At 20:51 26/04/05 +0100, Quentin L. Burrell wrote:
>One problem is that FPTP is no such thing - there is no post to pass!
>The analogy with a track event is wrong, the current system is analogous to
>a field event where the best "score" wins.
I can't argue with that - but the 'FPTP' label seems to be very firmly
attached. Of course, one _could_ have 'a post', but there would be no
guarantee that anyone would pass it!
>To set a post that has to be passed requires something like STV?
Yes, STV certainly allows one to have a post that will always be passed
(except in the case of a literal 'draw'), but I'm not sure how meaningful
that post necessarily is. I would have thought that people's second and
subsequent 'choices' are much more likely to be 'negative' than positive -
i.e. if their first choice is for one of the main 'polarised' parties (if
such things still exist), then their second choice is far more likely to be
for a 'centre' party than for one at the opposite 'pole', even if they
don't much like the 'centre' party. With the sort of 'edge-weighted'
essentially 3-party system we have here, I find it hard to believe that STV
would produce a different answer than the current system(whatever you care
to call it) - just as you say was the case when they tried it in IOM.
In the context of this discussion, I think the real worry is that STV gives
people the impression that the winner was elected by at least a majority of
those who voted - but, as above, that might be very artificial, if it were
those 'negative' votes that brought the winner past the post.
Kind Regards,
John
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