Voting method

The UK system has allowed people who failed to even get elected hold the country to ransom by threatening to split the vote.

The idea that it makes for more stable government by reducing small parties also doesn't apply; as it turns the big parties in to unstable coalitions themselves; e.g. the ERG within the Tories.

I think the most helpful way of thinking about it is this: At any one time during the count your vote (physically represented by your ballot paper in the count centre) can only help a single candidate. If that candidate gets eliminated then your ballot paper will physically be moved into the counted number for your next preference candidate (who hasn't already been elected or eliminated). Your ballot paper cannot physically be in two piles at once, therefore you are never assisting two candidates at once with your vote (that's the meaning of the Single in Single Transferable Vote).

For that reason it's a little bit misleading to think of your preferences as helping people proportionately. It really is all or nothing when it comes to apportioning your vote. The Proportional in Proportional Representation is more to do with the fact that the number of seats assigned falls more in line with the number of first preference votes that various parties get from the total electorate.

those looking to support the 'alternatives', and dont want another ffg government, might wanna be a little cautious with their voting, the only real government formation options are either sff or another ffg, so by not including sf, and sf affiliated options(transfers etc), after your options, significantly increases the likelihood of another ffg government, i.e. consider putting sf after your choices…..

If your second, third, etc prefernces become effective, then they are every bit as effective as your first preference would have been. So, yes, you should consider all your preferences.

The key to understanding this is that you only have one vote and it will count for only one candidate. So, you give the first preference to the candidate you would most like to see elected - let's call that candidate Mary. For your second preference, you ask yourself "If Mary cannot benefit from my vote — either because she's eliminated, or because she has been elected by the votes of others — then who would I next like to support?" and on that basis you give your second preference to, say, Joe. Then ask yourself "If neither Mary nor Joe can benefit from my vote, who would I next like to support?" and award your third preference on that basis, and so forth.

This is straightforward enough as you work through the candidates that you like at least a little bit. But at some point the only remaining candidates may all be people that you would rather not be elected at all. At that point you have a choice:

1. You assign no further preferences. You do this if your feeling is that, even if one of these gobshïtes has to be elected, you don't care which one it's going to be.
2. You ask yourself "if it's inevitable that one of this shower is going to be elected, is there one of them that I loathe a bit less than the others?" And, if so, you give him a preference above the rest of them. And keep doing that.

The point about preferences is that you can use them not only to express positive preferences ("I like this one more than I like the others") but also negative preferences ("I hate this one a bit less than I hate the others"). Remember that your vote will only ever be effective for one candidate, so if it's not effective to elect a candidate you like (because they are all elected without needing your vote, or all eliminated) and you have filled out no other preferences then it's not effective at all. The only reason for doing this is if you genuinely have no preference as between the remaining candidates — which isn't an unusual state of affairs, if they are all independents, or from micro-parties that you know nothing about, and you have no idea about their policies or values. But, even then, you might give the unknown candidates preferences over the fascist/Stalinist candidate that you hate and fear, because you'd rather have an unknown than that guy.

Yes agreed.. pros and cons to both.

I do prefer overall PR but lets say 1 Independant holds the swing vote which can easily happen in Ireland. Would you call it "respecting basic democratic norms" if one person had the power to basically influence things disproportionately for the benefit of their constituency over other more deserving ones?

You can glean a lot of information from the official election results about this, because after each count, the results show the number of non-transferable, not effective votes, ie. votes that could have been transferred on to another candidate but weren't because the voter did not express any further preferences. It can add up to a substantial number towards the end of the count, and often could (in theory at least) have changed the result of the last seat, had they expressed more preferences. I've also seen small numbers of voters who voted #1 for candidates that had zero chance of being elected and then no other preference expressed. So, their votes were dead by the second count. Some might, but it's hard to believe they are all doing that intentionally.

Though I think it's interesting that the Electoral Commission in their guide on how to vote are 100% clear that it's perfectly legal and okay to limit your preferences in this way. Maybe they think some voters would be discouraged, if they were told they "should" fill the ballot out all the way down. If you're voting for a candidate with a reasonable chance of getting elected, then it matters much less anyway.

All true but in my opinion there is no bigger threat than the ability to bring down the Government or stop forming it. Wouldnt you agree also?

Yes, you can.

If you give #1 to someone elected on the 2nd or later count, is voting all the way down the ballot essentially not a waste as they'll only redistribute from the transfers they've received

The 'waste' of filling in the rest of preferences

The ballot paper form is presumably set in the relevant statute or regulations. But, it (the local election one) looks like it hasn't changed since the 1930's. I'm sure nobody reads the "instructions" section for example. They could do a lot better by redesigning that aspect of it.

I don't think this is correct. Betweeen the two elections, the total number of ballots spoiled from all causes between the two elections was 108K; I struggle to believe that more than 100k of those ballots were spoiled for the reason you suggest, because that would imply that virtually no ballots were spoiled for any of the more usual reasons, which seems unlikely.

About half of the spoiled votes were spoiled by the fact that the voter didn't indicate a first preference, but this error happens in all elections, so we can't say that in every such case in 2019 the cause was treating the two candidate lists as a single list. "Failure to indicate a first preference" also includes, e.g., votes where the voter has put an X beside the names of as many candidates as there are seats to be filled, which is not an uncommon error.

Still, the fact that this error happens at all is worrisome, and indicates a need for better voter education.

I've worked polling stations and counted votes for 25 years.

People talking about your vote 'dying' is a bit nonsensical.

If you like 3 candidates say, vote a 1,2,3 preference for them.

If you don't especially want the person who would be your next choice to be elected, why would you give them a preference?

People who fill out the full ballot are voting for everyone, potentially. So why would you do it? I've seen 13th preferences in PR elections be transferred as a vote in an elimination. Did that voter really want their 13th choice? I'd suspect not.

If you only like 3 candidates, stop at 3. The idea of tactical voting in PR is fanciful and the suggestion to always fill out the full ballot is nonsense.

Feel free to ask me anything.

It's a reasonable point by batistuta though, and not one I've ever thought of before.

So with Mary elected on count 2, my selection of Mary, Pat, John goes nowhere once Mary is elected. However your vote of Pat, Mary, Dave potentially transfers to Dave.

That doesn't seem equitable. My 3rd choice is every bit as valid as yours. Why do you possibly get a further say, but I definitely don't.