In Ireland, elections (including European parliament) use proportional representation with single transferable vote¹. This system was adopted after we gained independence so that minorities (such as Unionists) would still have political representation. I think it’s a very fair system – particularly compared to the first-past-the-post that our old colonial masters continue to use and it allows small political parties to have the opportunity to grow.
In the recent EU parliament election, I gave my first preference vote to a new independent candidate whose politics I agree with but I figured would be very unlikely to be elected. When they are eliminated (at one of the counts where it turns out they are the remaining candidate with the lowest number of votes), my second and successive preference then count.
It’s probably easier to see how it works in practice: if you check the election results for my constituency, Dublin² and select Count 1, you can see that 1,065 people voted for the candidate with the lowest number of first preference votes. At Count 2, you can see how 937 of second preference votes were distributed to the remaining candidates (128 of his voters didn’t care to specify a second preference). This pattern of eliminating candidates with the lowest amount of votes repeats until one of the candidates exceeds the quota and is deemed elected – and that candidate’s surplus (number of votes exceeding the quota) votes will be proportionally transferred to the remaining candidates.
Theoretically all of my preferences could count so before voting I made a list of all 23 candidates in order of preference: starting with those I wanted to win, followed by those I could live with in the middle, and down at the very end, those I really didn’t want to win.
According to the relevant EU legislation³, something called a “list system” can also be used for electing MEPs but I’m not familiar with how that works.
Thank you very much for sharing this, and the accompanying documentation. I had no idea that Ireland had such a system in place. It seems really elegant and efficient, and better than say the Condorcet voting method. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method)
In the recent EU parliament election, I gave my first preference vote to a new independent candidate whose politics I agree with but I figured would be very unlikely to be elected. When they are eliminated (at one of the counts where it turns out they are the remaining candidate with the lowest number of votes), my second and successive preference then count.
It’s probably easier to see how it works in practice: if you check the election results for my constituency, Dublin² and select Count 1, you can see that 1,065 people voted for the candidate with the lowest number of first preference votes. At Count 2, you can see how 937 of second preference votes were distributed to the remaining candidates (128 of his voters didn’t care to specify a second preference). This pattern of eliminating candidates with the lowest amount of votes repeats until one of the candidates exceeds the quota and is deemed elected – and that candidate’s surplus (number of votes exceeding the quota) votes will be proportionally transferred to the remaining candidates.
Theoretically all of my preferences could count so before voting I made a list of all 23 candidates in order of preference: starting with those I wanted to win, followed by those I could live with in the middle, and down at the very end, those I really didn’t want to win.
According to the relevant EU legislation³, something called a “list system” can also be used for electing MEPs but I’m not familiar with how that works.
¹ https://assets.gov.ie/111110/03f591cc-6312-4b21-8193-d415016...
² https://www.rte.ie/news/elections-2024/results/#/european/du...
³ https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...