1, 2, Tower Hamlets Mayoral Voting Method

[sierra_le_oli]

The voting method for Tower Hamlets' new mayor is the same as for all directly elected mayors in England: supplementary vote. (Wellington, mentioned yesterday, uses Single Transferable VoteVoters pick a first choice candidate and a second choice candidate. If one candidate gets over half of the first-choice votes, they become mayor. Simples

Comments

[st_lemur]

Supplementary vote is quite a bad system; STV or AV would both be much better.

[sierra_le_oli]

I would've preferred STV, but was wondering if that was the ease of familiarity. Under supplementary vote, I can just about guarantee that both my votes will be "lost" because I won't vote tactically. Not that that'll stop me from making my way to the voting booth on Thursday.

[swaldman]

Am I right in thinking that this is a "simplified" AV, in that the only differences are that you can only express two preferences and that they drop all but the top two for the second round instead of eliminating candidates one by one? Or am I missing some other distinction?

Seems silly if so, because I can't see any reason for the "simplification" apart from making the count faster...

IIRC, STV ends up being equivalent to AV anyway when you're only electing to one position?

[sierra_le_oli]

Yep.

Quicker count is cheaper and that's what it's all about these days. The disadvantage compared to AV is the tactical voting, I think. Can't bring myself to do it here.

[swaldman]

"We could have a decent voting system, or we could do it the cheap way". How depressing.

[sierra_le_oli]

I fear that may have been a cheap shot on my part. :-) Though I'm sure budget will have come into the discussion at some point.