Rev 06 Dec 25
We have made a significant optional[1] change to the voting system this year. We have done this to lessen the chance that your vote will be wasted and at the same time to make you more free to vote for the candidate really you want to be your MP.
Write “1” or “X”[2] on the ballot paper against your preferred candidate. You then have the option to write “2” against your 2nd choice, “3” against your 3rd choice, and so on for as many candidates as you wish.
If a candidate gets more than 50% of top choices, they are elected. If there is no such winner then one candidate is eliminated, and votes for them are transferred to the next choice of their supporters. And so on until a 50% winner emerges.
When a candidate is to be eliminated it is the one with the smallest number of (top choice) votes[3]. But if you voted for them and if you have offered further choices then your vote will continue to count until all your choices have been used up. So you can give your first choice to the one you really want without fear that such a vote is going to be wasted.[4]
[1] We consider it important to tell voters that they are allowed to say what their choices would be if their first choice fails, and not required to.
[2] The “X” option is not usual in preferential voting systems. It is proposed because it avoids an unnecessary break with the past, and because it allows a vote to be declared valid even if the voter spurns the preferential option and votes the old way, accidentally or deliberately.
[3] That is the only rule which can reasonably be applied while we have a purely manual vote counting system.
[4] Unfortunately, that is slightly less than 100% true. The need for tactical voting is not entirerly removed by the proposed system. For example, if a candidate is everybody’s second choice they will be the first eliminated, but if they had enough first choices to survive that then they are more than likely to then collect enough votes from eliminated candidates to end up being elected.
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ChatGPT version of that:
What is Preferential Voting (PV)?
Preferential Voting is a one-member, one-round system that lets voters rank candidates in order of preference:
- Put a “1” next to your first choice
- A “2” next to your second choice
- A “3” next to your third choice, and so on
Under the optional version we’re proposing:
- You may rank as many or as few candidates as you like.
- If you only want to back one candidate, you can still just mark a single “X” or “1” – your choice.