lets make this simple for you fd.

lets say there are 3 candidates and the result is "a"-100 votes, "b"-99 votes and "c"-98votes.  Lets say everyone who votes for "c" only votes for "c". Then "A" scrapes in.  

But in mandatory preferences it could be that "c"'s 2nd pref is "a"20 and "b"78.  Then "b" gets in by 77 votes.  Now dont try to tell me it makes no difference

In op voting both parties "a" and "b" get a kick in the pants and "a" just gets in...  the seat is very marginal...  the party has to work very hard to maintain the seat and to convince those who didn't vote for them to vote for them next time,  Similarly "b" has to work very hard for the "C" votes as well.

In mandatory "B" thinks it romped it in...  oh dear.

it could also work the other way as well where now we get situations where the candidate with the most primary votes or FIRST PREFERENCES gets swamped by preferences form all other parties going to someone else.  Where clearly the FIRST PREFERENCE for everyone in that seat is not elected.

You know life would be much simpler if you could just admit you were wrong in the first place.  

Ahhhhh 98-20=78
78-1=77

hmmmm 

Only to the deluded.

lol

Well considering your other logic, thought I might sell you a bridge.

Yes its 57...  lol  can't fool you eh. 

good grief well whoever "loses" isn't going to think they are better off under any system.

Oh and BTW the 57 vote margin in no way has anything to do with the logic of my or illogic of your argument...  so lets not try that one on eh fd.

57 votes would still be a hefty margin in any election of that size  almost 20% of the vote...  oh dear.  Now don't go and try to make something big about that either.

THE POINT IS>>>>  MANDATORY PREFERENCES DISTORT THE VOTE.  MANDATORY PREFERENCES CAN SEND VOTES TO PEOPLE UNINTENDED BY THE VOTER.  A point already backed up by Muso.

ROTFLMAO

There are none so blind fd.

Even my small examples prove the points. 

Now it's time for me to really stop this crap...  because after 2 shots at it years apart...  I'm just a bit sick of it.

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Actually, they proved mine.

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No it isn't distorting the result. The fact that a person would have preferred a number of people who are no longer candidates to any of the candidates in an election should not reduce the value of their vote. What you are effectively saying is that people who support minor parties are not as important.

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Yes it is. That is exactly what it is.

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You do not contribute to the success of that party over your preferred party. You only ever contribute to the success of a candidate over candidates you consider worse. Your vote cannot possibly work against your interest. This is a fundamental misunderstanding of preferential voting. Basically, you are confusing being forced to vote in a runoff election with a small number of candidates with causing those small number of candidates to be the only ones remaining. This is where you need to get more specific, rather than speaking in broad generalisations. In any election, you can only vote for people who are actually on the ballot. It is merely that same dillemma, just repeated a few times. It is only repeated because there are multiple elections.

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If there are only two people in an election, you have to vote for one of them. This is not a flaw in democracy. You cannot spit the dummy and say you only want to vote for someone who isn't a candidate. That's not how it works. That's all it is. Don't let the fact that you rank candidates mislead you into thinking it is a different problem.

Grendel tried. Now it's your turn. Rather than speaking in broad generalisations, try to give a specific example of how your vote can work against your interest. Just like Grendel, you will find this apparently simple task impossible. Then you will understand why you are wrong.

OK. Here is a simplified explanation:

Mandatory Preferential Voting:

Candidate A gets 95 primary votes
Candidate B gets 105 primary votes

For the sake of the argument, let's not worry about Candidate C. The voters gave equal preferences (5) to each of the major parties.

Of the remainder of the voters, 45 put candidate A as 5th preference and 30 put candidate B as 4th preference. These voters don't really want either of the two to win, but are forced  to put them in some kind of order, so they put them last.

Candidate A gets  95 + 5+ 45 = 145
Candidate B gets  105 + 5 +30 = 140

Candidate A wins, and we have 75 disgruntled people who would rather not have helped either of them win. On primary votes, he would have lost.

Optional Preferential Voting

Those people who don't want to vote for either A or B don't allocate them any preferences. They vote for either C D or E.

Result - Candidate B wins, and we have 75 people who might not like the result, but are at least are comfortable in the knowledge that they had no part in his election.

Now you're going to say that you can look inside the minds of these 75 people and say that they could have put the preferences the other way round, and that they mostly wanted to vote in a major party as a last resort. With OPV, you don't have to look inside their minds.