In electoral systems, a wasted vote is any vote cast that is not "used" to elect a winner, and so is not represented in the outcome. However, the term is vague and ill-defined, having been used to refer to a wide variety of unrelated concepts and metrics.[1] The precise definition of a wasted vote can have a major impact on the conclusions of an analysis. For example, under the narrowest possible definition of a wasted vote, the single transferable vote (STV) can be considered to waste zero votes. However, if the wasted vote definition is expanded even slightly, it is possible for up to 100% of STV votes to be classified as wasted because STV fails the unanimity criterion; that is, it is possible to elect a legislature that every single voter agrees is worse than some alternative.[1]
Excess votes are votes that a candidate receives above and beyond what was needed.
Lost votes are votes that were not enough to make an impact by winning a seat.
Sometimes the term "wasted vote" is used by those referring only to "lost votes", while others use the term to refer to the sum of the lost votes and the excess votes.
What precisely counts as an "excess vote" or "wasted vote" is not always clearly defined, and this can make a dramatic impact. For example, the single transferable vote can be considered to waste zero votes, if wasted votes are given the narrowest possible definition, or up to 100% of the vote.[further explanation needed][1]
By electoral system
Plurality voting
In plurality systems, the ballots of voters outside of the plurality are considered "wasted" as they do not contribute to the final outcome. This is because the wasted votes include both "lost votes" for all candidates not finishing first, as well as the "excess votes" for the winning candidate beyond what was needed to win.
Comparing wasted votes between parties in legislatures determines the efficiency gap measure, which quantifies the bias in allocating voter preferences due to the shape of electoral districts. A non-zero efficiency gap indicates disproportionally more wasted votes for one party. The efficiency gap may be the most discussed method of measuring gerrymandering.[3]
Proportional representation
In proportional electoral systems, representatives are elected in rough proportion to voter preferences, resulting in fewer wasted votes than in plurality voting.[4]
Thresholds and lost votes
The wasted vote includes the total number of voters not represented by any party sitting in the legislature (or unrepresented voters).[5][6][7] The wasted vote share is calculated as: where is the vote share of unrepresented party and is the overall number of unrepresented parties. The lost vote can be given as a percentage of the total number of votes or as the absolute number of votes. Wasted votes in proportional representation increase with a higher electoral threshold. Decreasing district magnitude (electing fewer members in the contest) is one of the ways to reduce political fragmentation in the chamber. Even with no explicit electoral threshold, the natural electoral threshold causes some wasted votes and produces more disproportionality. That is why the more members being elected in the contest, the more fair the result.
On occasion, lost votes in proportional representation (arising from high electoral threshold) result in a party winning an outright majority of seats without winning an outright majority of votes. For instance, in the 2002 Turkish general election, the AKP party won more than two-thirds of the seats in the Turkish Parliament with just 34.28 percent of the vote due to a large election threshold of 10%. In the 2013 Bavarian federal state election in Germany, the CSU party failed to obtain a majority of votes but won an outright majority of seats.[citation needed]
Ranked voting
Ranked voting, unlike traditional plurality systems and list PR systems, allow voters to redirect what would otherwise be a wasted vote to other candidates. The goal of ranked voting is to reduce the waste that occurs in many elections due to votes being cast for unsuccessful candidates or by the existence of winners' excessive leads over their nearest contenders. Quota, a majority of votes cast, or at least a majority of votes still in play when the seats are filled, are used to elect under ranked voting systems. However, in single-member ranked voting (also known as instant-runoff voting), a portion of votes will still become wasted votes if cast for the last-surviving losing candidate or by being cast for the winning candidate if that candidate received votes in excess of what they needed to win. But at most this will be less than half the votes in the counting, which is considerably fewer than some first-past-the-post elections where two-thirds or more of the votes may not be used to elect the winner.[8][9]
When not all candidates are ranked by every voter, ranked vote systems can produce exhausted ballots – ballots that could have been redirected to lower preferences if the ballot had been fully ranked.[10] In multi-member ranked voting, wasted votes are less common compared to single-member ranked voting. The number of votes not used to elect someone is commonly the same as one quota (usually the Droop quota is used).
