[EM] A solution for incomplete preference orders

[James Gilmour]

> mrouse1 at mrouse.com> Sent: 06 January 2007 16:39
> One partial solution is to require all candidates for an office give a
> complete preference order before the election, which will also be
> indicated on the ballot itself. This ranking would be used to 
> complete all ballots without a full preference order.

This is essentially what already happens with "above the line voting" in
Australian STV elections.  This is OK if you are happy to give this
power to the parties (the real power behind the candidates).  But the
main attraction of STV-PR for me is that it has the potential to shift
the balance of power  -  reducing the power of the parties and
increasing the power of the voters.  To me the Australian "above the
line voting" is a travesty  -  they have turned STV-PR into a
closed-list party-list PR system with a little bit of STV tagged on.
James Gilmour