Sixth, common and non 'sense'

Voters may or may not have realised that a serious debate directly affecting our voting rights at the coming Euro elections is taking place regarding the possible sixth seat.

The Leader of the Opposition kicked off claiming that it would make perfect "sixth sense" to elect the normal five candidates in June and later to have the "de facto sixth" candidate declared elected when Malta acquires the sixth seat following the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Joseph Muscat however stopped short of explaining what this proposal actually meant.

Foul, cried Euro MP Simon Busuttil with a certain "common sense" approach. The last de facto candidate remaining after the election of the five candidates to be elected in June can still remain in the cold should we get the sixth seat because the quota would have to be reduced. He correctly argues that, applied to the 2004 election, the PN had enough preferences available to pass on to their seventh-placed candidate, Joanna Drake, allowing her to probably pip the de facto sixth placed candidate, Arnold Cassola, to the post.

Ah, exclaimed Alternattiva Dem-okratika, and perhaps giving away Dr Muscat's secret, suggesting that all six candidates be chosen in June with the sixth being appointed when we get the sixth seat.

But, allow me to interject, what if the sixth seat does not come? What if the Irish vote no to the Lisbon Treaty? It would make non sense of the June election, putting its very validity into question. And, as the ex-MLP only knows too well, predicting Maltese electoral results with certainty can only lead to considerable blushing if the electorate were to decide otherwise, let alone trying to predict the Irish electorate! However, there is a way out of this situation. Trust in full the power of the STV system of voting.

Dr Muscat had eliminated the possibility of having a second Euro election on grounds that "to choose one additional MEP is an unnecessary expense and politically confusing, especially when the country needs every cent it has and all the unity it can muster".

Amen, say us.

But the STV allows elections to be replayed without the need to vote again and, therefore, without the need of incurring added expense and division.

For once we can have the proverbial cake and eat it too because the single transferable vote in essence takes a photograph of the political will of the electorate at an election and uses it whenever the result requires updating even after the passage of years.

A simple and clear example would be how bye elections are conducted. The Electoral Commission opens again the votes of, say, candidates elected from two districts, works out a new quota and declares a new MP elected. A case in point was the resignation of Dr Muscat from MEP to become Leader of the Opposition, causing the election of Glen Beddingfield without the need to physically vote again.

So what is wrong, should the sixth seat come, that the electoral law provides that the members elected this June be declared to have given up their seats and the Electoral Commission opens up again all the votes expressed for all candidates and the counting takes place again, this time with the relevant quota for six candidates instead that of five?

Therefore, should the Irish vote no again then the June result remains valid by having five candidates elected with the proper quota. And if the Irish vote yes then the candidates will be elected in terms of a quota for six candidates. If any names change, well that is the name of the game!

At least we will not end up with the non sense of having five members elected with the quota of six!

Non sense in the form of perverse results have always resulted whenever we have meddled with the normal workings of the STV. Please let us not do it for the Euro election when Malta is not divided into districts and we do not have the confusing interferences of majority mechanisms giving exaggerated importance to the first preference vote by creating complicated constitutional permutations depending on absolute/relative majorities and now even de facto candidates.

Albert Einstein had famously said that "God does not play dice", much less must politicians do so with our electoral system.