[EM] STV - the transferrable part is OK (fair), the sequential round elimination is not

[James Gilmour]

Kristofer Munsterhjelm  > Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 4:34 PM
> > James Gilmour wrote:
> > Why in any country that would merit the description "democracy" would 
> > you want to impose a "two-party system" when the votes of the voters 
> > showed that was not what they wanted?
> 
> That is my question, too. 

Maybe what the "two-party" advocates really want is guaranteed single-party majority government.  If that IS what they want, there
is a VERY simple and effective electoral solution.  If no party wins an absolute majority of the votes and seats, give 55% of the
seats to the party that wins the largest number of votes and divide the remaining seats among the other parties in proportion to the
their shares of the votes.

It has been done and it works.  Importantly, it's honest.  It sets out clearly what is considered to be the over-riding electoral
criterion and it fulfils it.  In the UK we suffer from a lot of nonsense about the desirability of single-party majority government
and even worse nonsense about the importance of FPTP in securing that.  In fact, in two of the most critical elections since 1945,
when the government of the day (one Labour, one Conservative) was seeking a renewed mandate for the continuation of its policies,
FPTP elected the wrong government. In both cases the outgoing government won the referendum on its policies (votes) and lost the
election (seats).

James Gilmour

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