Tactical Voting - a novel approach

Dear Platonians,

Plato has been seduced by GE antics to post much of anything in AGES and now she's just getting back in the saddle.

Here is a fabulous pee-take by John Loony on www.politicalbetting.com


"As we’re in the mood for discussing bonkers electoral systems, here is one which I invented aseveral years ago. It was inspired by the Winchester result in 1997, when the Lib Dem won by 2 votes.:


Premise:
In Winchester in 1997, some Labour supporters voted Lib Dem tactically because they wanted to get out the Conservative. Some thought that it was a safe Conservative seat anyway, so stayed voting Labour. But seeing the result, they wished they had voted tactically for the Lib Dem (and would have been happy to do so). Similarly, some Conservative supporters might have voted Lib Dem because thy wanted to protest against the Conservative Party, but were not expecting the Conservative actually to be defeated. Another problem is that lots of people voted Labour in desperation, wanting the Conservative government to be defeated, but were shocked by size of the national landslide.


Solution: Chronological Tactical Voting
In the polling booth, there is a computerised voting/counting machine. The computer tells the voter what the result of the election is so far, based on the votes cast already. It gives the number of votes cast so far in the constituency, and also the number of seats for each party in the country as a whole (also based on who is in the lead so far in each constituency).


Voters who are strong supporters of one particular party go and vote early, because they want to vote for their chosen party regardless of tactical considerations. Voters who want to vote tactically go and vote later, so that they can get a good idea of how the result is likely to go. As they leave the voting booth, their memory is wiped so that they can’t leak the result so far to anybody else - people still have the excitement of watching the results show on TV.


Variation: Instant Tactical Voting
Everybody in the whole country is wired up to a voting machine all at the same time.
Everybody votes, by selecting their chosen candidate.
The voting machine instantly counts the votes and gives a result after a few seconds - again, both for the individual constituency, and for the seats for the nation as a whole.
After allowing everybody a minute or so to consider the result, the machine asks “Considering the result you have provisionally given, do you want to reconsider your choice?”.
Supporters of minor parties in marginal constituencies will transfer their votes to the top two candidates, if they are in the mood to do so.
Supporters of the winners in safe seats may transfer their votes to a minor party, to make a protest.
Various other voters will vote differently, according to the results they’ve seen and the overall result they would prefer.
After everybody votes for the second time (all at the same time), the process is repeated. It continues for several iterations until the overall result converges and settles on a final result."

Brilliant!