The single transferable vote (STV) is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through ranked voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or unused votes are transferred according to the voter's stated preferences. The system minimizes "wasted" votes, provides approximately proportional representation, and enables votes to be explicitly cast for individual candidates rather than for closed party lists. It achieves this by using multi-seat constituencies (voting districts) and by transferring votes to other eligible candidates that would otherwise be wasted on sure losers or sure winners.
A modified version of STV, known as the Hare–Clark system, is used in Australia in lower house elections in two states/territories: Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. The name is derived from Thomas Hare, who initially developed the system and the Tasmanian Attorney General, Andrew Inglis Clark, who worked to have a modified version introduced. Hare–Clark has been subsequently modified to introduce improvements, such as rotating ballot papers (the Robson Rotation). The Upper Houses of the remaining Australian states, as well as the Upper House of the Parliament of Australia, use conventional STV.
STV is the system of choice of groups such as the Proportional Representation Society of Australia and the Electoral Reform Society in the United Kingdom. Its critics contend that some voters find the mechanisms behind STV difficult to understand, but this does not make it more difficult for voters to 'rank the list of candidates in order of preference' in an STV ballot paper (see Voting).
Read more about Single Transferable Vote: Adoption, Terminology, Voting, Example, Differing Counting Methods, History and Current Use, Issues
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