A vote can also be thought of as at least partially wasted when a vote has been given to a candidate who is a lower preference for the voter than a higher-ranked candidate.[11] For instance, the Australian Electoral Commission tells voters that "there is no such thing as a wasted vote" due to preferential voting preventing votes from finishing in third place or lower, in cases where the last runoff was between only two candidates. However, a large share of votes in Australian lower-house elections are excess votes for the winning candidate or partially wasted votes that were used to elect a lower-ranked preference. These instances of waste occur more often, however, under first-past-the-post.[12]
Strategic voting
Strategic voting is a voting approach that attempts to reduce the chance of a vote being wasted. Election campaigns focus on swing seats because votes gained in swing seats are more likely to result in increased representation and thus not be wasted. In election campaigns, a leading candidate may appeal to voters who support a less popular candidate to vote instead for the leading candidate for tactical reasons, on the basis that a vote for their preferred candidate is likely to be wasted. Excess votes for more popular candidates allow less popular candidates to make similar appeals to supporters of more popular candidates.[example needed]
An electoral system which reduces the number of wasted votes can be considered desirable on grounds of fairness or because of the danger that voters who feel their votes make no difference may feel detached from their government and the democratic process.
Example calculations
Example 1
Consider an election where candidates A, B and C receive 6000, 3100 and 701 votes respectively.
If this is a plurality voting election for a single seat, Candidate A has a plurality of votes (actually a majority) and is therefore elected. The wasted votes are:
All 3801 votes for candidates B and C, since these "lost votes" did not elect any candidate
In the wider definition, the 2899 excess votes for candidate A are wasted, since A would still have won with only 3101 votes. Therefore, 6700 out of 9801 votes are wasted.
If the same votes for A, B and C are cast in a d'Hondt method election for 12 seats, then the seats are split 8-4-0 for A-B-C. The wasted votes are:
All 701 votes for party C, which won no seats.
In the wide definition, also wasted are:
399 votes for A, since A would still have won eight seats with only 5601 votes against 3100 and 701 (with 5600 votes for A, the last seat would go to C)
299 votes for B, since with only 2800 votes, B would lose the last seat to C
A majority of votes are wasted in a single-seat plurality election. Multi-seat constituencies reduce the number of wasted votes as long as proportional representation is used. (When used with winner-take-all systems, multi-member constituencies may still see the wasted vote exceed 50 percent.)[citation needed]
Example 2
Consider an election where candidates A, B, C and D receive 6000, 3100, 2400 and 1701 votes respectively.
If this is an instant-runoff voting election for a single seat, no one has a majority of votes so Candidate D is eliminated and the votes for them are transferred. If over 600 of them go to A, A has a majority and is declared elected; if instead the vote transfer from D did not produce a majority winner, then C would be eliminated (or B if C's vote total has surpassed B's) and either A or B (or C) would have a majority and would be declared a winner. The wasted votes are:
6600 at the most and potentially as few as 4300
If this is a vote using the single transferable vote for two seats, the Droop quota is 4400. Candidate A has that in the first count and is elected. Transfer of A's surplus may give B a quota and victory; otherwise, D is eliminated. It is likely that the second seat would be filled by someone with quota, hence wasted votes would have to be less than a third of votes cast. If two win seats by having quota, the wasted votes are one quota at the most so likely:
less than 4400
It could be that the second seat is not filled by a candidate with quota, but by the candidate who is merely the most popular when the field of candidates thins to two. If so, the number of effective votes could be no greater than 4101, but that would assume a great number of exhausted votes. But even so, the wasted votes could be:
In the 1993 Polish election, the wasted vote reached 34.4 percent. The use of electoral thresholds, set at 5% for party lists and 8% for coalitions, resulted in some parties not being eligible for representation.
