How to vote strategically??

Hellrazer

Dont usually post here but this is something that always confuses me about our proportional representation system and it was a drunken disussion we were having last night--signs Im getting old--watching Vincent Browne on a Saturday night while drunk
Never though Id see that day!!!

Anyhow say there are 12 candidates(or whatever number) on your voting form and theres one particular party/candidate that you dont want to get any transfers from your particular vote--How do you mark your form to achieve that?

Or how about the other option that you only want one or two candidates to get your transfers?

I feel that most people just walk in and mark 1 to 12 or whatever but is there a way to say "control" your vote??

Gregor Samsa

Simply give your preferences in the order of your preference, and don't give a preference to the people you don't want to give a preference to. You don't have to give a preference to everyone. If there's 12 people on the ballot, and there's 2 of them you don't want your vote ever being transferred to if the counts go on and on, don't give them a preference. Go one to ten, and leave it at that.

Personally, I don't see the point of giving a preference to more than a handful of candidates - I've always found it hard enough to find two that I'd genuinely want elected. I don't think I've ever gone past 3.

You could even just mark 1 beside one candidate, and leave it at that, if you wanted. Vote by how you genuinely feel.

deman

Don't put a number next to his/her name. Simple as that. I've only ever voted 1 and 2, and once put a 3 in a council election. You're not obliged to use all the numbers.

Hellrazer

Thanks for the responses.
I honestly didnt know that thats the way it worked.Ive always entered in the numbers 1-whatever on the sheet and so have the people I was chatting with last night.

So say I want x candidate to get my tansfers and only them I only put in say 1 and 2 on the form??

Good to know.

lugha

deman wrote: »

Don't put a number next to his/her name. Simple as that. I've only ever voted 1 and 2, and once put a 3 in a council election. You're not obliged to use all the numbers.

There is a bit more two it than that. If you are very determined that a particular candidate(s) should not be elected then you should continue your preference for all the others. The logic being, you can lessen one candidates chance of getting elected by increasing all the others.

There is of course a risk. You could unwittingly be conspiring against the ones that you do actually want to see elected.

ISAW

Hellrazer wrote: »

I feel that most people just walk in and mark 1 to 12 or whatever but is there a way to say "control" your vote??

The way to "control you vote" is to vote 1 for the canditate yo umost want then 2 then 3 etc.

If there are 12 candidates don't be worried about putting 12 for the one you least like. the only way they will get this vote is if all the others were eliminated and that would mean if your number 12 is the only one left they would be elected anyway.

Actually in practice number 3 or 4 wuld not be counted . the only time they really make a difference is if you vote 1, 2, 3 for weak candidates who were eliminated. then your number 4 would be the same as a number 1.

Here is a rule of thumb:If there are x candidates and y seats just subtract y from x.

Say in a five seater there are seventeen candidates. Anything after your number 12 won't really matter since in the unlikely circumstances you voted 1,2,3...12 and each one in turn was eliminated then only five would be left and they would all have to be elected to five seats.

Brussels Sprout

You can definitely be creative in casting your vote thanks to our single transferable voting system. For example, I was living in the UK earlier in the year and had a vote in their GE. In the constituency I was living in it was a 2 horse race between the Lib Dem candidate and the Conservative candidate. Now I actually would have liked to have voted for one of the independent candidates but he was a no hoper and I felt like I would have been wasting my vote. So instead I voted for the Lib Dem candidate as a blocker to the Conservative candidate.

Now in this upcoming GE in Ireland I don't particularly like any of the FG or Labour candidates. Thanks to the STV I don't have to vote for them directly but I can be sure to give them my second or third preference so that when the person I give my number 1 to gets eliminated my vote will still go to a party that isn't FF. This way I get to vote for who I want and also stick it to FF at the same time.

Eliot Rosewater

phutyle wrote: »

Personally, I don't see the point of giving a preference to more than a handful of candidates - I've always found it hard enough to find two that I'd genuinely want elected. I don't think I've ever gone past 3.

I disagree. I think it will be hard to find anyone I genuinely want elected, but even amongst the rest I still have a preference. I don't really want Labour or ULA to get elected but I certainly would prefer the former. So even after I've gone through my list of candidates I like I still give a preference.

It can count. If your top 2 get elected your ballot has a possibility of being reassigned. By not putting any more preferences you can no longer influence the election.

Eliot Rosewater

ISAW wrote: »

Here is a rule of thumb:If there are x candidates and y seats just subtract y from x.

