Preferential voting: too much for lj?

[sqbr]

So I'm not that fussed about this lj election, but it seems to be becoming increasingly polarised between two candidates (leggomymalfoy and jameth) That's not neccesarily a bad thing, but I get the feeling people are going "Oh no! Candidate A is catching up, better change my first preference to Candidate B, since they're not my top choice but are stil better than Candidate A".

Which is unneccesary (I think :)): neither of them have anywhere near 50% of the vote, so a vote for them second (or even third, probably) is just as good as a vote for them first, and that way you still get to put whoever you really want to win in first position. (If that is leggomymalfoy or jameth then fine)

I'm inclined to put this down to most lj-ers not being from countries which use preferential voting. Unless I'm just missing something, which isn't that implausible. Anyway, I don't care that much, but I'm a fan of democracy and this is unneccesarily undemocratic.

*thinks about it some more*
*confuses self*

Comments

[edible-hat.livejournal.com]

Preferential voting: You number the candidates in order of your preference.

If nobody wins a clear majority on number 1s, the person with the least 1s is out and their votes go to whoever the voters wrote as number 2.

And so on until a winner emerges.

Basically it's a way you can vote for a third party candidate and still help get rid of the major party you dislike.