Donald asked of Markus: > Because you have claimed the Northern Ireland method to be the best, I am > going to assume that you know enough about the method to be able to tell us > some details, like total number of seats and how many districts (if it is a > district method). > > If you would be so kind as to give us that information, we will be able to > calculate how many wasted votes there will be in the method.
I can offer the following info about district magnitudes and wasted votes: Northern Ireland uses STV-PR for three of its four public elections. European Parliament =============== Three MEPs elected from one constituency comprising the whole Province. For results see http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/publications/statistics/ni.htm Northern Ireland Assembly =================== 108 members elected from 18 constituencies each returning 6 members. For a summary of the results see http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/publications/statistics/niassembly.htm Overall summaries based on first-preference votes must be interpreted with care. STV-PR guarantees PR only WITHIN individual constituencies (US = districts). Although constituencies of 6 members guarantee representation only to groups that can secure at least one-seventh of the vote within a district, groups with much less overall support usually do gain representation in STV-PR elections, eg the Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, with 2% of the first-preference votes and 2% of the seats. In an STV-PR election the actual proportion of wasted votes cannot be calculated simply from the district magnitude (number of members per district). With 6 members, representation is guaranteed to 85.7% of the voters (6/7), ie up to 14.3% of those who vote may have their votes wasted. But in actual STV-PR elections the proportion of wasted votes is usually much smaller. In the 1999 election to the NI Assembly the distribution of wasted votes was as follows. >2% <3% 3 constituencies >3% <4% 2 constituencies >4% <5% 2 constituencies >5% <6% 5 constituencies >6% <7% 2 constituencies >7% <8% 3 constituencies >8% <9% 1 constituency District Councils ============ There are 26 District Councils with between 15 and 51 members. Every Council area is divided into at least two "District Electoral Areas" (= multi-member wards) which return from 4 to 8 members each. For details of the arrangements when STV-PR was re-introduced in 1973 see: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stv-voting/files/Implementation%20of%20STV-PR%20for% 20District%20Councils%20in%20NI.htm For details of the even more varied arrangements that were adopted for the STV-PR elections to the Scottish Education Authorities in the 1920s, see: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stv-voting/files/Implementation%20of%20STV-PR%20for% 20Scottish%20Education%20Authorities.htm James ---- For more information about this list (subscribe, unsubscribe, FAQ, etc), please see http://www.eskimo.com/~robla/em
