> The method used in Ireland is the Contingent Vote. There > cannot be more than two rounds of counting, because all > but the top two are eliminated in one step, if there is no > majority in the first round.
Sorry to jump in on a (relatively) minor point.? I am 99% sure this is not correct.? The constitution requires that PR-STV be used to elect the president.? Ofc, this can be defined by the Dail via legislation, but I don't think switching to contingent vote would be considered consistent with the constitution. I think you may have misinterpreted the system because of the multiple elimination rule The result after round 1 was 45.24%) McAleese 29.30%) Banotti 13.82%) Scallon 6.96%) Roche 4.69%) Nally The rule is that you can eliminate a group of the lowest candidates as long as the sum of their vote is lower than the vote of the next highest candidate.? The theory is that that even if they all transferred their votes to one of the group, that candidate would still be eliminated anyway as they wouldn't have less votes than any candidate outside the group.? This is somewhat equivalent to declaring a candidate with the majority of the remaining votes a winner because even if all the other candidates transfer their votes to a single one of them, they will still have less votes than the one with the majority. Nally + Roche + Scallon = 25.47% This is lower than Banotti's total (29.30%), so all 3 can be eliminated in one go. Thus round 2 only contains McAleese and Banotti. In effect, round 2,3 and 4 are skipped as it no matter how the transfers go, Nally, Roche and Scallon would be eliminated in that order.? In fact, sometimes the order isn't known for sure, just that they would all be eliminated for sure. For example, if the votes were N: 6 R: 7 S: 12 B: 30 Then it could go one of two ways If Nally transfers mostly to Roche, then after he is eliminated, it becomes R: 13 S: 12 B: 30 The elimination order is N->S->R OTOH, if the votes are split more evenly, it would be something like R: 10 S: 15 B: 30 The elimination order is N->R->S In both cases, N, R and S are eliminated before Banotti. Thus it might look like contingent vote but is actually PR-STV (single seat). Raphfrk -------------------- Interesting site "what if anyone could modify the laws" www.wikocracy.com ________________________________________________________________________ AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now.
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