Single non-transferable vote

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Single non-transferable vote or SNTV is a multi-winner electoral system in which each voter casts a single vote. Being a semi-proportional variant of first-past-the-post voting, under SNTV small parties, as well as large parties, have a chance to be represented. Under SNTV, a single party seldom will take all seats in a city or district, as generally happens with winner-take-all systems. Under certain conditions, such as perfect tactical voting, SNTV is equivalent to proportional representation by the D'Hondt method. SNTV is a combination of multi-member districts and each voter casting just one vote.

SNTV can be considered a variant of dot voting where each voter has only one point to assign. It can also be seen as a variant of limited voting where each elector has one vote, or as a simple version of Single Transferable Voting where votes are not transferred. Unlike block voting or limited voting, where voters can cast multiple votes, under SNTV each voter casts just one.

SNTV retains many of the problems of first-past-the-post voting (first-preference plurality voting), and as a result is sometimes viewed skeptically by social choice theorists. However, its extreme simplicity and easy vote-counting makes the system particularly popular for small elections to offices such as city councils, particularly when compared to the more-intricate single transferable vote (STV) system, and has resulted in the method becoming commonly used for ordering open party lists.