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In the study of apportionment, the Hare quota (sometimes called the simple, ideal, or Hamilton quota) is the number of voters represented by each legislator under an idealized system of proportional representation, where every legislator represents an equal number of voters and where every vote is used to elect someone. The Hare quota is the total number of votes divided by the number of seats to be filled. The Hare quota was used in the original proposal for a single transferable vote system, and is still occasionally used, although it has since been largely supplanted by the Droop quota.
The quota continues to be used in setting electoral thresholds, as well as for calculating apportionments by the largest remainder method (LR-Hare) or other quota-based methods of proportional representation. In such use cases, the Hare quota gives unbiased apportionments that favor neither large nor small parties. [1] However in certain circumstances, the use of Hare can allocate a majority of seats in a district to a party with less than a majority of votes in the district. [2]
The Hare quota may be given as:
where
In an STV election a candidate who reaches the quota is elected while any votes a candidate receives above the quota in many cases have the opportunity to be transferred to another candidate in accordance to the voter's next usable marked preference. Thus the quota is used both to determine who is elected and to determine the number of surplus votes when a person is elected with quota. When the Droop quota is used, often about a quota of votes are not used to elect anyone (a much lower proportion that under the first-past-the-post voting system) so the quota is a cue to the number of votes that are used to actually elect someone. [3]
The Hare quota was devised by Thomas Hare, the first to identify of STV. In 1868, Henry Richmond Droop (1831–1884) invented the Droop quota as an alternative to the Hare quota. The Hare quota today is rarely used with STV due to fact that Droop is considered more fair to both large parties and small parties.
The number of votes in the quota is determined by the district magnitude of the district in conjunction with the number of valid votes cast. [4]
To see how the Hare quota works in an STV election, imagine an election in which there are two seats to be filled and three candidates: Andrea, Brad, and Carter. One hundred voters voted, each casting one vote and marking a back-up preference, to be used only in case the first preference candidate is un-electable or elected with surplus. There are 100 ballots showing preferences as follows:
Number of voters | 60 voters | 26 voters | 14 voters |
1st preference | Andrea | Brad | Carter |
2nd preference | Carter | Andrea | Andrea |
Because there are 100 voters and 2 seats, the Hare quota is:
To begin the count the first preferences cast for each candidate are tallied and are as follows:
Andrea has reached the quota and is declared elected. She has 10 votes more than the quota so these votes are transferred to Carter, as specified on the ballots. The tallies of the remaining candidates therefore now become:
At this stage, there are only two candidates remaining and one seat open. The most popular candidate is declared elected and the other is declared defeated.
Although Brad has not reached the quota, he is declared elected since he has more votes than Carter.
The winners are therefore Andrea and Brad.
Hong Kong and Brazil use the Hare quota in largest-remainder systems.
In Brazil's largest remainder system the Hare quota is used to set the minimum number of seats allocated to each party or coalition. Remaining seats are allocated according to the D'Hondt method. [5] This procedure is used for the Federal Chamber of Deputies, State Assemblies, Municipal and Federal District Chambers.
For geographical constituencies, the SAR government adopted weakly-proportional representation using the largest remainder method with Hare quota in 1997[ citation needed ]. Typically, largest remainders paired with the Hare quota produces unbiased results that are difficult to manipulate. [1] However, the combination of extremely small districts, no electoral thresholds, and low led to a system that parties could manipulate using careful vote management.
By running candidates on separate tickets, Hong Kong parties aimed to ensure they received no seats in the first step of apportionment, but still received enough votes to take several of the remainder seats when running against a divided opposition. [6] The Democratic Party, for example, filled three separate tickets in the 8-seat New Territories West constituency in the 2008 Legislative Council elections. In the 2012 election, no candidate list won more than one seat in any of the six PR constituencies (a total of 40 seats). In Hong Kong, the Hare quota has effectively created a multi-member single-vote system in the territory. [7] [8] [9]
In situations where parties' total share of the vote varies randomly, the Hare quota is the unique unbiased quota for an electoral system based on vote-transfers or quotas. [1] When the number of seats in each constituency is large and vote management becomes impractical (as it requires an unrealistic degree of coordination of voters), the quota becomes fully unbiased.
However, if the quota is used in small constituencies with no electoral threshold, it is possible to manipulate the system by running several candidates on separate lists, allowing each to win a remainder seat with less than a full quota. This can transform the method into a de facto single nontransferable vote system, a situation that has been seen in Hong Kong. [9] By contrast, Droop quota cannot be manipulated in the same way, as it is never possible for a party to gain seats by splitting. [1]
Proportional representation (PR) refers to any type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions among voters. The essence of such systems is that all votes cast – or almost all votes cast – contribute to the result and are effectively used to help elect someone. Under other election systems, a bare plurality or a scant majority are all that are used to elect candidates. PR systems provide balanced representation to different factions, reflecting how votes are cast.
Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a system of proportional representation based on preregistered political parties, with each party being allocated a certain number of seats roughly proportional to their share of the vote.
