Paul asked:
> But be
> honest and give your best guess as to what percentage of the
> voting population would get beyond 5 while in the voting
> booth.
The examples I described, where I had voted positively and negatively for all 30
candidates in an
STV-PR elections, were annual postal ballots for the council of an organisation to
which I belong.
Electors had the luxury of having some weeks to study a one-page statement from every
candidate
published in the election booklet.
> My guess is not even all of the EM-list subscribers
> would be as assiduous for an election that had 30 or 40
> different races in the election, each of which has 3-10
> alternatives.
We don't have this problem. The most we ever have is two elections of the same day -
most commonly
two FPTP elections, both in single-member districts. In Scotland and Wales we make it
a little more
complicated because we hold an FPTP election and a two-vote AMS (= MMP) election on
the same day, so
that's three "X"s on separate ballot papers. But that's all.
As to the behaviour of real electors in real STV-PR public elections, here are some
results from an
analysis of the electronic "ballot papers" in the Meath constituency at the 2002 Dáil
election.
There were 14 candidates for 5 places. The two largest parties (FF and FG) both put
up 3
candidates. Four smaller parties each put up 1 candidate, and there were 4 non-party
candidates.
There were 64,081 valid votes. There is no restriction of any kind on the number
preferences a
voter may mark.
The average number of preferences marked was 4.65. Every candidate was marked as
every possible
preference (1 - 14) by at least some voters. The smallest group was 46 voters (0.07%
of total) for
one of the 14th preferences. The largest group was 11,534 (18% of total) for one of
the 1st
preferences.
Number Percentage
of Prefs of
marked Voters
1 5%
2 7%
3 33%
4 19%
5 13%
6 8%
7 4%
8 2%
9 1%
10 1%
11 1%
12 1%
13 1%
14 4%
The surge at pref 14 is evidence of real negative voting on the part of some electors.
One
candidate attracted 25% of the 14th preferences, another 19% and another 15%, with
much smaller
numbers spread across the other 11 candidates.
There was an interesting difference in behaviour between the 'supporters' of the two
parties that
both put up 3 candidates. (Supporter defined here as a voter who gave his or her
first preference
to any one of that party's 3 candidates.) Significantly more of FF's supporters
stopped at 3
preferences than did FG's supporters. The balance was made up at 5, 6 and 7
preferences, with a few
more at 8, 9 and 10 preferences.
Number
of Prefs
marked FF FG
1 4% 3%
2 6% 5%
3 40% 28%
4 20% 20%
5 12% 16%
6 6% 10%
7 3% 5%
8 2% 3%
9 1% 2%
10 1% 2%
11 1% 1%
12 1% 1%
13 1% 1%
14 3% 4%
Total number of Supporters: FF = 28, 786 FG = 17,452
Between them these two parties gained 72% of the first preferences.
So my voting habits are not typical. But I already knew that. No one on this list is
a typical
elector. If they were, they wouldn't be here.
James
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