Party list in the context of "Single transferable vote"

The single transferable vote (STV) or proportional-ranked choice voting (P-RCV), also known as PR-STV and "proportional representation by means of the single transferable vote", is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote in the form of a ranked ballot. Voters have the option to rank candidates, and their vote may be transferred according to alternative preferences if their preferred candidate is eliminated or elected with surplus votes, so that their vote is used to elect someone they prefer over others in the running. STV aims to approach proportional representation based on votes cast in the district where it is used, so that each vote is worth about the same as another.

STV is a family of multi-winner proportional representation electoral systems. The proportionality of its results and the proportion of votes actually used to elect someone are equivalent to those produced by proportional representation election systems based on lists. STV systems can be thought of as a variation on the largest remainders method that uses candidate-based solid coalitions, rather than party lists. Surplus votes belonging to winning candidates (those in excess of an electoral quota) may be thought of as remainder votes. Surplus votes may be transferred from a successful candidate to another candidate and then possibly used to elect that candidate.

In politics, a lead candidate (German: Spitzenkandidat; Dutch: lijsttrekker, lit. 'list puller') is the candidate placed first on a party list. In parliamentary systems, it is often the party's nominee for the position of head of government, and the party chair or party leader.

An electorate or electoral district (Māori: rohe pōti) is a geographic constituency used for electing a member (MP) to the New Zealand Parliament. The size of electorates is determined such that all electorates have approximately the same electoral population.

Before 1996, all MPs were directly chosen for office by the voters of an electorate. Thereafter, New Zealand's electoral system provides that some (in practice, the majority) of the usually 120 seats in Parliament are filled by electorate representatives with the remainder being filled from party lists in order to achieve proportional representation among parties. The number of electorates changes periodically, in line with national population growth. Starting from the 2020 general election, there are 72 electorates including the Māori electorates.

A list MP is a member of parliament (MP) elected from a party list rather than a geographic electoral district. The place in Parliament is due to the number of votes the party won, not to votes received by the MP personally. This occurs only in countries with an electoral system based wholly or partly on party-list proportional representation.

Open list describes any variant of party-list proportional representation where voters have at least some influence on the order in which a party's candidates are elected. This is as opposed to closed list, in which party lists are in a predetermined, fixed order by the time of the election and gives the general voter no influence at all on the position of the candidates placed on the party list.

An open list system allows voters to select individuals rather than, or in addition to parties. Different systems give the voter different amounts of influence to change the default ranking. The voter's candidate choices are usually called preference vote; the voters are usually allowed one or more preference votes for the open list candidates.