The Alternative Vote – a good electoral system  

THAT got your attention, didn’t it? But despite my commitment to keeping First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) for elections to the House of Commons, I should perhaps flesh out my views, which are just a tad more sophisticated (“tad”, in this contest, meaning “infinitesimal” or “an amount that is negligible”) than might have been deduced from previous postings on the subject. AV is a good system for filling a single position. If Britain had an elected president, for example, he or she would probably be elected by AV, or at least in a run-off ballot. That would make sense. Similarly, if a local party is choosing a parliamentary candidate, AV is the best system to secure the maximum amount of support for the victorious candidate from party members. And, yes, when electing the leader of a party, AV’s the system to use. But when you’re electing 650 people...