The Think Tank - Think Again: On Monday, Dr Ian Johnston argued that if we want true democracy, we have to move to a "closed-loop" system. People could change their vote as often as they like, with the results being updated in real time, for as many days as it took until a "steady state" was reached. Today you say what you think...



As an engineer, Dr Johnston should know that analogies are usually dodgy and his use of feedback control as an analogy for an ideal electoral system fails on several counts. What is surprising is that he has not understood that preference voting in the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system achieves much of what he hopes for. Voters give their instructions about what to do with their vote, if this or that happens, at the outset. The recent operation of STV in council elections was a big step forward.

It was sullied only by the decision to restrict the number of seats per ward, the backfiring tactic of holding the election on the same day as the Additional Member System (AMS) vote and the poor information campaign prior to the election. Fix these and apply the system to elections for the Scottish Parliament and there would be a transformation.

Tom Gray, via e-mail.

There is a fundamental flaw in the idea. Dr Johnston suggests that the election result would not be finalised until "things have reached a steady state". There is no guarantee that the system will ever reach a steady state. In technical terms, the system may not be stable.

The most likely outcome of such a voting method would be endless oscillation as committed followers of competing parties try every possible combination of votes to ensure that the other lot don't win. Without some way of introducing "damping" into the system, it could easily oscillate forever. To allow people to change their vote requires that the system can identify which votes are cast by which voters. That precludes anonymous voting.

It is not necessary that voters know how their vote will affect the end result. A good electoral system should ensure that each elector can express their genuine preferences in the knowledge that their vote will count. The council elections came closest to achieving this goal.

Geraint Bevan, Glasgow.

It's hard enough getting people to vote once, never mind coming back repeatedly to change their vote. For those who are interested, feedback already exists: the results of the previous election give you a good idea of where to cast a "useful" vote if you want to, or tell you if you are safe to cast a "protest" vote. I agree, though, about the second vote - it's a system hardly anybody understands. How many people realise that it's mainly the "List" vote that decides the make-up of the Parliament? It would be fairer to scrap the second ballot paper and allocate list seats by adding up the "real" votes in constituencies.

Archie, Aberdeen.

This proposal is interesting but unnecessarily complicated. It requires the use of technology that is not widely available and which voters do not yet seem ready to trust. For elections with a great deal at stake, the system would be subject to attack by extreme political groups, foreign governments or big business. It requires there to be a direct link between each voter and the counting procedure, so that the correct vote is changed. At a more fundamental level, tactical voting should not be built into the voting system.

Voters should vote for what they want and we should use a voting system that will give them that (within the agreed limits of proportionality). That is what STV-PR (proportional representation) does, provided the constituencies are large enough. Vote for what you want. If enough other voters agree with you, you will get it.

The Voter, Edinburgh.