|
|
PROPORTIONAL
REPRESENTATION SOCIETY OF AUSTRALIA |
|
||
|
Tel. +613 9589 1802 |
Tel. +614 2917 6725 |
|
||
|
2011-08-09 |
||||
|
Importance
of the Number of Places to be Filled at a PR Election being an Odd Number Click on
a blue hyperlink of interest. |
||||||
|
TOTAL
NUMBER OF SEATS |
APPROXIMATE
QUOTA FOR FILLING OF EACH SEAT |
BARE ABSOLUTE
MAJORITY OF SEATS |
NO. OF
SEATS ONE BELOW AN ABSOLUTE MAJORITY |
|||
|
Number of Seats |
Minimum Vote to Entitle a Grouping to a Bare Absolute
Majority of Seats |
Number of Seats |
Minimum Vote to Entitle
a Grouping to Seats One Below an Absolute Majority |
Maximum Vote that
Could Give a Grouping Just One Seat Below an Absolute Majority |
||
|
2 |
33.33% |
2 |
66.6% + 2 votes |
1 |
33.3% + 1 vote |
66.6% - 1 vote |
|
3 |
25.00% |
2 |
50.0% + 2 votes |
1 |
25.0% + 1 vote |
50.0% - 1 vote |
|
4 |
20.00% |
3 |
60.0% + 3 votes |
2 |
40.0% + 2 votes |
60.0% - 2 votes |
|
5 |
16.67% |
3 |
50.0% + 3 votes |
2 |
33.3% + 2 votes |
50.0% - 2 votes |
|
6 |
14.29% |
4 |
57.1% + 4 votes |
3 |
42.9% + 3 votes |
57.1% - 3 votes |
|
7 |
12.50% |
4 |
50.0% + 4 votes |
3 |
37.5% + 3 votes |
50.0% - 3 votes |
|
8 |
11.11% |
5 |
55.5% + 5 votes |
4 |
44.4% + 4 votes |
55.5% - 4 votes |
|
9 |
10.00% |
5 |
50.0% + 5 votes |
4 |
40.0% + 4 votes |
50.0% - 4 votes |
|
10 |
9.09% |
6 |
54.5% + 6 votes |
5 |
45.5% + 5 votes |
54.5% - 5 votes |
|
11 |
8.33% |
6 |
50.0% + 6 votes |
5 |
41.7% + 5 votes |
50.0% - 5 votes |
|
12 |
7.69% |
7 |
53.8% + 7 votes |
6 |
46.2% + 6 votes |
53.8% - 6 votes |
|
13 |
7.14% |
7 |
50.0% + 7 votes |
6 |
42.9% + 6 votes |
50.0% - 6 votes |
|
14 |
6.67% |
8 |
53.3% + 8 votes |
7 |
46.7% + 7 votes |
53.3% - 7 votes |
|
15 |
6.25% |
8 |
50.0% + 8 votes |
7 |
43.8% + 7 votes |
50.0% - 7 votes |
|
16 |
5.88% |
9 |
52.9% + 9 votes |
8 |
47.1% + 8 votes |
52.9% - 8 votes |
|
17 |
5.56% |
9 |
50.0% + 9 votes |
8 |
44.4% + 8 votes |
50.0% - 8 votes |
|
An Odd Number of
Places is Needed - Not an Even Number: The advantage of setting an odd
number of places to be filled at a proportional representation election
is that an absolute majority of votes for a given grouping of candidates -
however slight - produces an absolute majority of seats for that grouping,
whereas with an even number of places, an absolute majority of votes
for a grouping does not, unless it is high enough, produce an absolute
majority of seats for that grouping. |
||||||
|
Groupings: A grouping can be a formally
organized political party, or it can be a group of like-minded candidates
that have no formal or organized connection, but are perceived by the voters
and commentators as being sufficiently similar in their past voting record if
they are standing for re-election or in their promises if they are new
candidates. A number of complete and utter independents can also be listed as
a grouping in that capacity, in distinction to candidates that are more
easily categorized. Groupings, not always recognized, exist at elections in
all but unsophisticated and the least organized bodies. |
||||||
|
An Even Number of
Places Fails to Ensure a Majority Predominates: If the
absolute majority is not large enough to produce an absolute majority of an
even number of seats,
the grouping gaining such an absolute majority of votes will only gain half
the number of seats available, and the grouping, or groupings, that together
gain only a minority of the seats, will gain the other half of the seats,
which is less than satisfactory. It can also lead to stalemates.
An early official awareness of the unfairly created stalemate problem appeared in
Section 6 of Tasmania's Report on General Election
1912. Examples of entrenchment to avoid an even number of places
are: ·
Section
4 (1) (a) of the Proportional Representation
(Hare-Clark) Entrenchment Act 1994 of the Australian Capital
Territory entrenches the requirement that an odd number of members of the
Legislative Assembly shall be elected from each electorate, and ·
Section
16.2.5 of the Constitution of the Republic
of Ireland requires the use of the system of proportional
representation using the single transferable vote, and Section 16.2.6
requires that no constituency shall elect fewer than three members, which at
least avoids the worst case of an odd number, where only 2 members are to be
elected. Definitive Report on the Problem: The late Dr George Howatt's 1958 classic thirty-page report to the Parliament of
Tasmania on the defects of the original six-member electoral
districts used in Tasmania's Hare-Clark system was a superb analysis
of the problem, and its key recommendation was implemented when, before the
1959 Assembly elections, each of the five six-member Assembly electoral
districts was changed to a seven-member district. Tasmanian Assembly
districts were changed to five-member
districts before the 1998 elections. Municipal Councils: Municipalities with one or more
electoral districts having an even number of seats can, with Victoria's
change to proportional representtation for such districts, demonstrate the
problem there, and Victoria's ad hoc restructuring of electoral
districts can institute this problem, if the need for an odd number to be
elected is not understood. See also Proportional Representation
for Municipal Councils. Origin of the Senate Problem: The table below
illustrates the problem with even numbers of places to be filled. See
paragraph, in A Brief History of PR, on how having and even number of places
to be filled has affected Senate outcomes
since the number of senators to be elected in each State at a periodic
election was first set at an even number, from 1984. The
Federal Parliament should have recognized the significance of that Tasmanian
finding, although it did take Tasmania over fifty years to decide to resolve
the problem. See a paragraph reporting the confession by Dr Richard Klugman, the Inaugural Chairman, in 1983, of
the Federal Parliament's Joint Select Committee on Electoral Matters,
at the end of an account of the 50thAnniversary Celebration of the Senate's
Use of PR. The
likely persistence of there being two senators for each of Australia’s
internal territories is a result of the deliberate “stalemate” effect of such
an arrangement where representation is provided, but it is likely that such
representation will not result in any net effect on the balance of the
overall Senate vote, except in a particular Territory, in the unlikely
circumstance that a given grouping of candidates receives more than 66.6% of
the vote. Prevent
this problem by ensuring that the number to be elected by proportional representation
is an ODD NUMBER. * * * * * * * |
||||||