The single transferable vote (STV), a type of proportional ranked choice voting, is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternative preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated or elected with surplus votes, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in the district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another.
Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a semi-proportional variant of first-preference plurality, applied to multi-member districts where each voter casts just one vote. SNTV generally makes it unlikely that a single party will take over all seats in a city, as generally happens with winner-take-all systems. SNTV is highly similar to cumulative voting, and can be considered a variant of dot voting where each voter has only one point to assign.
In the study of electoral systems, the Droop quota is the minimum number of supporters a party or candidate needs to receive in a district to guarantee they will win at least one seat in a legislature.
The quota methods are a family of apportionment rules, i.e. algorithms for distributing the seats in a legislative body among a number of administrative divisions. The quota methods are based on calculating a fixed electoral quota, i.e. a given number of votes needed to win a seat. This is used to calculate each party's seat entitlement. Every party is assigned the integer portion of this entitlement, and any seats left over are distributed according to a specified rule.
An electoraldistrict, sometimes called a constituency, riding, or ward, is a subdivision of a larger state created to provide its population with representation in the larger state's legislature. That body, or the state's constitution or a body established for that purpose, determines each district's boundaries and whether each will be represented by a single member or multiple members. Generally, only voters (constituents) who reside within the district are permitted to vote in an election held there. District representatives may be elected by a first-past-the-post system, a proportional representative system, or another voting method. They may be selected by a direct election under universal suffrage, an indirect election, or another form of suffrage.
The Imperiali quota or pseudoquota is an inadmissible electoral quota named after Belgian senator Pierre Imperiali. Some election laws have mandated it as the number of votes needed to earn a seat in single transferable vote or largest remainder elections.
The single transferable vote (STV) is a proportional representation system that elects multiple winners. It is one of several ways of choosing winners from ballots that rank candidates by preference. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to their first-ranked candidate. Candidates are elected (winners) if their vote tally reaches quota. After the winners in the first count are determined, if seats are still open, surplus votes — those in excess of an electoral quota— are transferred from winners to the remaining candidates (hopefuls) according to the surplus ballots' next usable back-up preference.
The Edmonton provincial electoral district also known as Edmonton City from 1905 to 1909, was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada mandated to return members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1905 to 1917 and again from 1921 to 1959.
Historically, the single transferable vote (STV) electoral system has seen a series of relatively modest periods of usage and disusage throughout the world; however, today it is seeing increasing popularity and proposed implementation as a method of proportional representation and a goal of electoral reform. STV has been used in many different local, regional and national electoral systems, as well as in various other types of bodies, around the world.
In Hong Kong, geographical constituencies, as opposed to functional constituencies, are elected by all eligible voters according to geographically demarcated constituencies. There are currently 5 geographical constituencies in Hong Kong, returning 35 members to the Legislative Council. Following the 2021 electoral reforms passed by the Standing Committee of the mainland National People's Congress, the number of members returned by geographical constituencies would be lowered to 20, while the total number of seats in the Legislative Council would be increased to 90.
There are a number of complications and issues surrounding the application and use of single transferable vote proportional representation that form the basis of discussions between its advocates and detractors.
In proportional representation systems, an electoral quota is the number of votes a candidate needs to be guaranteed election. They are used in some systems where a formula other than plurality is used to allocate seats.
The 1998 Hong Kong Legislative Council election was held on 24 May 1998 for members of the 1st Legislative Council of Hong Kong (LegCo) since the establishment of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) in 1997. Replacing the Provisional Legislative Council (PLC) strictly controlled by the Beijing government and boycotted by the pro-democracy camp, the elections returned 20 members from directly elected geographical constituencies, 10 seats from the Election Committee constituency and 30 members from functional constituencies, of which 10 were uncontested.
Schulze STV is a draft single transferable vote (STV) ranked voting system designed to achieve proportional representation. It was invented by Markus Schulze, who developed the Schulze method for resolving ties using a Condorcet method. Schulze STV is similar to CPO-STV in that it compares possible winning candidate pairs and selects the Condorcet winner. It is not used in parliamentary elections.
The Sardinian regional election of 1994 took place on 12 and 26 June 1994.
Semi-proportional representation characterizes multi-winner electoral systems which allow representation of minorities, but are not intended to reflect the strength of the competing political forces in close proportion to the votes they receive. Semi-proportional voting systems are generally used as a compromise between complex and expensive but more-proportional systems and simple winner-take-all systems. Examples of semi-proportional systems include the single non-transferable vote, limited voting, and parallel voting.
An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, non-profit organisations and informal organisations. These rules govern all aspects of the voting process: when elections occur, who is allowed to vote, who can stand as a candidate, how ballots are marked and cast, how the ballots are counted, how votes translate into the election outcome, limits on campaign spending, and other factors that can affect the result. Political electoral systems are defined by constitutions and electoral laws, are typically conducted by election commissions, and can use multiple types of elections for different offices.
Hare-Clark is a type of single transferable vote electoral system of proportional representation used for elections in Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. The method for the distribution of preferences is similar to other voting systems in Australia, such as for the Australian Senate.
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