In the Russian parliamentary elections in 1995, more than 45 percent of party votes were wasted, due to the 5 percent electoral threshold. Nineteen of the parties that did not exceed the electoral threshold did win district seats so did have some representation. In 1998, the Russian Constitutional Court found the threshold legal, taking into account limits in its use.[13]
In the 2002 Turkish general election, as many as 46.33 percent (14,545,438) of votes were cast for parties that went unrepresented in the parliament.[14] An unusually large electoral threshold of 10 percent prevented all but two parties from taking seats. The justification for such a high threshold was to prevent multi-party coalitions and put a stop to the fragmentation of political parties seen in the 1960s and 1970s.[citation needed] However, coalitions ruled between 1991 and 2002, but mainstream parties continued to be fragmented; in the 2002 elections, as much as 45 percent of votes were cast for parties which failed to reach the threshold and were thus unrepresented in the parliament.[15] All parties that won seats in 1999 failed to cross the threshold, thus giving Justice and Development Party 66 percent of the seats.[citation needed]
In the Ukrainian elections of March 2006, 22 percent of voters were effectively disenfranchised due to an electoral threshold of 3 percent of overall votes, including invalid votes. In the 2007 Ukrainian parliamentary election held under the same system, fewer voters supported minor parties and the total percentage of disenfranchised voters fell to about 12 percent.
In Bulgaria, 24 percent of voters cast their ballots for parties that would not gain representation in the elections of 1991 and 2013.
In Germany in 2013 15.7 percent or 6.9 million votes were unrepresented.[16]
In the 2015 Israeli legislative election, the wasted vote was 7.1 percent. The election is held with the country as a single district, which reduces the potential effective threshold to a minimum but an electoral threshold of 3.25 percent means that some minor parties did not get representation.[17]
In the 2015 Danish general election, where MMP was used, the wasted vote calculated by the formula above in Denmark proper was 0.92 percent. The wasted votes in Faroe Islands and Greenland, referred to above, made up a very small proportion of the total 3.5 million votes cast across the country.
In the Netherlands, the wasted vote was 1.55 percent in the 2017 general election and 1.99 percent in the 2021 election. The low percentage of waste in the Netherlands was caused by a low electoral threshold. The threshold is set at 0.67 percent, which is the same as the effective threshold produced by electing 150 seats in a single district covering the entire country.[18]
When districts are used under PR, waste of district votes may occur. During Danish general elections in 2015 and 2019, in the Faroe islands, where only two members were elected and 23,000 votes cast, the waste of votes reached 51.3 percent (11,000) in 2015 and 46.2 percent in 2019. In Greenland, where two were elected and 20,000 votes cast, in 2015 21.96 percent (4300 votes) and in 2019 34.2 percent of Greenland voters were not represented in the Parliament of Denmark.
High wasted vote in plurality systems as measured by the efficiency gap has been found illegal in some cases.[24]
For proportional representation, the German Federal Constitutional Court rejected in 2011 and in 2014 an electoral threshold for the European Parliament that led to wasted votes based on the principle of one person, one vote.[25] In the case of Turkey, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe declared in 2004 the 10% electoral threshold excessive and asked Turkey to lower it, which would reduce wasted votes.[26] On 30 January 2007, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the 10 percent electoral threshold in Turkey does not violate the right to free elections guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights. It held, however, that this same threshold could violate the Convention if not justified. It was justified in the case of Turkey in order to stabilize the volatile political situation over recent decades.[27][28]
Plurality voting refers to electoral systems in which the candidates in an electoral district who poll more than any other are elected.
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.
The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV), is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked 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.
The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of votes that a candidate or political party requires before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature.
Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is an electoral system used to elect multiple winners. It is a semi-proportional variant of first-past-the-post voting, applied to multi-member districts where each voter casts just one vote. SNTV generally makes it unlikely that a single party will take all seats in a city, as generally happens with winner-take-all systems. SNTV 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.
