Issues Affecting The Single Transferable Vote - Ballot Design

Ballot Design

As seen above, voters in an STV election rank candidates on a preferential ballot. STV systems in use in different countries vary both as to ballot design and to whether or not voters are obliged to provide a full list of preferences. In jurisdictions such as the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland voters are permitted to rank as many or as few candidates as they wish. Consequently voters sometimes, for example, rank only the candidates of a single party, or of their most preferred parties. A minority of voters, especially if they do not fully understand the system, may even 'bullet vote', only expressing a first preference. Allowing voters to rank only as many candidates as they wish grants them greater freedom but can also lead to some voters ranking so few candidates that their vote eventually becomes 'exhausted'–that is, at a certain point during the count it can no longer be transferred and therefore loses an opportunity to influence the result.

To prevent exhausted ballots, some STV systems instead oblige voters to give a complete ordering of all of the candidates in an election (if a voter does not rank all candidates their ballot may be considered spoilt). However, when there is a large set of candidates this requirement may prove burdensome and can lead to random voting, or "donkey voting" in which a voter who has no strong opinions about their lower preferences simply chooses them in the given order. Some jurisdictions compromise by setting a minimum number of preferences that must be filled for a ballot paper to be valid (for example Tasmania, which requires five preferences).

To facilitate a complete ballot, some STV systems provide the voter with the option of using group voting tickets rather than having to identify manually a complete list of individual preferences. For example, in elections to the Australian Senate a voter can either rank the candidates individually or place the number one in a box "above the line" to vote for a predetermined ordering of candidates drawn up by one of the political parties. This system diminishes the emphasis on individual candidates and increases the power of party leaders who submit the predetermined rankings; in practice it may even lead to a system resembling party-list proportional representation. However it is still possible for independent candidates to be elected as has been shown in the 2007 Federal Senate elections where Nick Xenophon was 3rd elected before preferences.

The simplest way to list candidates on a ballot paper is alphabetically, though they may also be grouped by party. However, any fixed ordering will give some candidates an unfair advantage, because some voters, consciously or otherwise, are influenced in their ordering of candidates by the order found on the ballot paper. For example, studies conducted in the Republic of Ireland, where candidates are listed alphabetically, have shown that candidates whose surnames begin with an early letter in the alphabet enjoy a small electoral advantage over candidates with later letters. To solve this problem some systems involve a random ordering of candidates, or an ordering that changes from one ballot paper to another (the latter is often called the Robson rotation, after Neil Robson, a Tasmanian MHA who championed such a system).

There is evidence that the STV system has given a small advantage to candidates whose surnames are near the top of the alphabet. In the Irish Dáil (lower house of parliament) elected in 2002, about 4.5% of members had surnames beginning with A, 8% beginning with B, and 12% beginning with C. From listings in the Eircom telephone directories for the 01, 06 and 07/09 areas combined, the expected percentages would be about 1.5%, 7% and 9.5% respectively. Similar deviations from the norm have been noted after previous elections. The effect seems to be minimal, as the Dáil median surname currently falls within the letter K, which accurately reflects the distribution of Irish names. An analysis of likely voting patterns seems to predict a small bias of this kind. A voter votes 1 for the candidate they most favour. If they wish to support other candidates of the same party, but have no strong preference between them, the voter is likely to number them downwards from the top of the ballot sheet, in normal reading fashion. Later preferences to candidates of another party are likely to be numbered in the same way. If candidates' names are listed alphabetically, this pattern will mean that earlier preferences will go to candidates earlier in the alphabet. Over a series of elections, such a minor bias would have a cumulative effect, as elected members stand for election again. In Ireland, it has been suggested that names on ballot papers should be printed in random order to prevent this.