CDR: Re: Parties

[BENHAM TIMOTHY JAMES]

> 
> So, everybody's third choice gets elected, or they take turns
> holding the office, or what?  Weighted voting can work for
> corporate directors or other committees, but for a chief 
> executive?  Even the electoral college sounds better.

In single transferable vote systems the winner is almost always one
of the two candidates with the most first preferences; the minor
party candidates get progressively eliminated and the corresponding
votes distributed to the next in preference order (instead of being
thrown away).

In US terms such a system might have got Bush senior over the line
against Clinton because he would (I presume) have been preferred by
most voters who voted for that fellow with big ears. 

In the coming election it might help Gore overcome Bush because Gore
would be strongly preferred by most voters who are planning to waste
their votes on Nadir.

A system based on weights would, as you suggest, have an excessive
(political) centrist tendency.

Tim