Preferential voting: too much for lj?

[alias_sqbr]

So I'm not that fussed about this lj election, but it seems to be becoming increasingly polarised between two candidates (leggomymalfoy and jameth) That's not neccesarily a bad thing, but I get the feeling people are going "Oh no! Candidate A is catching up, better change my first preference to Candidate B, since they're not my top choice but are stil better than Candidate A".

Which is unneccesary (I think :)): neither of them have anywhere near 50% of the vote, so a vote for them second (or even third, probably) is just as good as a vote for them first, and that way you still get to put whoever you really want to win in first position. (If that is leggomymalfoy or jameth then fine)

I'm inclined to put this down to most lj-ers not being from countries which use preferential voting. Unless I'm just missing something, which isn't that implausible. Anyway, I don't care that much, but I'm a fan of democracy and this is unneccesarily undemocratic.

*thinks about it some more*
*confuses self*

Comments

[ithiliana.livejournal.com]

Besides being from the US, I am darn near innumerate, and I don't understand the preferential system at all, at all, at all. I've read penknife's and other's explanations and I don't get it. It makes no sense.

The breaking news: LMM has posted that she was the target of the death threat (though that info was not given in the emails send to some of the rest of the candidates).

The election is unnecessarily.....sscrewed up, I think.

[alias_sqbr]

I was thinking about how to explain it and confused myself, so I really have no cause to be smug :) Growing up with it does help a lot, I think.

The breaking news: LMM has posted that she was the target of the death threat (though that info was not given in the emails send to some of the rest of the candidates).

Oh really? Well isn't that interesting, given all the implications about how it must be one of those "fandom crazies" :/

The election is unnecessarily.....sscrewed up, I think.

I know, it's scary to watch.

EDIT: I wasn't going to try to explain preferential voting but everyone's gone into these involved explanations so I thought I'd try for something simple. Feel free to ignore it, I know what it's like when I Just Can't Get Something and everyone keeps telling me how simple it is :)

All that matters in this case is that if your first choice gets eliminated(*) then it's your second choice which gets counted, and if they get eliminated then your third choice gets counted(**). So if (as seems likely) it comes down to a fight just between jameth and leggomymalfoy then every vote will either end up being
-a vote for jameth (if they put him down for any of their preferences)
-a vote for leggomymalfoy (if they put her down for any of their preferences)
-a vote for nobody (if they only voted for other people)

(Plus the very small minority who voted for jameth and leggomymalfoy, who'll get counted as whoever they put higher)

(*)The way people get eliminated is complicated, so I shall ignore it :)
(**)And if they get eliminated your vote doesn't get counted at all

[edible-hat.livejournal.com]

Preferential voting: You number the candidates in order of your preference.

If nobody wins a clear majority on number 1s, the person with the least 1s is out and their votes go to whoever the voters wrote as number 2.

And so on until a winner emerges.

Basically it's a way you can vote for a third party candidate and still help get rid of the major party you dislike.

[flyingblogspot.livejournal.com]

Besides being from the US, I am darn near innumerate, and I don't understand the preferential system at all, at all, at all. I've read penknife's and other's explanations and I don't get it. It makes no sense.

Because I love the concept, I'm going to have a shot at explaining it to you in a highly oversimplified form. :) Bear in mind that there are many possible variation, so most Real Life applications will vary a little from what I'm describing.

Basically, you get a list of all the candidates. You number all the candidates from 'who I like most' to 'who I like least'. That's your part done in the process.

Then the votes get counted and the counters work out who got the least '1' (ie 'who I like most') votes on their pile. That person is knocked out of the race.

However (and this is the really important bit) the counters go 'well, just because those people numbered him as '1' and he got knocked out doesn't mean they don't get a say about the other people who are left'. So they take all the vote cards for the guy who got knocked out and see who each of those voters numbered as their second favourite. Each of those cards go on the pile of the guy that the voter liked second best, since their first choice got knocked out.

Then, this happens all over again, and over again. Out of the people left, the voters count who has the least votes, declare them out of the race and redistribute each vote in their pile of votes to the person each voter liked next best.

Often, systems have an artificial cut-off (for example, in Australia, our system says that once you get more than half of all the voting cards on your pile, the counting stops and you've won). However, in theory, you could just keep going by eliminating the person with the least votes in their pile, until only one person was left.

Now, you may wonder 'but WHY?' There are probably a lot of reasons, but one in particular comes to mind. Do you remember the situation where Gore and Bush were running against each other, and the third party, Nader, got enough votes to make the difference between them? I think it's fair to assume that most of the people who voted for Nader would have preferred Gore to win over Bush, but because the US doesn't have preferential voting, their votes were wasted and they had no say over who became president.

In contrast, the preferential system assumes that you have a democratic right not only to say who you like most, but express an opinion on all of the candidates. Just because you like a minor party most, doesn't mean that your vote gets thrown away and that you forfeit your right to an opinion.

I really hope that helped a little! :)