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27 U.S.F. L. Rev. 779 (1992-1993)
The Single Transferable Vote: An Alternative Remedy for Minority Vote Dilution

handle is hein.journals/usflr27 and id is 791 raw text is: The Single Transferable Vote: An Alternative Remedy for Minority Vote Dilution By RICHARD L. ENGSTROM* THE AMERICAN EXPERIENCE with election systems has been seri- ously constrained by a narrow notion of how voters should be allowed to express, through their ballots, their preferences among candidates. With rare exception, American voters in this country are permitted to cast as many votes as there are unfilled positions in any particular elec- tion contest. However, they are restricted to casting only a single vote in any given contest, without their vote designating any intensity or order of preference among the candidates. This notion, which most Americans accept uncritically, is far from a requisite for democratic elections. In- deed, it is not the way the franchise is operated in most democratic countries. I The concept of casting a single vote per election contest has shaped the framework for debate in the United States concerning the best way to structure electoral competitions. As a consequence, electoral reform de- bates have been confined to a very restricted range of election system alternatives.2 These debates have focused on a very restricted range of * David Bruce Fellow, The David Bruce Centre for American Studies, University of Keele, England, 1993. Research Professor of Political Science, University of New Orleans; A.B., Hope College, 1968; M.A., 1969, Ph.D., 1971, University of Kentucky. The author wishes to express his appreciation to Marcie A. Marty for her assistance with the analysis of the Cincinnati elections reported in this article. I. See generally REIN TAAGEPERA & MATTHEW S. SHUGART, SEATS AND VOTES: THE EFFECTS AND DETERMINANTS OF ELECTORAL SYSTEMS (1989); ELECTORAL LAWS AND THEIR POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES (Bernard Grofman & Arend Lijphart eds., 1986); DEMOC- RACY AND ELECTIONS: ELECTORAL SYSTEMS AND THEIR POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES (Vernon Bogdanor & David Butler eds., 1983). 2. Dominating these debates are issues like whether elections should be held in single- member or multi-member (usually at-large) districts, and whether the winning candidate or candidates should be determined by a simple plurality rule or by some minimum vote criterion. Other subsidiary issues that are also considered include: whether districts should be required to satisfy a particular population equality constraint and some standard of compactness, or whether voting in multi-seat elections should be for separate places or posts, and perhaps whether these places should be associated with geographical residency requirements for candidates.