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Village Council by SNTV — a concentrated minority wins a seat

Method: plurality · 2 seats · Expected winners: Priya, Nora · full count →

A clean, standalone look at the one property that made SNTV famous: with a single vote per voter, a disciplined minority can win representation a majority would otherwise sweep. Nine residents, two council seats.

▶ Live on BetterVoting: vote · results ↗ (election y3tvxm, Test ID BV2136). Frozen export: sntv_village_council_y3tvxm_bv_export.json.

The election

Two factions, three candidates, 2 seats, SNTV (one vote each; the top two win):

Nora,Omar,Priya
3 × Nora     (Downtown majority, split)
2 × Omar     (Downtown majority, split)
4 × Priya    (Riverside minority, concentrated)
  • Downtown is the majority (5 of 9) but splits its votes: Nora 3, Omar 2.
  • Riverside is the minority (4 of 9) but concentrates: Priya 4.

Result

--- SNTV (single non-transferable vote) — 2 winners ---
First-choice votes (most votes fill the seats):
   Priya     4  <- Elected
   Nora      3  <- Elected
   Omar      2

Winners — SNTV, 2 seats: Priya (4), Nora (3)

Priya tops the poll and wins a seat next to Nora; Omar just misses. The 44% minority earns 1 of 2 seats — rough proportionality. Under Block Voting (each voter marks both seats) the 5-voter majority would take both seats and shut Riverside out; SNTV's single vote is exactly what opens the door — provided the minority concentrates. That vote-management pressure is why SNTV was used for multi-member districts (Japan, Taiwan) before STV.

On BetterVoting (BV2136)

Reproduced natively as BV multi-winner Plurality (Plurality + num_winners: 2, election y3tvxm). BV elects the same two — Priya and Nora — confirming LH. This is SNTV running directly on BetterVoting: single mark per voter, the top two by first-choice count win. No Approval workaround needed (that's only for the multi-mark Block/Limited variants).

See also