The Super-Vote Supercharged: Binomial STV elections Hand Count

By Richard Lung

The Super-Vote Supercharged: Binomial STV elections Hand Count - Richard Lung
  • Release Date: 2021-09-26
  • Genre: Political Science

Description

An axiom of science is that there is only one truth to aspire to. All election methods are not just elections but also exclusions. The ways to elect and exclude candidates are all counted differently, as if there were two truths to representing voters. Therefore, the worlds voting systems must be false. Indeed, they are rendered obsolete by an election method that counts elections and exclusions, in the same way. Binomial STV does this. It is a bi-nomial count of both elections and exclusions.
The single transferable vote was called the super-vote, by Joe Rogalay, in his book, Parliament For The People. Binomial STV is the super-vote super-charged.

When I was a member of the Electoral Reform Society, in the 1970s, the secretary and charge of ballot services (since sold off) was Maj Frank S Britton MBE (military). He co-wrote, with Robert A Newland, the pamphlet, “How to conduct an election by the single transferable vote.” Frank sent me an initialed copy.

FAB STV is the whole logical structure to binomial STV. It has great representative potential, beyond elections, as a data retrieval algorithm. However, I realise, now, that, for learning purposes, it is rather like having a non-swimmer jumping in at the deep end of the pool.
Binomial STV can use the traditional hand count of surplus vote transfers. This has over a century of reliable use. Hand count STV does not have to go to Meek method standards of transfer accuracy.
In contrast, the simple plurality count (first past the post) stops after the count of only one preference, the X-vote. For most purposes, FPTP is a grossly inaccurate approximation.
Binomial STV gives exclusion, as well as election, a rational count, in its own right. Candidates are not merely excluded, when the surplus votes run out, as in traditional STV counts. In my opinion, they are a clumsy expedient.