RE: 2012 Elections results finally in US officially applies 4 Banana Republic status @ UN
January 7, 2013 at 7:13 am
(January 6, 2013 at 12:27 pm)Tiberius Wrote: However, rather than discounting 10% of the electorate's votes, as happens in the French system, the second preference votes (i.e. those marked with a '2') of those 10% are now counted and distributed amongst the remaining candidates. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that all 10% of D's supporters preferred the moderate policies of C over the political extremes of A and B. So, after this redistribution, the votes now look like this:
A: 35%
B: 30%
C: 35%
Again, nobody won an overall majority, but the moderate actually overtook the liberal candidate through the extra votes from D's supporters. The candidate with the least amount of votes (B) now gets eliminated, and the second preference votes of those that voted for B get distributed amongst the remaining candidates. Note that if any of B's votes are already second preference (as some of C's are), the third preference votes of those ballots would be counted instead. For simplicities sake again, let's say that all 30% of B's voters also preferred the moderate candidate (likely since he supports some left wing policies, whilst the conservative does not). After this redistribution, the votes now look like this:
A: 35%
C: 65%
We are left with two candidates, and candidate C has the most votes, winning him the election.
The benefits of AV are numerous, but the more obvious and important are the fact that nobody has a wasted vote, since each voter can participate in each round (by ranking all candidates), or choose simply to vote for one candidate only, as they had done before. It also effectively nulls tactical voting, where a voter votes for a candidate who doesn't really represent their views, because they want to keep out another candidate who represents their views even less. It also makes so-called "safe seats" less safe, which means the politicians who fill those seats have to actually work for the vote of the people they represent.
All in all, I have no problem with your proposal. But the "redistribution" of the votes is the only thing on which I have doughts.
If this process is not done by the electorate by giving those who voted D the chance to vote again for any candidate except D.
But in short, I have to say that this process you propose has the potential to make a election a very long and tiersome process, whilest elections should be short.
Which is why I prefer the French and Polish system.
