Everything you thought you knew about voting
But were afraid to ask:
I thought that was a clever title… I’m not sure its an exact description of what I’ll be writing about.
I know enough about writing to know the first thing to do is ‘know your audience’ - but I think I’ll be writing for a number of audiences so you’ll need to be patient if I seem to be talking to someone else.
There are, I’d say, at least four audiences when it comes to ‘Electoral Reform’
People who know about and think it’s essential we go for it
People who know about it and think it could end the world.
People who’ve heard about it and are not sure what it has to do with them.
Fish
I’d like to address the first three groups.
First, I’d like to admit this is my first use of the Substack platform so as I write, I know some things will be open to change. That won’t bother you, I hope.
I’ve been reading and thinking and posting about Electoral Reform for a good many years, and I’m not going to be covering everything in my first Substack post. If I have one target for this beginning its to say what all the other posts will be about. So, as I publish posts here, there will be two types:
One type to explain about voting systems, and why I advocate for a system called the Single Transferable Vote (STV). I’ll also try to explain all the plusses and minuses, and give some context and history.
If you think ‘well we voted on this back in 2011’, then I’ll seek to explain why we didn’t
The other type will be an attempt to map the UK into new voting constituencies that could be used for an STV election in the UK.
But before then, I will need to explain what STV is, and I’ll do that in the post after next.
For now, just get used to one simple idea…. Don’t vote with an X, because voting can be as easy as 1, 2, 3… (Or more if you are inclined!)
