Voting method

Yes. But note that if your number 1 and 2 are eliminated in early counts then your vote essentially dies

You should vote to ensure your ballot goes as far as possible. Obviously the candidates you detest, leave blank. Otherwise it is a missed opportunity, where other voters who fill the ballot up have a greater say.

As others have said there's nothing inherently wrong in stopping at 2 preferences if you dislike all of the others equally. However what you are really ensuring here is that when if comes down to electing those others or not then other voters will have that power and you are choosing to give up yours.

For that reason, I always rank everyone*. Most of the candidates, I would not like to see elected but there are degrees of dislike within those ranks.

For what it's worth, if either of your #1 or #2 two people are likely to win a seat then all of this is kind of a moot point. That's because the most likely scenario then is that your ballot will end up in the pile that got them elected and not transfer any further.

On the other hand if your #1 and #2 are both unlikely to win seats then your ballot will almost certainly transfer to your #3 preference.

*There is no material difference between not ranking a candidate and ranking them last. I choose to rank them last but that's just a personal styling thing with me.

That's not true. If you give someone your last preference you are guaranteeing that they will.never benefit.

Is it a certain Dublin MEP who is in danger of losing their seat that you have in mind?

I am considering similar tactics myself.

If you leave blanks, its as if you never voted in that round of the election. Putting in the last means that you are there for the duration and every other candidate will have an advantage over your last place. I've always thought of the last place as almost like a minus vote.

I never, ever vote for candidates that I don't want to see elected. Sometimes people will argue this gives them a benefit if they're still in the race. Something to do with distribution of surpluses, eliminated candidates etc. But they ain't getting no votes from here.

The British way of voting seems to be a lot simpler than what we have.

Why?

It's not all FPTP in the UK. Scotland uses STV for local elections.

On the first count, the seconds are counted and ballots to match that proportion as closely as possible are transferred. There is no inspection of third plus preferences.

On further counts, the votes are taken from the last transfer at random. The last transfer in is always bigger than any potential transfer out. It isn't that common for there to be a lot of votes to transfer when someone exceeds the quota after the first count, but it does happen - someone can be very close to the quota and then get a huge transfer from a running mate who wasn't far behind.

To add to an earlier post, First Past The Post also ends up in a scenario where the vast majority of races are a foregone conclusion. This is the case in both the USA and the UK, where only a small minority of contests are actually competitive.

These safe seats only aid in voter cynicism and apathy - "Why should I bother voting? The Labour candidate always win in my constituency". It can also feed extremism (we see that in the USA where the real elections are often the party primaries so often it's the more far-left or far-right candidates who end up getting elected since thjey only need to win over their own party base)

Our system isn't that complicated for the voter. You just rank your favourites. A child can work it out. The complexity comes in the counting but the average voter doesn't need to worry about that. Needless to say though that that count is both transparent and fair.

For me nothing shows up the inherent unfairness of FPTP more than the 2015 UK elections where UKIP got 12.6% of the vote but only 0.2% of the seats in the House of Commons.

is less representative and less democratic.