On 05/05/2011 01:20, brass monkey wrote:
"Roger wrote in message
...
On 04/05/2011 20:43, Old Codger wrote:
On 03/05/2011 23:24, Roger Mills wrote:


When there are multiple candidates in an election, simply choosing the
person with the most votes even though they are way short of 50% isn't
the best way of finding the candidate whom most people are happy with.

But AV will not necessarily find the candidate most people are happy
with.

Indeed. I don't think there's *any* system which would provide a cast iron
guarantee of that. But, in general, over 50% of the population would have
expressed *some* sort of preference for them - which doesn't happen under
FPTP unless they get over 50% anyway - which the vast majority don't.

So explain this again -
I might be a staunch tory and want the tory candidate to win, but I'm
expected to put labour maybe in 2nd place and maybe LD in 3rd?
Maybe I don't want even a sniff of labour or LD? So I just put a X in tory?
Where's the difference?

If you detest the labour and LD candidates equally, just putting an X in
tory is appropriate. No need to vote for anybody else.

However if there's a chance the tory candidate won't win, and you prefer
one of the other two to the other, you could express that preference by
putting them (LD or lab) in 2nd.