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.

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.

This

Was explained to me back in my late teens by a local tallyman but for a good few years after I only voted for who I liked because I thought he surely hadn't a clue and was only trying to influence my vote!

Maybe he was ;)

The UK system is dreadful, just dreadful. It's designed to minimise the power and value of the individual vote, maximise the power of the two dominant parties, and marginalise as much as possible all other parties. Basic democratic considerations aside, it makes for very poor accountability. However badly one of the dominant parties or its leaders perform — however incompetent, delusional or corrupt they are — the worst sanction they face is becoming the official opposition, and government-in-waiting, with a virtual guarantee of being returned to power in due course. In more mature democracies failed political movements can in fact disappear, making room for newer alternatives. This is virtually impossible in the UK.

UKIP and the SNP aren't like and like, but this just highlights the absurdity of the system. A party with a strong local focus and policies of local interest running candidates in fewer than 1/10th of the constituencies gets more than 50 MPs; a party with a UK-wide focus that campaigns on issues of interest and importance to the whole of the UK and stands in almost every consituency gets well over twice as many votes, but just 1 MP.

And this isn't entirely down to candidate numbers. In the same election, UK and the Lib Dems ran similar numbers of candidates (624 vs. 631) but in the resulting Parliament Lib Dem voters were more than 10 times better represented than UKIP voters (3.88 milliion votes per UKIP MP; 302,000 votes per Lib Dem MP). Tory voters were 10 times better represented again (34,200 votes per Tory MP). It's absurd.

When does the Number 2’s, 3s, etc of the candidate who is eliminated 1st come into play? And if it’s only a proportional amount, how is the proportion worked out?

So you should not only be thinking about who you’re giving your top preferences to but also who the voters whose No1 will probably exit the race early give their 2s, 3s, etc to as they may have the one you don’t want to get elected in that slot?

Can I throw up an example for us to play with and how far down the list I should vote?

12 candidates running for 6 seats

Chicken Licken Party 1

Chicken Licken Party 2

Henny Penny Party 1

Henny Penny Party 2

Cocky Locky Party 1

Cocky Locky Party 2

Ducky Lucky Party

Drakey Lackey Party

No Party 1

No Party 2

No Party 3

No Party 4

My preference would be 1,2,3 of No Party, Henny Penny Party 1&2 and Chicken Licken Party 1.

My gut says the result will be Chicken Licken 1, Henny Penny 1, Cocky Locky 1, No Party 1 & 2 and final seat either Ducky Lucky or No Party 3.
I DO NOT WANT Drakey Lackey Party. Transfer friendly with them would be Cocky Locky Party 1&2 and Ducky Lucky 1.

It's not about whether you want to see them elected - it's about whether you want to see them elected more than whoever's left. I don't ever want to see (the Irish equivalent of) the Monster Raving Loony party elected, but if it comes down to a choice betweeen them and a literal fascist like Justin Barrett, I'll take the satirical Monsters every time.

As soon as you stop voting down the page, you are saying that every candidate remaining is exactly equal to you.

Order the candidates in your preference 1-12. Vote in that order. That's it.

Tactical voting basically isn't a thing in PR-STV.

If the candidate that I select as No10 gets in on the 5th or 6th count, am I able to say that I didn’t vote for them?