That's actually not true. You gave a preference for y-x candidates. It's possible that by the time you come down to the last x candidates (the ones you didn't give a preference for) one or more of your y-x candidates will have been elected, and your ballot paper distributed as a surplus. In that case there would be less than x seats left, and still a choice to be made, though your ballot wouldn't count as you wouldn't have the last x marked.

It's only the last preference that's superfluous. It's highly unlikely, but still possible, that every single preference on your ballot except the last one will influence the election.

ISAW

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

That's actually not true.

How so?

You gave a preference for y-x candidates. It's possible that by the time you come down to the last x candidates (the ones you didn't give a preference for) one or more of your y-x candidates will have been elected,

If so you have already used you vote to elect them.

and your ballot paper distributed as a surplus.

four from ten equals six.

Only a portion of it. Say four seats ten candidates. Three have already been elected and five eliminated ( you voted 1to 5 for them) and you voted No 6 for the third seat. That leavs candidate A and B under the quota His ( the third person in who you voted No6 for ) surplus would have to be sufficient to take A past B or vice versa. So assuming A and B are exactly equal your seventh preference would have to be for A or B and that preference be common to a majority of the next available preferences of the last packet transferred. Given a full recount might be called, they would again have to reach a position where A and B had identical votes again and your number seven would have to represent a majority of all the next available transfers from all the people who voted for your number six candidate. Assuming number six got say 8000 votes your number sever would have a 1/8000 of an effect on the surplus transfer.

The likelihood of the above is minuscule but I admit your number seven might have
such an effect of changing an election once in a thousand years. Which is why I called it a "rule of thumb" Your numbner eight would have no such effect.

In that case there would be less than x seats left, and still a choice to be made, though your ballot wouldn't count as you wouldn't have the last x marked.

It's only the last preference that's superfluous. It's highly unlikely, but still possible, that every single preference on your ballot except the last one will influence the election.

I don't accept that! In practice most people vote for stronger candidates. Voting 10 or twelve only counts if you vote 1,2 3 etc. for non electable weak candidates. i doubt ther is any person who can be shown to vote for the total outside candidates and continue their preference til they get to the strongest. If any such people exist they do not decide elections. first (and second preferences of weak candidates or maybe third if 1 and 2 are weak ) decide elections. that is the way it is in practice. Yes in an academic sense I admit someone may cause the above to change a result but they are probably more likely winning the lottery twice in the same year.

the groutch

I would always think of tactical voting was mainly about

- not "wasting" a vote on someone who is nailed on to get in on the first count anyway (eg, Eamonn Gilmore)

- give votes to people you wouldnt normally, if it helps prevent someone else getting in (eg. you might normally vote only for Labour, but put FG in as 2nd & 3rd to give them a better chance of taking a marginal seat off FF)

ISAW

the groutch wrote: »

I would always think of tactical voting was mainly about

- not "wasting" a vote on someone who is nailed on to get in on the first count anyway (eg, Eamonn Gilmore)

- give votes to people you wouldnt normally, if it helps prevent someone else getting in (eg. you might normally vote only for Labour, but put FG in as 2nd & 3rd to give them a better chance of taking a marginal seat off FF)

I agree. I a lot of cases you see after a seventh or either count two candidates left say A and B with 200 between them ( say oin 6,000 and 6,200) and another candidate C eliminated with say 5000 votes. Then you notice about 2,000 to 3,000 votes don't transfer. Yes some of these are the just recieved number 4, 5, 6 that the eliminated candidate got with no next available preference for A or B but I would say almost all voted C number one and nothing else ( a plumper) or voted c and maybe a number two or the rare number 3 ( both of who are ether elected or eliminated by now). although I agree ther is a int to be made here. People wo dont transfer if they all or mat least majorily voted the same for candidates they don't care about could determine if candidate A or B gets in. But if you are a communist for example it would not make any difference to you whether National Front member A or B gets in.

Eliot Rosewater

ISAW wrote: »

If so you have already used you vote to elect them.

You're vote can be used to elect more than one person.

Suppose I vote for candidates A, B, C and D in that order. In the first round A reaches the quota, which means my vote helped elect him. My vote is transferred to B as a part of the surplus. Now B is elected. I have helped elect both A and B at this stage. Now the surplus of B is transferred, and my vote gets picked out to be transferred to C. If C gets elected, I will have helped 3 candidates get elected, with one vote.

I don't know if you're aware that if a candidate gets elected with a number of extra votes above the quota, those extra votes are transferred to other candidates. Hence how one vote can help elect multiple candidates.

murphaph

Just another reason to bin PRSTV (or at the very least our interpretantion of it)...it is entirely random whose transfers get used. I don't believe this is acceptable tbh.

