[EM] FWD - Election of UK Speaker

[Advance Copy]

  ------------ Forwarded Letter -----------
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2001 18:56:24 -0000
From: "James Gilmour" <jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk>
To: donald at mich.com
Subject: Re: FWD - Election of UK Speaker now by Irving:

[Martin Harper of [EM] wrote:]
> They seem to have picked IRV as a replacement.

Not quite.  The committee has recommended the exhaustive ballot which
is similar to, but not identical to, IRV (= Alternative Vote) because
each stage is a separate ballot in which electors mark only one X
against one candidate.  If no candidate has an overall majority, a
process of successive elimination follows.  Electors can change their
minds in each successive round, or vote or not vote as they wish.

With IRV (AV) each voter expresses all of his or her preferences at
the same time, ie without any prior knowledge of how the candidates
have been ranked.  This may help avoid some of the worst excesses of
horse-trading among the supporters of the various groups contesting
the single-place election.

IRV would be just too revolutionary for the UK House of Commons!
Ironically, several of the UK political parties use IRV to elect
their own leaders!!
James Gilmour

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  ---------- Original Letter -----------
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2001 15:06:31 +0000
From: Martin Harper <mcnh2 at cam.ac.uk>
To: election-methods-list at eskimo.com
Subject: [EM] Election of UK Speaker

re: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk_politics/newsid_1171000/1171438.stm

The UK Speaker is supposed to be someone who has the broad support of
the entire house, who will be able to fill a role that is supposedly
above party politics. The old system was some hideous mutant hybrid of
plurality, and the committee has right[ly] decided that it should be put to
death. Sadly, they seem to have picked IRV as a replacement. Ugh.

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