Raph Frank > Sent: Sunday, August 17, 2008 11:33 PM > > On Sun, Aug 17, 2008 at 10:29 PM, Juho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > One could also complete short votes (at least by default) to something > > longer (e.g. party preferences or just party as a whole) to get rid of > > this problem. > > That is another option, the Australians seem to be against > the concept of exhausted ballots. The vote could be extended > by the party list of the voter's first choice.
But none of these would be STV-PR. They would be yet more variants of party-list PR. Australia introduced compulsory voting in 1924 and compulsory marking of preferences against all candidates in Federal Senate STV elections in 1934. I cannot find the reference for it, but I recall the 1934 change was prompted by the large amount of "bullet voting" at the previous election. Here are some more data on exhausted ballot in real STV-PR elections: TASMANIAN HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY POLLS 1913-2006: INCIDENCE OF EXHAUSTED VOTES http://home.vicnet.net.au/~prsa/history/tas_exha.htm James No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 7.5.526 / Virus Database: 270.6.4/1616 - Release Date: 16/08/2008 17:12 ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info
