--- Bart Ingles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > On the other hand, I actually met an Australian lady who said that > she > regularly voted for minor candidates whom she didn't even like, > just to > keep her favorite major-party representative from getting too full > of > himself.
That would not be terribly unusual. Representatives, and governments, take their primary vote very seriously, and if it is high enough they get confident/arrogant, and every policy statement they ever made becomes "mandated by the people", which means "how dare the opposition even question it". I am surprised that the lady couldn't find a candidate that she liked, there are enough of them. However, we are generally quite confident that our minor party candidate won't actually be elected, and I think that if there was actually a good chance of the minor candidate being elected then some people voting in protest would hestitate. A typical voting pattern in some Australian electorates is 45 ABC 45 CBA 5 BAC 5 BCA with B being readily eliminated under IRV. I think there is an instinct to bury the strongest challenger. However, I think that if the voting method was suddenly changed to condorcet then the voting pattern would change, with B beng put last a lot more often. http://personals.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Personals New people, new possibilities. FREE for a limited time. ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
