Are there -any- real disadvatnages to the preferential voting system?

[Zevico]

This has kind of bothered me over the years. I simply can't see any real disadvantages to the preferential voting system, past the fact that it might take longer to process some votes (in the case of citizens who don't follow a party's listed order of preferences when voting). With it the concept of a "wasted vote" simply disappears because voting for your candidate doesn't mean that you're not ALSO voting for a more mainstream candidate at the same time...you just place one candidate as your first preference and if he doesn't get enough votes, your vote gets moved to the next one down on your list. Why is this system not prevalent in democracies worldwide? Why is it just Australia that uses it?

[Winston]

We have it here as well, though I didn't know it was called preferential voting in English. Here, we refer to it as "personal votes" as opposed to "party votes". The way it works is that on the ballot, the different parties are listed, and under each party, their respective candidates. You have two options when casting your vote; you can either

a) vote for a specific candidate, which of course also counts as a vote for the party he stands for

or

b) vote for the party only, without selecting a candidate

In the case of a), you can basically make your vote count "double" by checking the candidate, instead of leaving it for other voters to decide who gets elected, as in the case of b).

A couple of Socialist parties apply a "party list", so that their top candidates, as appointed by the party, have the privilege of getting elected first, in the order of their listing, regardless of any personal vote numbers (thereby IMO undercutting the system of preferential voting). But the majority of parties let the personal votes exclusively decide who gets elected.

The total number of votes for each party of course determines how many seats they will acquire.

[Henrik]

Originally posted by Winston
Snip

This is not the same thing from what I gather


As for the preferential voting system I should think that it would require more work both from the voters and those who count the votes. This might still work in Australia as I recall you have cumpulsory voting over there... But over here it would most likely result in less people voting

[Winston]

Originally posted by Henrik
This is not the same thing from what I gather

I actually came to doubt that myself while typing it out. Will have to read up on exactly what it is they have going on in Australia..

[Imran Siddiqui]

Winston, I believe in Australia what he's saying happens is that if your party doesn't get enough votes, then your second choice gets the votes. So, for, say, President of the US (if the US used such a system), you could vote for the Libertarian candidate, but have as your 2nd choice one of the two major parties.

[Winston]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Winston, I believe in Australia what he's saying happens is that if your party doesn't get enough votes, then your second choice gets the votes. So, for, say, President of the US (if the US used such a system), you could vote for the Libertarian candidate, but have as your 2nd choice one of the two major parties.

Ok, thanks. That is not immediately clear from the OP, at least not to me.

In that case, I think it's a rather odd way of doing it. I know I could never vote for more than one candidate or party. It's like "I'll vote again, just in case. I wasn't really being serious the first time".

This is a vital democratic process we're talking about, not the National Lottery..

[Imran Siddiqui]

I don't see the problem with ranking your candidates. It's basically a way to avoid a seperate runoff election by combining a runoff in with the general election.

[Winston]

I don't think so. The possible need for a run-off is a separate issue from the idea of casting more than one vote. You and Zevico indicated the additional vote was to ensure it got carried over if the first choice was out of the race.

[Dauphin]

The transferable vote is useful in ensuring that no-one considers votes 'wasted' or 'stolen' especially in scenarios where the plurality is not the majority.

It means that a hardcore support is no longer enough, you need the majority of people to like you enough to say "sure, we'll let you govern" and it promotes voting for who you want, not who you think has the best chance of winning out of your 'acceptable' candidates.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Winston
I don't think so. The possible need for a run-off is a separate issue from the idea of casting more than one vote. You and Zevico indicated the additional vote was to ensure it got carried over if the first choice was out of the race.

They are one and the same issues. The whole point of the 'additional vote' is for a situation where a candidate doesn't get 50% (a traditional run off situation).

[Winston]

Yes, but you could have a system where 50% was not needed to ensure election - and still have the choice of employing this preferential voting thing or not. Consider the situation of a 2 or 5% threshold for parliamentary representation, for instance.

[RGBVideo]

Winston, see the flash example here:

http://www.instantrunoff.com/

[Zevico]

My apologies for being unclear, I was a bit tired at the time of writing this. Still, it seems to me that voting won't be any harder under a preferential system. You don't HAVE to list your favourite and your runoff candidates. You can just say "I'll use the favourite and runoff candidates preferred by the X party".

[Jon Miller]

The problem as far as the US concerned is two fold.

1. It is complicated. It will make our ballots more confusing, and allow more misvotes and voter fraud.
(biggest reason) 2. We have two parties which have almost exclusively controlled government for a long long time. These rig the system so that it favors them.

JM