During the general election next week here in the Canadian province of British Columbia we will be asked if we would like to change our voting system from the usual "First Past The Post" or "Winner Take All" system to a form of proportional representaion known as "Single Transferable Vote" or STV. In STV you get to specify which candidate would be your first choice, which your second choice, and so on. It is used in Australia for the upper house, in Malta, and in Ireland.

I favour proportional representation because it allows marginal parties like the Greens to get a toe-hold in the legislature and I was going to vote for STV but now I'm having second thoughts. I have recently heard a plausible non-reactionary activist state that STV is a phony proportional rep system and, for example, has led to decades of one-party rule in Ireland. Our local centre-right "natural ruling party" supports STV, which also makes me wary.

Can any Irish, Maltese, or Aussie 'catters advise? What do other BC-ians think?