Single transferable vote: Difference between revisions

<!--a picture of an old STV voting machine would go very well here-->The concept of transferable voting was first proposed by [[Thomas Wright Hill]] in 1819.<ref>[[Nicolaus Tideman]], ''Collective Decisions and Voting: The Potential for Public Choice'', Ashgate Publishing Company, Burlington VT, 2006.</ref> The system remained unused in public elections until 1855, when [[Carl Andræ]] proposed a transferable vote system for elections in [[Denmark]].<ref name=humphreys>{{cite book |last1=Humphreys |first1=John H |title=Proportional Representation, A Study in Methods of Election |date=1911 |publisher=Methuen & Co.Ltd |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/proportionalrepr00humpuoft}}</ref> Andræ's system was used in 1856 to elect the Danish [[Rigsdag]], and by 1866 it was also adapted for indirect elections to the second chamber, the [[Landsting (Denmark)|Landsting]], until 1915.

Although he was not the first to propose a system of transferable votes, the English [[barrister]] [[Thomas Hare (political scientist)|Thomas Hare]] is generally credited with the conception of Single Transferable Voting, and he may have independently developed the idea in 1857.<ref name=humphreys/> Hare's view was that STV should be a means of "making the exercise of the suffrage a step in the elevation of the individual character, whether it be found in the majority or the minority." In [[Hare method (STV)|Hare's original STV system]], he further proposed that electors should have the opportunity of discovering which candidate their vote had ultimately counted for, to improve their personal connection with voting.<ref name="Lambert">{{cite book|title=Voting in democracies: a study of majority and proportional electoral systems|last1=Lakeman|first1=Enid|last2=Lambert|first2=James D.|year=1959|page=245|publisher=Faber & Faber}}

The noted political essayist, [[John Stuart Mill]], was a friend of Hare and an early proponent of STV, praising it in his 1861 essay ''[[Considerations on Representative Government]]''. His contemporary, [[Walter Bagehot]], also praised the Hare system for allowing everyone to elect an MP, even ideological minorities, but also added that the Hare system would create more problems than it solved: "[the Hare system] is inconsistent with the extrinsic independence as well as the inherent moderation of a Parliament – two of the conditions we have seen, are essential to the bare possibility of parliamentary government."<ref name="Bagehot">{{cite book | last=Bagehot | first=Walter | title=The English Constitution | publisher=Cambridge University Press | publication-place=Cambridge | year=2001 | isbn=978-1-139-16383-5 | doi=10.1017/cbo9781139163835|url=https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/bagehot/constitution.pdf}}

STV spread through the [[British Empire]], leading it to be sometimes known as ''British Proportional Representation''. <!-- Think that was noted in Lambert & Lakeman-->In 1896, [[Andrew Inglis Clark]] was successful in persuading the [[Tasmanian House of Assembly]] to adopt what became known as the ''[[Hare-Clark electoral system|Hare-Clark system]]'', named after himself and Thomas Hare.

In the 20th century, many refinements were made to Hare's original system, by scholars such as Droop, Meek, Warren and Tideman (see: [[Counting Single Transferable Votes]] for further details).