I gather the Single Transferable Vote system is used in Ireland, Australia, Malta, and for local elections in Scotland. Now I don't think I have any readers in Malta but I know I have some in Ireland and Scotland and maybe in Australia. Is that true? Is it all right, how do you get on with it?
Thursday, 7 April 2011
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4 comments:
It's great. It turns the count from a first past the post flat race into something resembling the grand national with someone falling at every fence.
Really ye should have all been over here for our general election just past. Then we could have explained all the nuances of preferential voting such as tactical voting, whether you vote all the way down or not and the fine art of the tallyman.
If you want to look at some raw data here are the count by count results for the limerick city constituency: http://www.rte.ie/news/election2011/results/limerick-city.html
If you look here it's notable that pretty much since the end of the 2nd World War the Irish Government has been coalition and a varying coalition at that.
@Limerick, I hadn't thought of it in terms of entertainment value - but that's by no means to be disregarded! It's a good thing to make elections more engaging. I quite like the sheer speed of FPTP, and its extreme simplicity, but I'm willing to be persuaded.
@ghost, that could be seen as a bad thing or a good thing. I'm undecided.
But with the notable exception of the colossally stupid bank guarantee (which I think yous should repudiate), from what I hear Ireland has been reasonably well governed during that period, as these things go? With fair to good basic services, education, health and so forth.
Do you mean well governed across that period despite almost borrowing ourselves into oblivion in the 80s. Rule of thumb don't give the Irish money, we'll do something stupid with it.
It would be better to state that we have been well governed despite our politicians.
Having siblings working in both health systems I would say that, while our system has its failings, it doesn't chew people up and spit them out in the same way that the NHS does.
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