Bring in a list system please!

Eliot Rosewater

murphaph wrote: »

Just another reason to bin PRSTV (or at the very least our interpretantion of it)...it is entirely random whose transfers get used. I don't believe this is acceptable tbh.

Yes, but they are transferred proportionally. If a candidate gets 10,000 votes for a 9,000 quota, all 10,000 votes are counted again and the extra 1,000 are transferred in proportion to the whole.

Teg Veece

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

You're vote can be used to elect more than one person.

Suppose I vote for candidates A, B, C and D in that order. In the first round A reaches the quota, which means my vote helped elect him. My vote is transferred to B as a part of the surplus. Now B is elected. I have helped elect both A and B at this stage. Now the surplus of B is transferred, and my vote gets picked out to be transferred to C. If C gets elected, I will have helped 3 candidates get elected, with one vote.

I don't know if you're aware that if a candidate gets elected with a number of extra votes above the quota, those extra votes are transferred to other candidates. Hence how one vote can help elect multiple candidates.

I thought that your vote is only counted once. If you gave first preference to A but they had already reached the quota by the time it came to counting you vote, then you didn't help get A past the post.
If votes got counted multiple times, then how could you set a fixed quota?

Edit: Just read your last post. Makes sense. Didn't realise that they won't to that much trouble of recounting and weighting the second preferences though.

Eliot Rosewater

Teg Veece wrote: »

I thought that your vote is only counted once. If you gave first preference to A but they had already reached the quota by the time it came to counting you vote, then you didn't help get A past the post.
If votes got counted multiple times, then how could you set a fixed quota?

The formula is



so that doesn't change if you count votes multiple times. But all votes are counted, and the surplus is calculated on the basis of all votes for the candidate. (For the first round at least: it gets more complicated later on).

murphaph

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Yes, but they are transferred proportionally. If a candidate gets 10,000 votes for a 9,000 quota, all 10,000 votes are counted again and the extra 1,000 are transferred in proportion to the whole.

It's still random Eliot. It's proportional, but the ballots which elect a candidate or get passed on after that candidate is demmed elected are randomly selected. I personally disagree with this.

Scuba Ste

murphaph wrote: »

It's still random Eliot. It's proportional, but the ballots which elect a candidate or get passed on after that candidate is demmed elected are randomly selected. I personally disagree with this.

No. that's wrong.

ALL ballots are counted again and the 2nd preferences are are noted. The surplus is then divided based on the proportion of ALL ballots. They're not randomly assigned.

Citizensinformation wrote:

For example, if candidate A receives 900 votes more than the quota on the first count and on examining all of his or her votes, it is found that 30% of these have next available preferences for candidate B, then candidate B does not get 30% of all candidate A's votes, candidate B gets 30% of his/her surplus, i.e., 270 votes (30% of 900).

Lockstep

I voted strategically in the 2009 elections in an attempt to keep Libertas out.

1 went to Labour, but I knew she didn't have a chance so how this transferred was very important. I knew that the SF candidate would be fairly close to Ganley so they got my no.2. Then voted for the incumbents who were likely to win and so on, voting all the way down the list, giving everyone a vote except Ganley.

Best way to vote tactically is head to your local bookies and check out the odds and vote accordingly. If there's a candidate you really, really don't want in then give a high preference to a more suitable candidate who has similar odds to them.

Overheal

deman wrote: »

Don't put a number next to his/her name. Simple as that. I've only ever voted 1 and 2, and once put a 3 in a council election. You're not obliged to use all the numbers.

I would put X's next to each other person so ballot counters cant fill in the blanks...

Eliot Rosewater

Scuba Ste wrote: »

No. that's wrong.

ALL ballots are counted again and the 2nd preferences are are noted. The surplus is then divided based on the proportion of ALL ballots. They're not randomly assigned.

But it's only proportional for the 2nd and 3rd preferences, or something like that. And the actual ballots transferred over are randomly assigned. Additionally, as preferences go on, only votes from the latest bundle given to a candidate are counted for transfers.

So if I had 8,000 votes, and I get transfers of 2,000, pushing me over the quota of 9,000, only the last 2,000 votes will be considered for transfer. This opens up opportunities for tactical voting. (I found that in chapter 5 "The electoral system" of the book Politics in the Republic of Ireland, for those interested in such things...)

