Election Predictions

[bluesdave]

Originally Posted by Radar

You vote for who you'd rather have first, second, and third in that order, and the one with the most votes wins. This would give third parties a real chance.

We have that system here in Australia, but we call it preferential voting. It works very well, except that in the senate we end up with huge ballot papers (78 candidates in my state), and if you want to give preferences, you have to number the whole ballot. One mistake, and your vote is invalidated. Most people take the easy option, and just place a "1" against their preferred party (this means they choose not to give preferences). It is easier in our lower house, because you have a much smaller number of candidates, but in the lower house ballot, preference voting is compulsory, so you have to number every candidate.