What if Ireland had said yes to First past the post ?

No arguments from me there. I'm certainly not advocating for FPTP. It's an abominable system in my opinion. I was contrasting List systems with multi-seat PR-STV (i.e. the Irish system)

I think you're taking me up wrong there. What I'm referring to are people who are deemed elected simply by being the last person standing after every one below them has been eliminated and their votes transferred, even though they may not reach the quota.

Has nothing got to do with the type of electoral system. Absolutely stupid comment

Doesn't matter. The remaning candidate is still more popular than any of the other unelected candidates, and there is no reason why the constituency should be punished by being under-represented in the Oireachtas.

The equaivalent rule under the FPTP system would be to refuse to elect a candidate who could not secure more than 50% of the vote. If the UK had such a rule, 329 out of 650 seats would be unfilled.

Mmm. Conventional republican theory is that citizens have not only a right but also a duty to exercise their share of political power for the common good. In electoral terms, this means that each constituency must be represented in Parliament; you can't opt out and elect not to be represented, or to be underrepresented, simply because some of the candidates on offer don't meet your exacting standards. If that's your issue, the proper response is to nominate more suitable candidates, rather than to try to get yourself disenfranchised.

Bear in mind that, under your rule, the people who decline to express a preference among the remaining candidates aren't just reducing their own representation; they are reducing the representation of the entire constituency, including those who did have, and did express, a preference. Why should they be given that right?

Basically, declining to express a preference between candidates is not a statement that "If it comes to it, I don't wish to be represented by any of these people; I would prefer to be unrepresented". Being unrepresented is not an option offered in elections in a republic. The statement you are making is "If it comes to it, I don't mind which of these people represents me; let someone else choose".

In fact, the candidate elected without reaching the quota must be more popular than all the other unelected candidates added together.(otherwise there the lowest is eliminated and there is another count)

Not electing the last candidate because he does not reach the quota means there is a large amount of votes (though less than a quota) which have not elected any representative.

@Brussels Sprout said "The answer really is nothing much would have been different (for the first 90 years of the state anyway)".

I think that is due more to the legacy of the civil war than of the electoral system. For a long period of time, certainly up to the late 60s, early 70's, voting for the 'other side' irrespective of the abilities of the candidate would have been seen as treachery within the family - leading to likely ostracism ( perhaps, along with democracy, another practice we should have copied from the Athenians).

Doh! I'd forgotten of course that when there's only two candidates left they don't bother transferring the lower person's votes.

Not necessarily.

Taking the 1932 general election - I picked it at random - we see that there were five 7-seat constituencies, three 8-seat constituencies and one 9-seat constituency. And yet the top three parties (FF/CnaG/Lab) came out of that election with, between them, 89% of the seats. The top two parties had 84% of the seats. One other party (Farmers Party) is represented. Independents get 9% of the seats.

Contrast the result of the 2020 election - no 7, 8 or 9-seat constituencies. But the top three parties (SF/FF/FG) get only 67% of the seats; the top two parties only 46%. Six other parties (Green/Lab/SD/PBP/Aontú/I4C) are represented. Independents get 12% of the seats.

A higher turnout would likely lead to even more fragmentation of the vote and more empty seats under your system

I just don't get this 'preference' idea.

On a low resolution level would you say I'd prefer a right wing TD and if not my second preference would be a Left Wing TD.

One either has a view and to my mind there is no such things as having an alternative view, that comes in second place.

I'd rather not vote at all if my views were not represented by any of the candidates.

I would be happy to let the biggest majority run things, if not an overall majority.

If it turns out okay then perhaps I'd need to rethink my views, if not then I was right to begin with.

My problem with PR is that the system seems to be inspired to give views equal weight, irrespective of how many people hold those views. Which is a very kind of Leftist idea, that all views need to be included and represented, minority views especially.

And this is how we end up with the Greens in government, despite the fact 97.2% of the populace did not vote for them.

As Peregrinus said, it has nothing to do with holding all views equally. I'm actually not even sure what that means to be honest. PR-STV apportions the seats roughly in line with their respective popularities amongst the electorate. What could be more democratic than that?

First Pass the Post is the real abomination. It completely distorts the vote, massively rewarding large parties and completely crushing smaller parties. Point in case is the UK general election of 2015:

• In Scotland, the SNP got 50.0% of the votes cast but ended up with 94.9% of the seats
• In England, UKIP got 14.1% of the votes cast and ended up with 0.2% of the seats

Now leave aside whatever personal feelings you have for those 2 parties and ask yourself is it a fair system where the SNP had three times as much of the vote share in their country as UKIP did in theirs but ended up with 475 times as much of the seat share?