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A comment on UK Election Tech Handbook. Parent comment

Re:UK Election Tech Handbook by dangerface on Wednesday October 30, 2019 @10:37AM (#21398192)
Our representative democracy is setup as a two party system (first past the post elections) if we want a more representative outcome we should switch to a direct democracy or implement the alternative vote.

Free exchange of ideas is my ultimate goal but the average voter doesn't share this goal, they get their information from "authoritative" sources such as "their" party or the mass media.

We did have a vote to bring in the alternate vote but every major party (left and right) and media outlet (left and right) slammed it as anti-democratic.

We can't depend on the average voter to get informed and vote representatively because the system intentionally prevents this.

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Re:UK Election Tech Handbook by specialist on Wednesday October 30, 2019 @10:59AM (#21398457)
"alternative vote"

If you mean switch from FPTP to some form of RCV for executive positions or proportional representation (PR) for assemblies, then I agree.

For RCV, I strongly prefer Approval Voting, which best balances fairness and simplicity.

But we'll get the most benefits from PR.

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Re:UK Election Tech Handbook by Pete_D on Wednesday October 30, 2019 @02:15PM (#21400751)
"alternative vote" is the term the UK ended up using for instant-runoff voting when it had a referendum a few years back.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vot...

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Re:UK Election Tech Handbook by Wildgoose on Wednesday October 30, 2019 @08:07PM (#21404418)
Not quite. I think the proposals only affected the top two ranked candidates in the first round, i.e. arguably no better than First Past the Post.

Approval Voting would be simple, easy to understand and a vast improvemnet.

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Re:UK Election Tech Handbook by dangerface on Friday November 01, 2019 @10:29AM (#21419214)
> If you mean switch from FPTP

Yup don't really care what the new vote is. I live in Northern Ireland where we have single transferable vote I think its great.

It hasn't fixed our two party system but I have noticed a dramatic change in the way people think about voting.

For the most part people no longer feel the need to vote against some one and now vote for who they want, I have also noticed people seem to feel their vote is worth more as a result.

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