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Some argue that giving voters more choices is good for democracy. This is not true. There is an artifact in our winner take all system that we should all be aware of before we make such statements. Suppose there are 3 candidates in an election, 2 centrist and one right wing candidate. 40% of the voters want a right wing candidate and 60% want someone centrist. Under our system the right wing candidate would win if the votes are evenly split between the centrist candidates, although 60% does not want him. Our system will not give the right result. The way some countries fix this is to drop the candidate with the fewest votes in the first round, then do a run-off election. In Israel they designed a proportional representation system to overcome this. In Australia (I think), voters rank the candidates (1st Choice, 2nd Choice, 3rd Choice etc), the votes of the weakest candidates goes the 2nd choice of the voters who selected that candidate - this has the same effect as a runoff election.
- http://singaporemind.blogspot.sg/2012/12/ponggol-east-5-corner-fight-hope-it-is.html
- http://singaporemind.blogspot.sg/2012/12/ponggol-east-5-corner-fight-hope-it-is.html