}</ref> [[MIT]], [[Oberlin College|Oberlin]], [[Reed College|Reed]], [[UC Berkeley]], [[UC Davis]], [[Vassar]], [[UCLA]], [[Whitman College|Whitman]], and [[UT Austin]]. The [[Fair Representation Act (United States)|Fair Representation Act]], introduced in the US Congress in June 2017, would have established STV for US House elections starting in 2022.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3057 |title=H.R.3057 – 115th Congress (2017–2018): Fair Representation Act |first=Beyer |last=Donald |date=14 July 2017 |website=Congress.gov }}</ref>