I agree with murphaph, in that the random aspect is bad. However it's worth noting that to make the system completely proportional would require the use of computers.

murphaph

Scuba Ste wrote: »

No. that's wrong.

ALL ballots are counted again and the 2nd preferences are are noted. The surplus is then divided based on the proportion of ALL ballots. They're not randomly assigned.

I took my information from wiki, although sometimes wrong I doubt it in this instance:

The simplest methods of transferring surpluses under STV involve an element of randomness; partially random systems are used in the Republic of Ireland (except Senate elections) and Malta, among other places.

Source.

Hare Method
20 votes are drawn at random from the 30 received from Y's transfers. These 20 votes are each transferred to the next available preference after X stated on the ballot, skipping those that have already been elected or eliminated. In a manual count of paper ballots, this is the easiest method to implement; it is close to Thomas Hare's original proposal in 1857. It is used in all universal suffrage elections in the Republic of Ireland. This is analogous to what happens in the children-voting example above. Some people consider it fair in that, with 200 required for election, the group of 30 with first-preference Y get to influence other preferences, whereas the group of only 190 with first-preference X should just be satisfied to get their candidate elected. But some other people feel the group of 190 should get more influence on other preferences (as in Meek's method below). Also, exhausted ballots are excluded, so if more than 10 of the 30 votes have no preference stated after X, then it is impossible to select 20 to transfer and so some votes must be wasted.

Source.
This randomness is unfair IMO. You may disagree that is is unfair, but not that there is no element of chance at play.

murphaph

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I agree with murphaph, in that the random aspect is bad. However it's worth noting that to make the system completely proportional would require the use of computers.

Personally I am in favour of electonic voting (though not the ham fisted attempt we made of it) coupled with a compulsory national ID card that can be used to cut down on all sorts fraud.

I would imagine it would terrify the political classes to imagine a system that allows people to vote from the comfort of their own PC. To unseat them at the click of a mouse. The technology already exists to ensure a reasonably secure system, at least as secure as the shambles of an electoral register we have now which to be honest can and does allow fairly significant electoral fraud.

Anyway, I would bin the STV itself as I believe it is at the core of what's wrong with our electoral system and that it promotes clientilism and cronyism above list type systems. I would adopt a national list if I had my way, leave county councillors to handle pot hole repairs and other such things and let our TDs get on with legislation and regulation things like banks!

seamus

Overheal wrote: »

I would put X's next to each other person so ballot counters cant fill in the blanks...

DO NOT do this

This will spoil the vote and it'll be binned.

SerialComplaint

murphaph wrote: »

P
I would imagine it would terrify the political classes to imagine a system that allows people to vote from the comfort of their own PC. To unseat them at the click of a mouse. The technology already exists to ensure a reasonably secure system, at least as secure as the shambles of an electoral register we have now which to be honest can and does allow fairly significant electoral fraud.

It should terrify you as well. As soon as you allow voting outside of a polling station, you open up the system to vote selling (come in to my living room, watch me vote and you pay me €100) and voting under duress (here missus/son/daughter - vote for xxx or I'll bate ya).

I'd be interested to hear more details of this already existing technology which provides for security, auditability, and protects the anonymity of the voter.

murphaph

SerialComplaint wrote: »

It should terrify you as well. As soon as you allow voting outside of a polling station, you open up the system to vote selling (come in to my living room, watch me vote and you pay me €100) and voting under duress (here missus/son/daughter - vote for xxx or I'll bate ya).

I'd be interested to hear more details of this already existing technology which provides for security, auditability, and protects the anonymity of the voter.

Well, we use it all the time with our online banking services. Please note that no system can be 100% fraud proof and the current system is quite likely to see a lot of fraud as it stands as the only ID checks actually required to vote are pathetic cursory checks of ATM cards and such like. I have voted with nothing more than my ATM card as "proof" of my identity in the past. No polling card, no photo ID (for what a 10 year old driving licence photo is actually worth). I believe an electonic system based largely on current online banking technology would be at least as fraud resistant as the current setup but to be honest, it's not my main gripe with the current system...that gripe is the single transferable vote and our multi-seat constituencies that promote localised "competition" between our NATIONAL PARLIAMENTARIANS so each tries to outdo the other wrt what he or she is "seen" to be doing locally, all at the expense of their national obligations of course.

I believe vote selling can take place with our current system. A person can easily use a miniature wireless camera to prove to a third party that he or she has voted a certain way and receive financial reward as a result. As for voting under duress, it could happen but I would not make e-voting compulsory (for many reasons, not least due to poor governance from Dail Eireann, many people still aren't online) and those who felt vulnerable could always opt to continue voting at a polling station.