In political science, parallel voting or superposition refers to the use of two or more electoral systems to elect different members of a legislature. More precisely, an electoral system is a superposition if it is a mixture of at least two tiers, which do not interact with each other in any way; one part of a legislature is elected using one method, while another part is elected using a different method, with all voters participating in both. Thus, the final results can be found by calculating the results for each system separately based on the votes alone, then adding them together. A system is called fusion or majority bonus, another independent mixture of two system but without two tiers. Superposition is also not the same as "coexistence", which when different districts in the same election use different systems. Superposition, fusion and coexistence are distinct from dependent mixed electoral systems like compensatory (corrective) and conditional systems.
Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists are in a predetermined, fixed order by the time of the election and gives the general voter no influence at all on the position of the candidates placed on the party list.
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.
At a national level, Greece holds elections for its legislature, the Hellenic Parliament.
In the study of apportionment, the Harequota 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.
BC-STV is the proposed voting system recommended by the Citizens' Assembly on Electoral Reform in October 2004 for use in British Columbia, and belongs to the single transferable vote family of voting systems. BC-STV was supported by a majority of the voters in a referendum held in 2005 but the government had legislated that it would not be bound by any vote lower than 60 percent in favour. Because of the strong majority support for BC-STV, the government elected to stage a second referendum in 2009, but with increased public funding for information campaigns to better inform the electorate about the differences between the existing and proposed systems. The leadership of both the "yes" side and the "no" side were assigned by the government. The proposal was rejected with 60.9 percent voting against, vs. 39.1 percent in favour, in the 2009 vote.
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.
Plurality block voting is a type of block voting method for multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled. The candidates with the most votes are elected. The usual result when the candidates divide into parties is that the most-popular party in the district sees its full slate of candidates elected, even if the party does not have support of majority of the voters.
Electoral reform is a change in electoral systems which alters how public desires are expressed in election results.
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.
Apportionment in the Hellenic Parliament refers to those provisions of the Greek electoral law relating to the distribution of Greece's 300 parliamentary seats to the parliamentary constituencies, as well as to the method of seat allocation in Greek legislative elections for the various political parties. The electoral law was codified for the first time through a 2012 Presidential Decree. Articles 1, 2, and 3 deal with how the parliamentary seats are allocated to the various constituencies, while articles 99 and 100 legislate the method of parliamentary apportionment for political parties in an election. In both cases, Greece uses the largest remainder method.
The mixed ballot transferable vote (MBTV) refers to a type of vote linkage-based mixed-member electoral system where a group of members are elected on local (lower) tier, for example in single-member districts (SMDs). Other members are elected on a compensatory national (upper) tier from a list and voters cast a single ballot where they may indicate their preferences separately.
Mixed-member majoritarian representation (MMM) is type of a mixed electoral system combining winner-take-all and proportional methods, where the disproportional results of the winner-take-all part are dominant over the proportional component. Mixed member majoritarian systems are therefore categorized under semi-proportional representation, and are usually contrasted with mixed-member proportional representation (MMP) which aims to provide proportional representation compensation ("top-up") seats.
↑ Stephanopoulos, Nicholas; McGhee, Eric (2014). "Partisan Gerrymandering and the Efficiency Gap". University of Chicago Law Review. 82: 831–900. SSRN2457468. Wasted votes and efficiency gap are defined pp. 850–852.
↑ Toker, Cem (2008). "Why Is Turkey Bogged Down?"(PDF). Turkish Policy Quarterly. Turkish Policy. Retrieved 27 June 2013.
↑ In 2004 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe declared this threshold to be manifestly excessive and invited Turkey to lower it (Council of Europe Resolution 1380 (2004)). On 30 January 2007 the European Court of Human Rights ruled by five votes to two (and on 8 July 2008, its Grand Chamber by 13 votes to four) that the 10 percent threshold imposed in Turkey does not violate the right to free elections, guaranteed by the European Convention of Human Rights. It held, however, that this same threshold could violate the Convention if imposed in a different country. It was justified in the case of Turkey in order to stabilize the volatile political situation which has obtained in that country over recent decades. The case is Yumak and Sadak v. Turkey, no. 10226/03. See also B. Bowring Negating Pluralist Democracy: The European Court of Human Rights Forgets the Rights of the Electors // KHRP Legal Review 11 (2007)
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