On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 09:42:47 +1100
that most illustrious and gifted writer of our times
"Siviour, Craig" <[log in to unmask]> did eloquently compose:


> Hi William,
>
> I presume you base your observation on the premise that Gore has won the
> majority of the Popular vote?
>
> I think this would make him the winner under an English-style
> "first-past-the-post" system if the USA was considered one huge electorate.
> If you considered each of the states an individual electorate then you would
> need to count the popular vote in each of the states, award the state to the
> candidate with the biggest popular vote then count up the number of states
> won by each candidate. You would then have your winner, who would not
> necessarily be the candidate with the largest nation-wide popular vote. By
> the way, this system can badly under-represent smaller parties. I remember
> one election in which the third-largest party won greater than 20% of the
> vote but only 2% of the seats.
>
> In Australia (for Federal elections) we have a preference system with
> so-called "automatic run-off" In this system voters vote for all candidates
> in order of preference.
> We have about 150 electorates comprised of roughly equal numbers of voters
> in each.
> The party which wins teh most electorates (we call them "seats") is awarded
> the privilege of forming government. This is not necessarily the party which
> gathers the greatest nation-wide (or even intra-seat) popular vote. Once
> again small parties are not well represented under this system.

In an electorate with < 50% of the primary vote preferences work to make
those votes
for minority parties count towards the majors so those who dislike the majors
find
themselves actually voting for them.

Reforms could include optional preferential voting where the voter
decides how many preferences are given between 1 and n where n is the
number candidates. That a voter is not forced to give a vote to the
majors.

Multi members electorates will also give minor parties a chamce to
represent voters. That's why the Democrates and Green have seats in the
Senate but not the House. The criticism of this is that it would lead to
un workable minority governments who can not do anything. This I think
can only be healthy. Strong stable government in the lower house in
Australia has passed censorship laws, draconian workplace "reform",
criminalised refugees, increased powers of defence forces against
citizens, wreaked public health and edication and pushed through
economic "reform". If this is the sort of thing that can not be done
with unstable goverment then let's have it.

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