ISAW

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

You're vote can be used to elect more than one person.

No it can't! It remains a single vote and is only transferable if the original candidate is eliminitaded or if it is surplus to the requirements to elect that candidate.


Put it this way . suppose you have a school election and everyone lines up in the yard to elect four people. suppose ther are a thousand people. Then the quota is 201 (as four people can get 200 and a fifth get the same so they have to get noe moter than that)

If more than 201 vote for a person the other people in the queue are asked to move to a different queue. their votes become transferred to the other candidate because the original has 201. They don't vote twice!

Suppose I vote for candidates A, B, C and D in that order. In the first round A reaches the quota, which means my vote helped elect him.

Yes and if he got exactly the quota then your vote wont transfer and B C and D does not count for other candidates. If he got more than a quota then that surplus is transferred in proportion to the percent of those who voted for A's next choice. so instead of voting for the A the surplus is now voting for the next preference instead . They aren't voting twice!
If A only needed 201 votes and got 300 then the surplus is 99. the whole 300 are looked at for number two If B got 30 number twos and C got 60 and D got 90 and the rest 120 didnt have anything then B gets a tenth of the surplus ( 9.9 votes) C two tenths (18.8 votes) and D three tenths ( 27.7 votes)

If rounded down A gets 201 B plus 9 C plus 18 and D plus 27 and the other 55 votes are non transferrable.

That is still 300 votes! Nobody had two votes or voted twice!

My vote is transferred to B as a part of the surplus. Now B is elected. I have helped elect both A and B at this stage.

Yes if FF get two quotas in an election then two quotas of FF supporters vote for two FF candidates. Two quotas help to elect two candidates. None vote twice for two different candidates

You are only helping to indicate where the proportion of the surplus votes go!
That is just like all the people in queue A meeting together and asking the surplus people to go to other queues since they already have their candidate elected. It isnt giving them two votes.

No more then eliminating a candidate and redistributing their vote to someone else is giving someone two votes.

Now the surplus of B is transferred, and my vote gets picked out to be transferred to C. If C gets elected, I will have helped 3 candidates get elected, with one vote.

so you are saying that if everyone votes for candidate A and that candidate gets several quotas that the surplus over the quota are second votes? they arent! the candidate has reached the quota. the excess is redistributed to others. It doesnt mean you voted for two people. It just means if the person has more then enought votes the surplus is reconsidered.

I don't know if you're aware that if a candidate gets elected with a number of extra votes above the quota, those extra votes are transferred to other candidates. Hence how one vote can help elect multiple candidates.

No it can't! If the candidate has to many votes than required to be elected it does not mean the person is voting twice!

Look put it this way - what is the purpose of a quota?
then take the example of a single seat - the surplus wont matter.
Now take two seats . If someone has more than a quota what do you suggest they do with the surplus? Ignore it? So if they dont ignore it you are back to all thrhe rest running for a single seat left and so on for three seats when two are filled etc.

ISAW

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

So if I had 8,000 votes, and I get transfers of 2,000, pushing me over the quota of 9,000, only the last 2,000 votes will be considered for transfer. This opens up opportunities for tactical voting. (I found that in chapter 5 "The electoral system" of the book Politics in the Republic of Ireland, for those interested in such things...)

You are right on that but the weakness of the "last packet transferred" problem is usually overcome by calling a recount and almost always the same result is the outcome.

Eliot Rosewater

ISAW wrote: »

No it can't! It remains a single vote and is only transferable if the original candidate is eliminitaded or if it is surplus to the requirements to elect that candidate.

Yes. I was just being a little loose/simplistic with language. Mainly to show that your vote being used to elect a candidate lower down your preference list does not imply that all of your previous preferences were eliminated - some may have been elected.

ISAW wrote: »

You are right on that but the weakness of the "last packet transferred" problem is usually overcome by calling a recount and almost always the same result is the outcome.

Ah - so that's why they call recounts!

Hellrazer

My head hurts (more than it did) after reading that and Im still no closer to a definate answer.

Right so here goes.

Hypothetical Constituency--5 seater.

3 FF candidates
3 FG candidates
3 Labour
1 SF
1 Independant.

My preferences are Labour 1.2.3 then FG 4.5.6. the Independant,then SF

How do ensure that none of my transfers get to FF at all or is that even achievable within this voting system?

