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On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 5:35 PM, Guy Backhouse wrote: > I will be voting No to AV, our existing system historically has been > fine what has let it down is the sheep like element in the voters who > can only think to vote Lib. Lab or Con. If you see elections as an opportunity to express your preferred candidate then yes, you may argue people are sheep-like and should look beyond the three (two-and-a-half) big parties. If you see them as an opportunity to, well, elect a candidate it makes sense to vote for someone who stands a half-decent chance of actually being elected. My ward is a Con-LibDem two-way marginal and has been so for some time. So even if you actually want to vote Labour, Greens or UKIP it makes sense to vote your preferred choice among these two parties. But perhaps there are many Labour voters who could have their candidate elected, if only they all voted Labour, for which they would have to know about the existence of fellow Labour voters, which they don't, because it isn't shown in the results. Of course, if you're into game theory and compute Nash equilibria in your free time, the current system is probably crystal clear. For everyone else I suggest a system where you can put your candidates in order of preference -- without any need to understand the way the system works -- such as AV. > AV is more expensive, is more > complicated, so it will be more vulnerable to fraudulence which is > already showing increased risks with more postal voting options, maybe > online too in the future? I don't see how a complicating system is linked to fraud. I know postal voting increases the risk of fraud (and I think online voting is a bad idea) but I don't see how this has anything to do with the voting system. If anything, a 'simpler' voting system, with only one vote, seems easier to abuse for fraudulence reasons. Martijn. PS Ask a group of geeks what their favourite OS is, giving them the options of Windows, Mac, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, RedHat and SuSE. Even if many of the geeks like Linux, Windows is likely to come out first under FPTP. One of the Linuxes might win under AV. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq