Greens candidate eh? Mr Google eh? Maybe in an Indonesian court.

Well let’s see what Mr Google really has to say about Penekiko:
For more information contact Kaye Mackay (03) 5*85 6773
... Hot Topic, penis size, penekiko, 4, 239. 02-12-05 12:01 PM. Hot Topic,Fantasies w/ Interracial sex partner, 247brother, 4, 385. 02-12-05 02:55 AM ...Find your name in Hawaiian....English to Hawaiian name translations!... Benedict - Penekiko Benetta - Peneka Benigno - Penikeno Benilde - PenileBenisse - Penike Benita - Penika Benjamin - Peniamina Benjie - Peni'i ...

That’s right, I’m a female interracial sex partner by the name of Benedict with a hot topic penis size and who has fantasies for standing as a candidate for the greens and if you want more information please contact kaye mackay.

As a lecturer at the social work department of the University of Western Australia, couldn’t your research be better? Which begs the question: “and what does the elusive ‘Mr Google’ have to say about Paul Murphy?” http://www.googlism.com/index.htm?ism=paul+murphy&type=1

So does OptionalPV really turn into a quasi FPP model? Or is it more democratic than CompulsoryPV as Antony says? I am really confused. I need an anchor in this relativistic world.

Col, Where habe Ich advocated proportional representation? Ich think our 150 lowerhouse electorates ist gut, mit Condorcet voting mit eine schulze methodolgie, ja?

Given your opinions aker, I think you need to go to http://www.electionmethods.org/ and become a schulze subscriber with our current single member electorates.

There are lots of Paul Murphys, and there may be many Penekikos. I'm not a WA Uni lecturer. I'm a Sydney actuary.

One of the (doubtless numerous) Penekikos had a home page at the site of the Victorian Greens. It has disappeared in the last 24 hours. The home page led to info about one of the Greens Senate candidates with a surname similar to Penekiko.

Candidate Penekiko is connected with the Two Bays branch. So is Kaye Mackay, who is mentioned in this forum’s Penekiko’s latest missive along with most of her phone number.

So there is an opportunity for the forum Penekiko and the candidate Penekiko to connect and form a Penekiko club.

Mysterious, it is unforunate that the website was taken down in the last 24 hours. There was a link to the greens website with a google search on penekiko, but only a kaye phone number, no penekiko coming-out-of-the-closet-society. Anyone wanting to interrogate kaye (myslef included) will have to try 10 different numbers, or do a google search. So I must apologise Paul, your Google search was indeed very revealing and sophisticated, the internet is not all that annoymous.

My real, just as obscure name was related to a federal candidate for the south australian senate, who was arrested for sabotaging a shipment of live sheep.

You may now officially address me as Pope Benedict XV.

OK, Penekiko, your real name is connected to a South Australian vegan Senate candidate. The SA vegan candidates were Ralph Hahnheuser and Benno Lang. I would like to think that you are related to Chuck Hahn. He makes great beer.

Getting back to the actual forum, Antony's topic is optional preferences but a lot of the discussion has concerned proportional voting. Some posters have assumed that this is self evidently more democratic than single member seats and have asked why psephologists do not say so.

I'm not a pseph, but I konw that democracy works when it gives effect to the voters intent.

Most Australians accept that our lower house vote is a "winner take all" vote on who wins government and that our upper house vote is a vote on the proportionate shares in the house of review. More than 80% of us vote for a major party in the lower house.

The majority of us accept that we are playing winner take all in the lower house. Sometimes we lose and sometimes we win. But we get a government that can govern. Usually it is constrained by the upper house.

People who want proportional voting in the lower house and consequent ineffectual government are in the minority. It is not democratic to give them their voting system.

I am flabbergasted that FPP [first-past-the-post] can be considered more amenable to accountable representation than PR [proportional representation].
This reverses reality. FPP actually renders accountability impossible.
Accountability only makes sense when the representative is a member of the constituency he represents - based on a coherent set of views, values and intentions.
The notion that a representative can actually represent people who hold views, values and intentions that disagree with his own, is absurd.
All existing electorates - based on place of residence - include a bewildering array of views, values and intentions - many of which are seriously opposed to others. There is no way a single representative can either represent or be accountable to such a diverse constituency.
In contrast, PR would make genuine representation and accountability possible.
But PR itself would not be possible without a complete rebuilding of the electoral system.
If such reforms are utopian, then democracy is utopian, and perhaps we would all be better off if we stopped pretending that our society is democratic.
Wise government requires consideration of the widest possible range of views and evidence - diversity. FPP suppresses diversity. Likewise for WTA elections generally - winner-takes-all. PR would allow diversity.
Existing electoral systems are a monstrous confidence trick whereby all power ends up in few hands.

Aker – if you think the idea of multiple subgroups of politicians all with the conflicting agendas from their diversity of views works better than the Westminster system – I suggest you study Italian politics of the post WWII years – the problem ends up of deals within deals and wheels within deals which keeps the electorate busy in a cycle of eternal re-election – result – governmental paralysis and instability.

I am sorry that you seem not to “get it” but reality is “FPP”, with the elected representative directly identifiable and accountable to a given “electorate” IS A MORE EFFECTIVE AND DEMOCRATIC PROCESS than the arms-length type of relationship which exists between the electorate and some “proportionally determined” representative(s), where buck passing becomes endemic. Regardless of the theory – it is the practice which matters and FPP tops PR any and every day.

As I said somewhere up the page, Democratic process are not perfect and some will always find fault with them. However, they are just so much "better" than any of the alternatives