Vote Transfers

The process of transferring votes from and to candidates is a distinguishing and essential feature of the single-transferable-vote system.

The tabulations provided here cover all vote transfers in all Maltese general elections from 1921 to 2013. There were 3,545 separate counts on which votes were transferred. A few hundred of them were excluded from the tabulations because they involved simultaneous vote transfer from several candidates of different parties, making it impossible to trace the exact source and destination of the transferred votes.

The data are displayed in differing formats to suit the needs and preferences of different users: Some tabulations are highly detailed and others are of a summary nature.

A large Excel file contains all vote transfers [XLS], by year, district and party. It is from this tabulation that all other files below are derived. It is made available for those who may be interested in undertaking their own analyses.

Detailed Tabulations

Detailed Tabulation (1) This set of files displays the votes transferred by and to specific candidates, separately for each year and district. They offer the greatest amount of detail and provided the raw data on which all other transfer vote tabulations are based.

Detailed Tabulation (2) These files show the number of vote transfers by candidates of one party to candidates of other parties, for each election, district and count, with an indication of the number of candidates then eligible to receive transfer votes.

Summary Tabulations

Summary Tabulation (1) Files reporting, for each election, the cumulative national totals of transfer votes by candidates of one political party to candidates of all other parties. There are separate files for those counts where candidates of the same party still eligible, or no longer eligible, to receive transfer votes.

Summary Tabulation (2) Summary files displaying the cumulative totals of vote transfers, by party and district, in each election, specifying both the party from whose candidates votes were transferred and the party whose candidates received such votes.


 

A short speculative essay asks: "Who Needs Transfer Votes?"