The spare vote is a version of single transferable voting applied to the ranking of parties, first proposed for elections in Germany in 2013. This preferential party system is a ranked

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

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

applying to political parties instead of individual candidates. The spare vote refers to a secondary vote (preference) of the voter, which only comes into play if the first preference, the

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

preferred by the voter, is below the

electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...

. In Germany, there were draft laws for the spare vote system in

Saarland The Saarland (, ; french: Sarre ) is a state of Germany in the south west of the country. With an area of and population of 990,509 in 2018, it is the smallest German state in area apart from the city-states of Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg, a ...

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; da, Slesvig-Holsten; nds, Sleswig-Holsteen; frr, Slaswik-Holstiinj) is the northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Sc ...

German state parliament faction of the pirates in Schleswig-Holstein
''Alternativen zum Gesetzentwurf aus Drucksache 18/385''
November 4, 2013, in German and Brandenburg federal states, but they were not implemented.

Background

Under

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be u ...

with a threshold, the fraction of unrepresented votes due to the electoral threshold can reach up to 5-30% and represents a

democratic deficit A democratic deficit (or democracy deficit) occurs when ostensibly democratic organizations or institutions (particularly governments) fall short of fulfilling the principles of democracy in their practices or operation where representative and l ...

as measured by disproportionality. Despite this, a spare vote is not a feature in any list PR system in use as of this date. The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the electoral system is not required to have such a supplementary contingent vote feature. The term "spare vote" not only refers to the additional specification of a second preference but can also mean the electoral system working with a second preference as a whole. Not every second preference is a spare vote.

Ranked voting The term ranked voting (also known as preferential voting or ranked choice voting) refers to any voting system in which voters rank their candidates (or options) in a sequence of first or second (or third, etc.) on their respective ballots. Ra ...

systems differ in terms of their field of application, choice of party lists vs. choice of individuals. In particular, the following ranking procedures should be strictly distinguished from the spare vote: *

Single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

(and its single winner version

instant-runoff voting Instant-runoff voting (IRV) is a type of Ranked voting, ranked preferential Electoral system, voting method. It uses a Majority rule, majority voting rule in single-winner elections where there are more than two candidates. It is commonly referr ...

also called the alternative vote),

contingent vote The contingent vote is an electoral system used to elect a single representative in which a candidate requires a majority of votes to win. It is a variation of instant-runoff voting (IRV). Under the contingent vote, the voter ranks the cand ...

, and supplementary vote: In contrast to the spare vote, which ranks political parties, these systems rank individual candidates. The electoral threshold typical in

and

mixed-member proportional representation 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 ...

causes

tactical voting Strategic voting, also called tactical voting, sophisticated voting or insincere voting, occurs in voting systems when a voter votes for another candidate or party than their ''sincere preference'' to prevent an undesirable outcome. For example, ...

and spoiler effects. Voters instead of casting their vote for a preferred party that presumably will fail to pass the electoral threshold tend to choose a less preferred party with a reliable chance of passing the electoral threshold. The security of the spare vote is intended to encourage voters to vote more honestly for their actually preferred party. On the ballot paper, the voter is given the opportunity to designate beside the first preference the spare vote, which becomes an effective vote only under the condition that the first preference fails to comply with the electoral threshold. To prevent that the spare vote falls below the electoral threshold as well, the voter should assign the spare vote to a party that is very likely to pass the electoral threshold. The spare vote continues to prevent the fragmentation of parliaments achieved by the electoral threshold.

Variants

There are different methods for evaluating the spare votes: * One-step procedure: All votes for parties that are below the electoral threshold according to the first preferences are discarded; in their place, the spare votes for these voters are counted. This is

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

version of the

(if the voters may rank all parties) or supplementary vote (in case of just one spare vote). * Multi-round procedure: First the party with the least number of first preferences is eliminated, and the spare votes from its voters become effective. This is repeated until only parties that are above the electoral threshold are left. The benefit compared the one-step procedure is that some political parties could pass the electoral threshold only once spare votes become effective. This is the party list equivalent of the

single transferable vote Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

, which the quota being the electoral threshold. Limiting the ranking of parties to two ranks allows a faster ballot counting procedure, where every electoral district reports only the counts of each party-pair. This procedure does not require all electoral districts to wait until the determination which parties have crossed the electoral threshold is finalized. With more than two ranks of parties, the voters rank several spare votes/parties according to their preferences. In this process, a voter's party vote is carried over until it either goes to a party that is above the electoral threshold or has passed through all of the voter's stated preferences. The spare vote can also be used in the proportional part of

mixed electoral systems A mixed electoral system or mixed-member electoral system combines methods of majoritarian and proportional representation (PR). The majoritarian component is usually first-past-the-post voting (FPTP/SMP), whereas the proportional component is ...

with electoral thresholds, and some mixed systems operate on the basis of an indirect spare party vote (

mixed single vote The mixed single vote (MSV) or positive vote transfer system (PVT) is a mixed-member electoral system, where voters cast a single vote in an election, which used both for electing a local candidate and as a vote for a party affiliated with that ...

) to reuse the candidates that did not receive a direct mandate in favour of the party list they are affiliated with. The second vote under mixed-member proportional systems may be considered a direct spare vote for a party, but not relating to the electoral threshold, but for the case when a voters favourite local candidate does not win in their district. This is also the case for the party list preference in the

mixed ballot transferable vote The mixed ballot transferable vote (MBTV) refers to a type of vote linkage-based mixed-member electoral system where a group of members are elected on local (lower) tier, for example in single-member districts (SMDs). Other members are elected on ...

(MBTV), which is may also use a ranked ballot capable of functioning a contingent party vote if combined with an electoral threshold. It is also the mixed equivalent of the spare vote (and STV, the non-partisan equivalent of the spare vote), meaning the spare vote is used in a two-tier election, and the spare vote is used on the upper (party-list) tier only if it would be wasted on the lower (candidate-based) tier. The process is the same as under the positive vote transfer mechanism of the mixed single vote (MSV), except under MSV, voters do not get to choose their party preference, it is defined by the candidate vote. The modified d'Hondt electoral systemAustralian Capital Territory Electoral Commission,
Modified d'Hondt Electoral System
/ref> is another preferential party system, which allows to rank parties. It is a variant of

single transferable voting Single transferable vote (STV) is a multi-winner electoral system in which voters cast a single vote in the form of a ranked-choice ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternate p ...

, where an

for parties is applied.

References

{{Reflist Electoral systems Preferential electoral systems Cardinal electoral systems Proportional representation electoral systems