One man, one vote, for one candidate in the general elections. But that is not how it works in the Senate elections. Voting in the upper house of the parliament can be complicated and only involves our elected representatives.
The Senate polls are held on the basis of a Single Transferable Vote System (STV), a proportional representational system first introduced in the 19th century by British mathematician Thomas Wright Hill. Later, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, Scotland, Australia and Germany began to use this system to elect legislators.
The STV made its way to the sub-continent prior to independence. It was adopted in some elections of the Municipal Board and District Boards of the upper house of the provinces, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan’s website. However, only after 1973, it became the standard voting practice for the Senate in Pakistan.
To contest, a candidate must be a Pakistani citizen of 30 years of age or above. He/she must have one Proposer, and one Seconder, who endorse and support the candidacy.
Senators in Pakistan are elected to office for a period of six years, even though elections are held after every three years to replace half the house. This ensures some continuity in the upper house when new parliaments are made after national elections.
A total of 104 members sit in the Senate. On the day of the vote, members of the national and provincial assembly will be given four slips of paper and they will name their candidates on the basis of priority, therefore, 1,2,3.
The maths to determine the exact quota of the vote each candidate should receive is worked out by diving the total value of votes. Take Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. There are 124 electors and each vote is assigned the value of 100.
The total is now 1,550. Then, add 1 to the final answer, which makes it 1,551. Now remove the last two digits and we are left with 15, add another one to it and we will have 16. Which means that each candidate in KP must get 16 votes.
Using the same formula, 171 votes in National Assembly will be required for a Senator to be elected from Islamabad, 46 for Punjab, 21 for Sindh and 8 for Balochistan.
When a candidate gets the required priority votes, his remaining Priority 1 votes will be transferred to the candidate on 2nd priority. A process that continues until the required number of Senators are elected.
