Bring on the Tallymen

EAMONN NOLAN attempts to demystify the PR-STV electoral system, so if you ever wondered what the rules are for distributing votes or how they calculate a quota, read on. And what's a sub-parcel when it's at home, anyway?

This week we are gearing up for that most beloved of blood sports, an election. In the North, I'm afraid you only have the pleasure of one election (EU). In the South, we get the pleasure of it all twice (EU and Local), and in some cases three times (Urban, County, and EU). The tallymen (and women) are sharpening their pencils, the TV pundits are practicing their sums, and the candidates are overdosing on food supplements, skin thickeners and copious doses of clichés. And to think it nearly didn't happen. Had Martin Cullen got his Electronic Voting playthings through, it would all be over in a press of a button. Life would be the poorer without it.

But what's it all about? At each election we get lots of talk of quotas, surpluses, transfer patterns and that most mysterious animal, the vote sub-parcel. Most people, including those doing the talking, I suspect, haven't a clue what's going on. So can we make any sense of it all?

In Ireland, we practice a Representative Democracy. That is, we elect people to represent us on the various political institutions. We also (with the exception of Westminster Elections) elect candidates from multi-seat constituencies. The underlying reason for this is that we want to see Proportional Representation. That means we want groups in society to be represented in our political institutions based on their relative numbers in society. There are many ways of trying to achieve this and although it can be argued that none of the systems succeed completely, most systems do achieve some level of proportionality. In Ireland we use a voting system known as Proportional Representation with a Single Transferable Vote (PR-STV).

The number of seats in any constituency is based on the number of eligible voters in that constituency. For instance, in Leinster House elections the constitution says there should be one TD for every 20 to 30 thousand voters. There are always arguments about how the constituencies are created, for Leinster House elections, Local Elections, European Elections and Assembly Elections. The changes are recommended by a boundary commission and are then agreed by the Government.

The Quota

Each constituency has an allocated number of seats available. Candidates are nominated and you, the voter, rank the candidates in order of preference. Those votes are gathered and then the quota is worked out. The quota can be confusing because it is different in every constituency and at every election. So, how is it worked out?

Take an election for a constituency with one seat, eg a Presidential Election in the South. Say 1,000 votes are cast. Most people accept that a candidate receiving 501 votes should be elected. That's exactly what happens. The Quota is calculated as follows:

[(number of votes cast) / (number of seats + 1)] + 1

In our example, this would give [1000/2] +1 = 501

What happens with three seats? In that case, with the same 1,000 votes cast, we get:

[1000 / 4] + 1 = 251

Why don't they divide by 3 (the number of seats)? The argument is that when it gets to that third seat, two candidates will have been elected, taking 502 votes, which leaves 498 votes. A candidate that has 251 of these is obviously the most popular candidate remaining and so is deemed elected.

So, the quota in a three-seat constituency will be one vote more than 25% of the votes cast; in a four-seater it will be one vote more than 20% of the votes cast; and in a five-seater it will be one vote more than approximately 17% of the votes cast. From this you can see why the main parties tend to prefer constituencies with small numbers of seats. The less the number of seats in a constituency, the greater the percentage of the vote needed to take a seat. So small-seat constituencies work in favour of the main parties and against the interests of smaller groups in society.

The First Count

The first count is easy. They count the number of first preferences for each candidate. If no candidate has reached the quota, the returning officer looks at eliminating one or more candidates. There are two considerations here. First, how far from a quota is the leading candidate? If, for example, no candidate is within 200 votes of a quota and the lowest candidate has 100 votes, eliminating that candidate can't elect anyone. In that case, the Returning Officer will look at the two lowest candidates, or three lowest, etc.

The second consideration is to do with money. Any candidate who gets a quarter of a quota can claim money for election expenses from the State. So, if a candidate is in striking distance of a quarter of a quota and the votes of a lower candidate could possibly bring them over a quarter of a quota, the returning officer cannot eliminate that candidate.

Anyway, where eliminations do take place they look at every vote for the eliminated candidate and pass the votes on to the candidate the voter has chosen as their next preference. So if you vote number one for a candidate who is eliminated, your vote still counts and is passed on to the person you put down as number two. If that candidate is eliminated it moves on to your third preference candidate, etc.

Distributing a Surplus

The complicated part of the count is where a candidate gets more votes than the quota. Say a candidate gets 1,101 votes and the quota is 1,001. In that case, we say the candidate has a surplus of 100 votes. These votes are then distributed amongst the other candidates. But how do they choose how many to give to each candidate? They do it by calculating ratios.

First, they count the number of votes with a 2 for each candidate in the 1,101 votes. They then calculate what percentage that represents. If a candidate has a number 2 in 20% of the 1,101 votes, then that candidate is given 20% of the surplus, in this case 20% of 100, which is 20 votes. This is done for each candidate. They then take 100 votes from the top of the pile and distribute them to the other candidates based on the percentages they are entitled to.

The Sub-Parcel

So where does the mysterious sub-parcel come in? Say candidate A has 5,000 votes after the first count, but the quota is 5,100. Say candidate B is eliminated and of her votes, 1,000 have candidate A as the next preference, this will bring candidate A to 6,000, giving a surplus of 900 votes. Again, they need to calculate ratios to decide how to distribute this 900 of a surplus. In this case, they do not look at the 6,000 votes candidate A has. They only look at the votes in the last sub-parcel received, ie. the 1,000 votes received from candidate B. So the last sub-parcel is the last group of votes received.

Why don't they look at the next preference on all 6,000 votes? Because it would take too long. No other reason.

Other Cases

Of course, I haven't addressed the anomaly of what happens when, due to non-transferable votes where the voter has not expressed a higher preference, there are less transferable votes in the sub-parcel than the surplus to be distributed. (This happened in Dublin Central during the last general election). For example, the sub-parcel contains 1,000 votes, the surplus is 900, but only 800 of the 1,000 actually express a next preference.

Or what about the situation where the ratios, due to rounding errors, do not give rise to the correct number of votes for each candidate (this happens at almost every count)?

Suffice it to say that all eventualities are catered for. The legislation even allows for the situation where the election fails to separate two candidates. In that case, the Returning Officer is authorised to toss a coin to decide which candidate is elected.

The System

What are the advantages of such a complicated system? What are the disadvantages?

First and most importantly, proportional representation is a good thing as it gives a voice to minority groupings in society. There are a number of methods that seek to implement PR, and the STV method is only one of these. STV ensures that every vote cast is used. By transferring that vote on, the system ensures your choices do count towards who is elected. That's why people should always consider carefully, not only who they will give a number one to, but also who they choose as number two, number three, etc. All of these choices matter.

The major disadvantage of PR-STV is that it is a complicated system. It can also be subject to slight distortion. Vote management and transfer patterns can change an outcome. For example, if a party received more than 40% of the votes in any election, they would be very confident of taking more than 50% of the seats available. Other proportional representation systems seek to address these problems. Hopefully, in a later article we will look at some of these systems and how they try to solve the problem of electing representatives truly representative of all groups in society.