> Antonio Oneala> Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2006 10:04 PM > Besides that fact that practically every country that has > used STV has boiled down to a more or less two-party system?
Would you care to list the countries and states around the world that use STV-PR together with the numbers of parties represented in their parliaments before they used STV-PR and now after many years of using STV-PR? In the rest of your post you seem to have muddled the effects of IRV (STV in a single-seat election) and STV-PR (multi-winner elections). IRV as used to elected the Australian Federal House of Representatives has no relevance to the operation of STV-PR. Also note that the Australian version of STV-PR as used for the election of the Federal Senate, with its "above the line" and "below the line" voting, is a gross perversion of STV-PR as it has reduced the voting system to a de facto closed party list. You claim that tactical voting is a particular feature of STV-PR, especially with regard to the transfer of surpluses. Would you care to provide some evidence for that statement, with data from real public elections? You also say (in comparing STV-PR with SNTV) "But this does not make STV perfect." I don't know who you think made that claim - I most certainly didn't. There is NO perfect voting system - they all have their defects, STV-PR included. And the practical implementation of any voting system will always involve compromises. James Gilmour ---- election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info