evaluation of preferential voting systems
Alternative Vote - Unlimited preferences, one day of voting, all preferences are counted.
Supplementary Vote - preferences limited to 2, one day of voting, only top two candidates considered and only 2nd preferences for either of them counted.
Dual Ballot - No individual preferences, two separate voting days, only able to vote second time, for one of the two candidates left in the race.
Ease of use:
This system is simple to use, although the counting process may be long.
Preferentially: The AV system has a high degree of proportionality, since the voter can rank all the candidates. He is however forced to guess as to how the other candidates are performing.
Under the SV, the voter is limited: If the AV example above had been run under SV, then party C would have been eliminated, and the run off between A & B, without the many more second preferences for C being taken into account.
Finally the Dual Ballot system allows people no opportunity to choose when they first vote, however it does at least provide them (by separating the voting days), with information on which are the top two candidates in the running. If the French Presidential Election was run under AV, it is possible that Balladur might have been elected.
Proportionality:
The alternative vote, if anything, tends to be even more disproportional than the plurality system. In the Australian elections in 1998, John Howard's Liberal/National coalition obtained only 39.4% compared to Labor's 40%. In terms of seats however, the coalition gained 54%, and a comfortable working majority. This result is shown in the table below:
This system tends to favour arrangements, even if not in the shape of a formal coalition. Whenever one party is very unpopular, they will sink further under the AV. IN the 1997 British General Election, with the Tories only gaining 50% of the vote (or first preferences) in 13 out of the 165 seats they won, they would have been very vulnerable to preferential voting, as it must be assumed highly likely that Liberal and Labour voters would each vote for the other in a runoff. The Tories would have had even less seats than a strict application of proportionality would have entitled them to.
Constituency Link: Under preferential voting systems, the constituency link is maintained. National result: As mentioned, plurality systems tend to produce disproportional results, however they can result in greater voter choice. Under FPTP, it would be electorally suicidal for a party to put up two rival candidates; for the French presidency, the two Gaullist candidates split their vote, which under FPTP would have seen the socialist Jospin in the Elysee Palace. As it was, the voter was able to choose between them.
A similar situation was displayed in London, where Labour would not have (or might not have.) run Frank Dobson as an alternative Labour candidate. As it was, the voter had greater choice. An additional point is that these systems tend to give parties more opportunity to make formal/informal arrangements.
In Britain, the Liberal Democrats broke their policy of equidistance (equally positioned in the centre between Labour and the Conservatives), to move nearer to Labour. There was no electoral incentive for them to encourage their supporters to vote Labour, however is there was a system of preferential voting, it is certain that both parties would have come to a formal arrangement.
The case is slightly different in Australia, where the National and Liberal parties are in a permanent coalition, however again, whenever they do stand against each other in a seat, they have a formal arrangement for their second preferences to go to the other candidates.
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