So, after having thought about this tactical voting business, I've come up with an idea for a change that could be made to our election system that would improve things
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In what way is this superior to a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system, where you rank your candidates from 1 (favourite) to N where N is the number of candidates (you can also stop before reaching N if you want).
In fact this is sometimes called the Australian system, so you might have come across it...
Yes, I had heard of the STV system, since (if I recall correctly) Bath University Student Unions used it for union elections.
The only advantage is simplicity. I'm also working from the assumption that for a lot of people tend to have maybe a definite favourite, maybe a definite "urgh, not them" and not much in between.
I know that, despite actually looking at this a few hours ago, I can't even remember who was standing where I voted, other than Lab, Lib, Con and BNP. And I'm sure there were more candidates.
And yes, there is probably the argument that before voting I should sit down and educate myself about all the candidates running in order to fully decide whether, for example, I've truly ranked the 6th and 7th candidate according to my wishes for the political future of this country.
Quite a lot of the systems allow you to write in any number of votes, you don't have to do them all; and in Australia the parties issue "how to vote" cards so if you don't care very much you just take it along and tick the boxes as your party tells you to.
Negative voting would produce entertainingly huge negative votes for fringe rightwing parties.
Quite a lot of the systems allow you to write in any number of votes, you don't have to do them all
Can the systems handle the case where the preference is similar to "Absolutely", "Yes", "Maybe", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Not them"?
Only by randomly varying the order in which candidates appear on each ballot paper (which makes counting harder) - otherwise having a name near the start of the alphabet or whatever is a major advantage.
Even then, they do result in a candidate hated by 49%, but to whom 51% are moderately indifferent, beating a candidate hated by the 51% but passionately adored by the 49%. Which I'm not sure is a good thing.
The London mayoral election let you vote for a first and second choice, which I rather liked. If your favourite candidate had no real hope, you could still give them your first vote and use your second choice for "best candidate out of those who actually have a chance".
In fact this is sometimes called the Australian system, so you might have come across it...
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The only advantage is simplicity. I'm also working from the assumption that for a lot of people tend to have maybe a definite favourite, maybe a definite "urgh, not them" and not much in between.
I know that, despite actually looking at this a few hours ago, I can't even remember who was standing where I voted, other than Lab, Lib, Con and BNP. And I'm sure there were more candidates.
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Negative voting would produce entertainingly huge negative votes for fringe rightwing parties.
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Can the systems handle the case where the preference is similar to "Absolutely", "Yes", "Maybe", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Meh", "Not them"?
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Even then, they do result in a candidate hated by 49%, but to whom 51% are moderately indifferent, beating a candidate hated by the 51% but passionately adored by the 49%. Which I'm not sure is a good thing.
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