1) It has been shown time and again that STV where it is used does NOT give PR. The number of seats under STV usually does NOT reflect the parties' shares of the vote.
That’s funny. The websites of the Australian Electoral Commission, the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland and even Wikipedia describe STV as proportional representation. But let me guess: they all believed the fast ferries were a good idea?
And the published election results that I’ve found have all shown accurate election results. Even the results that you tried to spin as non proportional were proportional. You’re just making up stuff now.
2) Having MUCH LARGER electoral districts does away with local representation completely for all but the densest parts of the urban core (What do you know, that's where all the pro-stv people live)
Actually, no, it’s in fact our current system that does away with local representation because of the low threshold of victory. A candidate needs only 40% of the vote in a riding to win a seat, so he/she simply needs to concentrate on the dense urban areas to ensure election.
On the other hand, with BC-STV, candidates will need roughly 80% of the vote per riding to get elected. Concentrating on dense urban cores will not be enough to get elected meaning that they will have to pay attention to all areas.
3) More options does NOT equal more power, it just equals more work to fill out the ballot. Choices does NOT equal power, in fact it means the dilution of votes and voter power.
I see. So by your reasoning, that must mean that LESS choice means more power. Therefore, if we simply take away our right to vote altogether, then, by your logic, that should be the ultimate level of voter empowerment. Good times!
More choice does mean more power for the simple reason that voters not only choose which party they want to vote for but also which candidate from that party. Candidates have to be more accountable to voters because if they don’t, voters now have the option of voting for another candidate of the same party. There’s no dilution.
The election of candidates from fringe parties has been shown time and again to be a major flaw with any sort of STV or PR system. Those fringe candidates prove to be nothing but an annoyance and a distraction and anything that they do achieve serves only their small special interest minority and NOT the general population.
Look at how many absurd concessions the ultra-religious parties have gotten from governments when they held the balance of power by electing only 1 or 2 members out of 100s.
Baseless fearmongering again. I already posted on this so I’ll just post it again.
Look at what happened recently in the federal minority government situation. Imagine the disaster of having Jack Layton in cabinet! You think the economy is bad now? Wow.. imagine what it would look like with Layton as finance minister!
As already mentioned, minorities under PR are not the same under FPTP. As treveller already posted, FPTP creates distortions of the vote so that small shifts in the popular vote lead to huge swings in seats that are awarded. That means that one or the other major parties are forever itching to trigger an election and the other major party is beholden to the smaller parties to prop up government.
Since these distortions of the vote are removed under PR, neither major party has the incentive to pull an election and, therefore, do not require support of the fringe parties. Again, the last three minorities in Ireland have lasted 5 years each.
