--- James Gilmour <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > The facility for party voting in > the Australian Federal Senate STV-PR elections is a gross > perversion of STV. It has reduced STV to > just another party list PR system.
Background: The ballot is divided into two by a horizontal line. Below the line is every candidate arranged by party, each candidate has a box in which you write a number. Above the line are parties. Filling in the party box means that you use the parties nominated ranking. There are hundreds of candidates. The ballot is a single piece of paper the size of a tablecloth. In both Australia federally, and the state of NSW, an upper house is elected by STV. I think James exaggerates. It is not that bad. The method is "extended" not "reduced", in that the voter can ignore the party list option. If the voter doesn't like the list of candidates of his favourite party, then he can vote below the line. Most people vote above the line. I think this reflects the fact that the parties put up reasonable lists of candidates. The ability of the voter to go below the line is what keeps the parties honest. However, I do support the current NSW state elections incarnation of the method above the federal method. (State elections can never be held simultaneously with federal elections.) In the federal method, a single party vote above the line completes the ranking for every candidate below the line, and the detail of this is beyond a voters ability to remember and comprehend. The voter does not rank parties. In NSW, a party vote above the line ranks only the candidates of that party. The voter can rank the parties above the line. Another bad thing about the federal method is that to use the below the line STV proper method, you are obliged to rank a very large number of candidates without error or the attempt is invalidated. NSW has no such requirement, you may rank as many or as few as you like. (neither method allows for equal rankings except for truncation) Anthony Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies. http://au.movies.yahoo.com ---- Election-methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
