[EM] Recent STV Elections

[Markus Schulze]

Dear participants,

recently there were two important elections
by the Single Transferable Vote.

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On 27 March 1999, 21 members of the upper
house ("Legislative Council") of New South
Wales were elected by the Single
Transferable Vote for a term of 8 years.
The whole province was one single district
of 21 seats. There were 4,116,059 eligible
voters. As voting was compulsory, the
participation was 93%.

There were 263 candidates. 6 candidates were
independent candidates while the other 257
candidates had been nominated by 80 different
parties.

The Australian Labor Party won 8 seats. The
Liberal National Party won 6 seats. Pauline
Hanson's One Nation, Australian Democrats,
the Christian Democratic Party (Fred Nile
Group), the Greens, Reform the Legal System,
Unity, and the Outdoor Recreation Party each
won one seat.

To the best of my knowledge, these were the
largest public elections by the Single
Transferable Vote where the electorate was
not divided into districts.

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On 18 May 1999, the 32 New York City School
Boards were elected by the Single Transferable
Vote for a term of 3 years. Each School Board
has 9 members. About 2% to 3% of 3.38 million
eligible voters went to the polls. There were
1 to 25 official candidates in each School
Board District.

Unfortunately, the elections were held using
paper ballots and not machines. So no
statistics are available.

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Sincerely,
Markus Schulze