The mixed ballot transferable vote (MBTV) refers to a type of vote linkage-based mixed-member

electoral system An electoral system or voting system is a set of rules that determine how elections and Referendum, referendums are conducted and how their results are determined. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political ...

where a group of members are elected on local (lower) tier, for example in

single-member districts A single-member district is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. Single-member districts are also sometimes called single-winner vo ...

(SMDs). Other members are elected on a compensatory national (upper) tier from a

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and voters cast a single

ballot A ballot is a device used to cast votes in an election and may be found as a piece of paper or a small ball used in secret voting. It was originally a small ball (see blackballing) used to record decisions made by voters in Italy around the 16t ...

where they may indicate their preferences separately.https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.15129.34407 Electoral incentives and the equal value of ballots in vote transfer systems with positive winner compensation This article is primarily about systems using mixed ballots, for the dual vote, hybrid versions of

parallel voting Parallel voting is a type of mixed electoral system in which representatives are voted into a single chamber using two or more different systems, most often first-past-the-post voting (FPTP) with party-list proportional representation (PR). It is ...

and

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used in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

and formerly used in Italy for national elections see

Scorporo ''Scorporo'' (, ) is a partially compensatory, mixed-member majoritarian electoral system, sometimes referred to as a negative vote transfer system (NVT) whereby a portion of members are elected in single-member districts (SMDs) and a portion a ...

Overview

Unused votes from the lower tier are counted on the upper tier in a compensatory way using a (partial,

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) vote transfer mechanism. This tied, preferential nature of the dual ballot makes it different from

mixed-member proportional Mixed-member proportional representation (MMP or MMPR) is a mixed electoral system in which votes cast are considered in local elections and also to determine overall party vote tallies, which are used to allocate additional members to produce ...

(seat linkage compensatory) and

(non-compensatory) systems, which also use two votes for the two tiers. How proportional the outcome is depends on among other factors, the rules (what counts as "wasted" vote) and parameters (e.g. the number of compensatory seats) used in the system. In Hungary, elections to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

use a dual vote based positive vote transfer system, where votes for candidates that did not win a seat are added along with excess votes for the winner in the seat to the list votes. This has plurality SMDs and also partially compensates winning candidates, however, that system uses a

component to count list votes (which are located on separate ballots). A system formerly used in Italy, scorporo is also a dual vote and vote linkage based mixed electoral system, but differs from MBTV in that it uses negative vote transfer as its compensatory mechanism compensation. These systems lack the "transferable" (preferential) part of MBTV, in favour of an automatic vote transfer based on party affiliation.

Variations

Plurality

The simplest type of MBTV system allows two single choices on the ballot: one for a local candidate, one for a party list. This type of ballot is also used in the

electoral system of Germany The German federal election system regulates the election of the members of the national parliament, called the Bundestag. According to the principles governing the elections laws, set down in Art. 38 of the German Basic Law, elections are to be un ...

and New Zealand.

Ranking

A ballot can allow either the voter to rank the candidates or the party lists or both, in this case rankings can be used for a system of elimination, like that of

instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of ranked preferential voting method. It uses a majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referred to as ranked-choice voting (RCV) in the Un ...

(to determine local winners and which parties pass the entry threshold). If ranking of both is allowed, the ballot design can also allow to intermix the rankings, providing a ''full ranking''.

Other

MBTV systems may be designed around other systems, for example approval and proportional approval voting.

Usage of mixed ballots

The German electoral system, which, while it falls under the category of MMP systems due to its seat linkage mechanism, also uses a mixed ballot on which the first vote (''Erststimme'') and second vote (''Zweitstimme'') are both single choice votes. In addition, as in MBTV, not all ballots are used in the compensatory tier, such namely ballots cast for independent candidates who have won a district seat and parties below the electoral threshold. This mechanism makes it similar to the preferential interpretation of the mixed ballot when it would be used in a purely vote linkage based system.