SerialComplaint

murphaph wrote: »

Well, we use it all the time with our online banking services. Please note that no system can be 100% fraud proof and the current system is quite likely to see a lot of fraud as it stands as the only ID checks actually required to vote are pathetic cursory checks of ATM cards and such like. I have voted with nothing more than my ATM card as "proof" of my identity in the past. No polling card, no photo ID (for what a 10 year old driving licence photo is actually worth). I believe an electonic system based largely on current online banking technology would be at least as fraud resistant as the current setup but to be honest, it's not my main gripe with the current system...that gripe is the single transferable vote and our multi-seat constituencies that promote localised "competition" between our NATIONAL PARLIAMENTARIANS so each tries to outdo the other wrt what he or she is "seen" to be doing locally, all at the expense of their national obligations of course.

I believe vote selling can take place with our current system. A person can easily use a miniature wireless camera to prove to a third party that he or she has voted a certain way and receive financial reward as a result. As for voting under duress, it could happen but I would not make e-voting compulsory (for many reasons, not least due to poor governance from Dail Eireann, many people still aren't online) and those who felt vulnerable could always opt to continue voting at a polling station.

Online banking systems are not voting systems. There is no requirement for anonymity with online banking. The reverse is true - every transaction needs to be tied to an individual. With voting, anonymity is essential, and this conflicts with the requirement for auditability.

Allowing people to opt to vote at a polling station is no help really, because the big bully just has to bully them to opt-out and vote at home.

Brussels Sprout

Hellrazer wrote: »

My head hurts (more than it did) after reading that and Im still no closer to a definate answer.

Right so here goes.

Hypothetical Constituency--5 seater.

3 FF candidates
3 FG candidates
3 Labour
1 SF
1 Independant.

My preferences are Labour 1.2.3 then FG 4.5.6. the Independant,then SF

How do ensure that none of my transfers get to FF at all or is that even achievable within this voting system?

Vote as follows:

1. Favourite Lab candidate
2. 2nd favourite Lab candidate
3. 3rd favourite Lab candidate
4. Favourite FG candidate
5. 2nd favourite FG candidate
6. 3rd favourite FG candidate
7. Independent Candidate
8. SF candidate

and that's it. If you don't want any transfers going to FF candidates then leave the boxes next to them blank.

ISAW

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

Vote as follows:

Hellraiser. My point is whoever you vote for if they get elected then your vote is used up and it does not matter. If they get elected with a surplus then your vote does matter to the extent of the surplus i.e. if they get two quotas your number two is as good as a number one ( as long as all the other people also voted number 2 for the same person). But if the candidate you pick as number 1 gets in, your number 3 ,4 etc . wont matter. Where number 2 and three really count as good as number 1 is when you vote number 1 for a candidate who does not have a chance e.g. no offence intended natural law party or Christian solidarity party. If you voted 1,2 for them and they got say 50 votes of a 6,000 quota then your number 3 is the same as a number 1. You are not getting an extra vote your vote for the weak candidate is just being re allocated to someone else because your choice of such a weak candidate meant that vote didn't count. The whole idea is to allow people to vote for weaker candidates and prevent someone gotting say 20 per cent but still topping the poll.

Putting a FF candidate at number 9 or 10 won't matter in practice because numbers 1 to eight should have taken up one of the the available seats.

ISAW

Hellrazer wrote: »

My preferences are Labour 1.2.3 then FG 4.5.6. the Independant,then SF

How do ensure that none of my transfers get to FF at all or is that even achievable within this voting system?

Your number 2,3 4, 5 or 6 wont matter if Labour get a seat and your 4,5, and 6 wont matter unless Labour dont get a seat. And you 7 and 8 wont matter unless Lab and FG don't get a seat. What constituency is there in which FG or Lab won't get a seat? Even then your 7 and 8 will still count. but assuming labout dint get a seat and FG didnt and your vote went independent and they didnt get in and transferred to Sf and they didnt get in. the fact that you dont hacve a transfer to FF will make no difference since if FF are still left at that stage they will have won all the seats as nobody else would have got in!

In fact the example is only academic because FF are not running four candidates anywhere for four seats as far as I know.

mccoist

LEAVE THE BOX EMPTY PLEASE
In this election FF are targetting the third seat or last remaining seat in each constituincy. They are hoping to get a result by default ie they will have a certain amount of votes for their one candidatewho will get electedfrom transfers from Fg/Labour and candidates eliminated
This election for them is about finishing third,
FF tactic here will be to rubbish SF the only party to challenge them for third spot
SF finishing up as the recognised opposition party would be a result for the country and really shake wake up a few people