It seems to me that this is not much dissimilar to the first past the post system. Plenty of people, while not being a fan of either major party, will choose to vote for one major party anyway, because they find the idea of the other major party being in power more repulsive than the idea of voting for someone they don't really like. The only way this really differs from proportional voting is that with proportional voting, you get a rough idea of how many of these people are out there.Eternal_Freedom wrote:As I presently understand it, and feel free to correct me, AV allows the possibility of second or third choice candidates coming out on top simply because they were a lot of people's seocnd or third choice.
This strikes me as a "lesser of two evils" type of thing. "Oh, none of the first rank lot got a majority, but look, this bloke got a load of second and third choice votes. Obviously he's the best comprimise."
Is that what this whole thing is? A massive compromise to get a "offends no-one" result rather than "won popular vote?"
I was certainly glad that I had proportional voting in the last election. My Labor Party MP happens to be a right-wing stooge, who I would not miss at all, while voting Liberal would have given Tony Abbott a chance at becoming Prime Minister, which would just be horrendous. Proportional voting allowed me to preference minor parties first, and then Labor above Liberal, which meant that while my vote ultimately went to my Labor Member, I was able to send a message to Canberra that I was not happy with either choice that the major parties presented to me. Had I not had proportional voting, I would have just pinched my nose and voted Labor, because the idea of Tony Abbott becoming Prime Minister scares me more than the idea of not being able to vote for the party that I feel best represents me.