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TraderJoe comments on Imperfect Voting Systems - Less Wrong
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Also,. I was one of the most active pro-AV campaigners in that referendum, and it seemed to me that a large number of people made their decisions based on political grounds rather than on what they thought of the system -- the single question I got asked the most by people when campaigning was "Will it make it more easy for X to get in?"
But it certainly wasn't a case of just Lib Dems and no-one else supporting AV -- AV got 33% in the referendum while the Lib Dems only got 17% on the same day's council elections (and indeed while campaigning I met quite a few Lib Dem voters who were going to vote against AV).
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No, you didn't -- I was just saying that while a majority, probably nearly everyone, did vote on similar lines to what you talked about ("how does it affect the party I support?"), not everyone did -- even assuming that everyone in the 28% of people who didn't vote for one of the two biggest parties followed their party's line and supported AV in the referendum (and of course not all those parties did support it), that still leaves 5% of people who voted either Tory or Labour but still voted yes in the referendum.
Which is a rather comforting thought, as it suggests that at an absolute minimum 5% of voters can be trusted to make their minds up on an issue independently of what the party they support thinks of it. Probably more than that.
I just ran across an old interesting three part look at the rationality and psychology of voting.
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Given that the referendum wasn't on STV, but on AV, perhaps it's a good thing you didn't vote.
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The whole point of the distinction is that STV doesn't have a single winner. AV is used for elections with a single winner, STV for elections in multi-member constituencies. Because it's only used in single-member constituencies, AV can never be proportional, while STV in multi-member constituencies usually produces a roughly proportional outcome.
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The point is that the incentives for tactical voting linked to in the OP are not there for STV but are for AV, and that when you're talking about a Parliamentary election, electing 600 individuals by AV gives VASTLY different results to having 120 constituencies each elect five members by STV. You might as well say "I don't see a need for a separate name for subtraction -- it's just another name for addition to specify addition of negative numbers". When two processes have very different outcomes, even if the processes are similar, that's sufficient reason to distinguish them.
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You are missing something. There is no such thing as STV 'under a single winner per constituency model'. STV is a system for deciding winners in multi-member constituencies.
There are two main axes for voting systems -- preferentiality and proportionality. STV is both preferential and proportional. AV is preferential but can't be proportional because it's for electing single members. First Past The Post is neither preferential nor proportional, and the bloody stupid d'Hondt system we use for European elections is proportional but not preferential.
This is not a matter of semantics. In AV you're voting for a single representative, in STV for multiple representatives. In AV if one candidate gets over 50% on first preferences that's the end, in STV preferences continue to count until all members have been elected. STV produces proportional results, AV exaggerates swings. They're similar in that the voter gets to rank candidates by order of preference, but the process of counting, and the results, will be wildly different.
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That's neither STV nor AV, just some random mad system you've made up yourself where you've changed the rules half-way through!