“Long before I reached voting age, my father urged me always to vote right down the paper: if there were 14 candidates, you numbered them all. I don’t know whether anyone does this anymore, nor do I get the impression that many people understand why this is the only way of maximising your vote, or that many care one way or the other…”
“…In a scramble to appease an ignorant 140-character populism, several of the party manifestos in this election are proposing radical changes, for example the introduction of list systems, which will diminish, dilute and dull the voice of the individual voter under PR-STV. Such measures appeal to received, reductionist ideas rooted equally in misdirected rage and metropolitan snobbery about what is called clientelism.”
PR System Permits Greater Voter Articulacy But Is Seldom Explained (John Waters, Irish Times)
Which speedily prompted this comment on the IT website from ‘Malleus Malleficarum’:
“You had 4,380 characters (858 words) at your disposal but left your readers none the wiser as to how to use their vote to maximum effect. ”