The Single Transferable Voting System, anyone?

By-election day today and the people of Carnoustie and District ward of Angus Council are voting for their choice of representative to replace Councillor Palmer who retired.


The ballot paper is a choice of 5 candidates from which you are asked to number in order of preference.
The votes will be counted on Friday morning and the successful candidate will be the first to reach the quota.

The quota is calculated by dividing the total number of valid votes cast for all candidates by the number of seats (in this case 1) + 1, and then adding another 1 to that figure.

If no candidate reaches the quota on the first round when all first preferences have been counted, the candidate with the least votes will be eliminated and their second preference votes will be redistributed. A candidate may now have reached the quota. If not, the same process will be repeated eliminating the next candidate with the fewest votes until a candidate reaches the quota and is selected to fill the vacancy.


This system has been created to provide a fair and democratic way of electing a representative to have your say in how your town is governed and resources used.

By noon today there had only been a 10% turnout at my nearest polling station.

I wonder how the Egyptian people would view a turnout figure like this.