At the conclusion of the recent General Election in Singapore, the euphoria of joy was built around the centres of a presumed “refreshed” politics, where the opposition party yet again won a GRC constituency from the incumbent party adding additional 4 Members of Parliament from the workers party, summing it up to 11 in total when the new parliament convenes. While the seats are in no doubt small and paltry in comparison to the supermajority confidence the long standing dominant party, The People’s Action Party (PAP), still enjoys 60 years running, the voices of joy generated rising questions among visible opposition voters. Many had asked, why is the Workers Party not contest in any other constituencies where the other opposition parties were contested instead.
There were many factors and points in which some of the answer could be best answered for “supporters” to start volunteering or at least reaching out to political parties’ engagement programmes to understand the mechanism of challenges the opposition fraternity faced. It is also a known fact that election deposits are very high and hypothetically speaking, 3 corner fights can be costly for opposition parties with deposits being forfeited if one fails to gather above the minimum number of threshold votes. How then can we address this so voters are not deprived of choices but at the same time, opposition parties not forced to face a costly venture.
Of course, the most logical first step is to lower the deposit requirement, already the highest in the developed world, almost seen as a tool to discourage diverse political competition. The other is to embark on a mentality shift that the voting process that we know is NOT the only method that exist in the world today. I will just touch on a suggestion how a Preferential System can benefit voters and democratic sustainability.
In this adoption, voters are obliged to either rank the contesting candidates (or parties for GRC) according to the preferred listing or vote above the line. Let’s talk about ranking first.
Say there are 4 contesting candidates in South Coast GRC. A voter then decided to rank the parties of his/her choice at the ballot booth come polling day.
1. Labour Front
2. Passive Progressive Party
3. Strike Lightning Party
4. Slur the People Party
Ranking Labour Front as 1 determines his choice in wanting that party to win in his constituency. Ranking others, he expresses his preference based on whatever standards he impose on and ranked accordingly.
How is counting exercised and victor legitimacy given?
Again, applying the fictitious scenario from the above: at the close of polling exercise, the election authorities tallied the number of votes cast for the GRC to be at 100,000. Working on that numbers, the counting officer began their count based parties given the 1st preference vote (ie 1). Assuming the finally 1 tally resulted in the following:
| 1. Labour Front | 52% |
| 2. Passive Progressive Party | 13% |
| 3. Strike Lightning Party | 20% |
| 4. Slur the People Party | 15% |
The Labour party had received 52% of the popular vote based on the number of voter turnout (100,000). This would have been a straight forward scenario even under the current system that The Labour Party has won the constituency.
But in the usual scenario where multi corner fights come into play, it would not be that simple. Again, there are solutions we can genuinely consider. So, imagine if the 1st Preference tally votes had shown the following instead:
| 1. Labour Front | 40% |
| 2. Passive Progressive Party | 38% |
| 3. Strike Lightning Party | 12% |
| 4. Slur the People Party | 10% |
Without the popular vote based on 1st preference, Labour Front, despite having the most number of votes, cannot legitimise itself as the winner because it lacks a simple majority mandate. So what happens next?
The party with the lowest 1st preference votes will be eliminated and its second preferred votes transferred to the remaining parties. If this still fails to determine a party with over 50% of threshold votes, the next lowest 1st preference vote is eliminated and its 3rd Preference votes transferred to the remaining parties. This process will continue until a party achieves a vote account above the 50% threshold
Case in point, Australia’s parliamentary election system has adopted this solution and hence, winners are only determined after a party’s share of votes exceed the 50% simple majority threshold through the methodology mentioned.
This gives voters a broader choice of options with a more feasible and realistic outcome. It forces in a way, for a voter to think about what matters to them in relation to the contesting party’s manifestos, ideas and values.
We may ask, would this then take a longer time for votes to be counted? The short and simple answer is no. If done correctly and election staffs given the trim and proper training, electoral conclusions can be finalised before the next morning comes about, to put it from a conservative assumption. Australia has long adopted this system and at every of its General Elections, they have never experienced any gross counting delay and given its sheer size and number of voting population, results are usually concluded quick enough that the next morning’s news headline would have announced the party mandated to form the government.
Above the Line voting
What if voters do not rank properly or refuse to give choices to their votes? Will that result in spoil votes? Applying the working example from electoral systems that have adopted this method, voters are presented with another option; voting above the line. Let’s assume the second eliminated voting method that Australia has adopted for the following scenario.
From the example above, a voter would cast his ballot by voting above the line for Slur the People Party without having to rank his choices because perhaps, he simply refused to do so. What this happens is, he has ranked 1 for Slur the People Party. However if his choice of above the line vote gets eliminated, the counting officials would then assign the default ranking from his vote. Basically, parties are required to announce up to the night before polling day, their own preference ranking. So in the case where a voter votes above the line for a party he prefers and that party itself gets eliminated after the first preference count, the said party’s preferred rank order would apply to his cast ballot. Again, this is something already practiced in countries that have long entrenched Preferential Voting system in their election system.
It is a system we should seriously consider for a reform perhaps much needed. It brings forth possible benefits in entrenching democracy through continuous democratic sustainability, empowering diversity in choices, breaks apart mundane “lesser of 2 evils voting” mentality and definitely solves the issue of legitimising winners in a multi cornered fight. This method can hence, possibly turn a perceived problem into a wide ranging long term benefit.
In time to come, I will blog about alternative voting systems that can effectively eliminate block voting that have existed way too long in the form of the GRC system while at the same time, ensuring at least a minimal threshold of minority representation in parliament. Will be back!
Journal from the valley 