[EM] Holding byelections with PR-STV

[James Gilmour]

Raph Frank  > Sent: Thursday, September 10, 2009 2:14 PM
> 
> One issue with PR-STV is that there is no clear way to handle 
> by-election.

My own view is that this discussion started in the wrong place.  The first question should have been: "How should casual vacancies
be filled where election is by a PR voting system?"  Of course, there relevant differences among PR voting systems, but at least
that question might help to establish some principles about the purposes of filling casual vacancies.

All party-list PR systems have as their objective 'PR of the registered political parties'.  So it commonly (universally?) accepted
that when a casual vacancy arises where a party-list PR voting system is in use, the seat will be filled by another candidate of the
same party as the member whose death or resignation caused the casual vacancy.

So the principle here is that the proportionality to be retained is that decided by the voters at the previous main election, even
though that election might have been held three or four years earlier.

That principle is also accepted for the party list component of hybrid systems like MMP, because the objective of such systems is
'PR of the registered political parties'.  That principle and practice applies to the version of MMP we use to elect the regional
(party list) members of the Scottish Parliament, but it is applied ONLY to the regional members.  So when a Labour Party
constituency (single-member district) MSP resigned and the resultant FPTP by-election was won by a Conservative candidate who was
already a list member of the Parliament, the Conservative Party did not loose one list seat to maintain the PR balance, but took the
constituency AND had a new list member added to replace the one who was now a constituency MSP.

When it comes to STV-PR, the same principle cannot simply be applied, because the objective of STV-PR is 'PR of the voters' and not
'PR of registered political parties'.  Although "party" is the prime determinant wherever STV-PR is used for public elections, by no
means all votes are cast on a strictly party basis (except in Malta!).  However, if we accepted the same general principle as that
accepted for party-list PR voting systems, perhaps it would be acceptable to fill the casual vacancy with the "next" candidate of
the same party as the member who caused the vacancy.  That would reflect the major component of the proportionality established by
the voters at the previous main election.

I suspect there is an element of this behind the arrangements in Northern Ireland where the District Councils are all elected by
STV-PR.  There, the first option for filling a casual vacancy is co-option, provided there is unanimous agreement among the
remaining Council members.  These local government elections are partisan, but agreement locally among the main parties can avoid
the need for a by-election.

The 'count back' procedure with STV-PR provides an alternative approach to the principle of preserving the proportionality
determined at the previous main election.  Then the voters would get the proportionality they would have got at the main election
had the member who caused the casual vacancy not stood at the main election.  Where the elections are partisan, this approach would
provide an incentive for the political parties to nominate more candidates that the numbers of seats they expected to win, so that
they would have one or more "spares".  In Malta the main parties take this to extremes, as they both have sometimes nominated 12
candidates in some 5-member districts.

As already stated by others, STV by-elections are commonly held to fill casual vacancies, reducing to IRV (= Alternative Vote)
across the whole electoral district when there is only one seat to be filled.  This approach can distort the expressed wishes of the
voters and can sometimes have very serious political consequences.  This is the approach that has been adopted to filling casual
vacancies on local government Councils in Scotland, all elected by STV-PR.

We have examples where one party now holds all the seats in a multi-member ward (3 or 4 members) where that party clearly did not
have the support of all or nearly all of the voters in the ward, either at the main elections in 2007 or at the more recent
by-election.

In one case, the political consequences have gone far beyond the ward where the by-election was held.  In March this year the SNP
won the by-election for the vacant seat in the Maryfield ward on Dundee City Council.  That gave the SNP all three councillors in
that ward although the SNP clearly did not have the support of all or nearly all of the voters there, neither in May 2007 nor in
March.   But the consequences of that distortion changed the political control of the whole council, from Labour to SNP.  I should
perhaps explain the iconic significance of this change, as Dundee City Council was one of the last bastions of Labour Party
single-party control in local government.  This illogical application of the by-election approach to filling casual vacancies has
delighted the SNP but sent shockwaves through the Labour Party.

James Gilmour






No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com 
Version: 8.5.409 / Virus Database: 270.13.94/2367 - Release Date: 09/14/09 05:51:00