Minority Governments

Charge: STV would lead to more minority governments that are weak and less stable.

Majority governments will become less frequent under STV but a minority government does not mean that the government will be weak and less stable. D.Huntley and M. Wortis (1) wrote :

“Some people find minority governments undesirable because they are perceived to be unstable. In fact, the history of proportional and FPTP systems shows that both can lead to stable governments and both can lead to unstable ones. Some people prefer minority governments because they are usually unable to pass legislation that the majority of the people do not want and because they are more likely to find common ground through compromise and accommodation. Minority governments in Canada have been responsible for some of our most progressive legislation, including Medicare and the Canada Pension Plan.”

Governments formed under STV would not necessarily have less stability as there would be less incentive to call an early election as explained below by Antony Hodgson.

Detailed response regarding the stability of governments formed under STV

by Antony Hodgson (2) :

This presumption is based on an unjustified application of Canada's federal experience with minority governments to an STV system where the incentives to call an election are very different.

The Republic of Ireland is the main example of a Westminster parliamentary system which uses STV. Between 1948 and 2007, there have been 17 elections, with an average interval of 3.7 years between elections. The last three governments have all lasted a full five years. In Canada, we've had 21 elections between 1945 and 2008, with an average interval of 3.15 years. In BC, we've had 19 elections between 1945 and 2009, with an average interval of 3.55 years. We can therefore see that Ireland actually has fewer elections under STV than either Canada or BC has had under our First Past the Post system.

Why is that? The main reason is a difference in incentive to call an election. With our FPTP system, small shifts in the popular vote can drastically swing the number of seats won and the leading party typically wins a bonus that can give them a majority government. We just saw this dynamic federally, where the Conservatives won an extra 1.4% of the vote in the 2008 election and went from 124 to 143 seats - a 6.2% gain, or over 4X more seats than their change in popular support warranted (not to mention the bonus they had for being the largest party - they won 46.4% of the seats on 37.7% of the vote). When small changes in voter sentiment can give you a strong chance at a majority government even when your popular support is still under 40%, why not roll the dice on an election?

In contrast, with STV the results will be far more proportional. There is no strong winner's bonus (historically in Ireland, the winner's bonus is on the order of 3%) and no disproportionate increase in the number of seats relative to a change in a party's popular vote, so there is no significant incentive either to trigger or to call an early election - the expected result is that the voters will return you in about the same proportions that you currently enjoy. This means that parties bide their time and work to make lasting changes in their level of popular support.

(1) Proportional Representation, Local Representation and More Voter Choice by David Huntley and Michael Wortis, http://www.stv.ca/download/BCSTV_Huntley_Wortis.pdf

(2) Myth: STV Will Produce Unstable and Short-Lived Governments by Antony Hodgson, http://stv.ca/node/569