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Single transferable vote in general election (lemmy.nz)

submitted 1 month ago by ooo_shiny@lemmy.nz to c/politics@lemmy.nz

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This is probably not the kind of reform our Prime Minister has in mind, but I’d like to tinker slightly with our system and allow a ranked choice of electorate candidates (keeping the party vote system as is). That way, voting for minor parties will not be such a risk of wasting your vote in electorate seats.

For me, this is an issue that seems to fly under the radar but is vitally important. How many people have you heard complain about the duopoly of the two major parties? This would go some way towards making those parties campaign on their merits rather than on tradition, and I hope it forms part of any coalition agreements we see emerging from this election. (Will it? Probably not, since it’s not a big deal for most people right now.)

It works for council elections, it can work for general elections too.

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[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Kinda funny because when I saw transferable it made me think about a system that has rattled around my brain. The idea is you give your vote away in voting. So you decide on the person you would most like to give power to and you do that. they choose to give it and eventually someone accumulates enough to hold office. I would like them to be recindable at any time but figure in many peoples case they are giving it to friends or relatives so likely do not change them around a lot.

[–] ooo_shiny@lemmy.nz 1 points 1 month ago

That’s interesting — so you can only give your vote (and any you’ve been given) to someone you know personally? Sounds like a fun thought experiment.

First, would you compel people to vote for someone else? How would you prevent people from holding onto votes they’ve been given in the hope that they will get into power based on that?

Second, if you do compel people to transfer their votes to someone, wouldn’t that end up with just one person being given power in the end? How would you set up, say, a 120-seat parliament?