dedja wrote:RB wrote:dedja wrote:No electoral system is perfect, but compulsory and preferential voting is heavily biased towards a two party system
Preferential voting is the opposite of heavily-biased towards a two-party system. It makes it much likelier that minor parties/independents draw a significant portion of the vote, because their supporters know their vote will flow elsewhere if they're excluded and not be wasted.
FPTP voting often leads to true two-party systems like America. It imposes strategic dilemmas on folks who prefer minor parties. If we didn't have preferential voting in Australia, for instance, many supporters of minor left and minor right parties would instead opt to vote for Labor and the Coalition respectively.
It's hard for me to think of a voting system that assists non-major parties more than preferential voting, unless you consider proportional voting like we use for the senate.
I was very deliberate in stating … compulsory and preferential voting … we have allowed a massive donkey vote by the virtue of how to vote cards.
Make voting voluntary and I’d agree 100% with you.
I'll have to read your post again after lunch haha.
I'm still not sure how compulsory voting heavily favours the major parties (although perhaps you mean it favours more centrist parties, in which case I'd agree), and I don't think there's any evidence that the donkey vote is massive at all. I'm not sure about the HTV cards bit either as the ones handed out by the majors only really ensure formality, and hardly anyone follows the ones handed out by the minors.