[maemo-community] STV voting strategy

[From: Dave Neary]

Hi,

Frantisek Dufka wrote:
>> In STV, you are voting primarily to elect your
>> preferred candidate and ordering is very important.
> 
> This is what worries me since I need to decide between person A or B 
> while I want both of them. But I'll get used to it :-)

Opponents of STV (and proponents of range voting) cite this as the main
problem of preferential voting in general. They suggest that this
situation is what leads people to "strategic" voting - of the two
preferred candidates, who most needs my #1 vote? In this election, for
example, with hindsight you might consider that the incumbents had less
need of more #1 votes, and if you wanted to see both timsamoff and
sjgadsby elected, you would put Stephen #1, and Tim #2, but if too many
people do this, you run the risk of costing Tim an election the
electorate wanted him to have.

This is, indeed, the down side of preferential voting.

Cheers,
Dave.

-- 
maemo.org docsmaster
Email: dneary at maemo.org
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