Questions on Electoral Reform

Markus, I think the hypothesis that "STV did not pass because a significant portion of voters favoured an alternative electoral reform" is a great hypothesis for our poll to test. Similar suggestions were made below and this would be a good direction to head in.

"Splitting the vote could end up being exactly the response we want. I offered the possibility that one reason why the STV DIDN'T pass was because of those alternate systems, STV was less preferable to many than one of the other options. It is possible that we could witness exactly the same distribution of STV preference in our question as in the referendum, with most of the split coming from people who voted in favour of keeping the current system."

I disagree with you here. Some of the answers to the proposed questions are electoral systems, while "proportional representation" is a quality of an electoral system. I'm not sure what we would gain from asking this question, as any result could be explained in multiple ways :

Consider if the results of the proposed question were as follows: 80% of respondents think proportional representation is 'best', 20% think STV is "best". Perhaps 100% of people favour STV, 80% because it is proportionally representative and 20% because of some other feature. Or maybe 80% favour another type of electoral system they think is proportional and only 20% think STV is "best". Analysis of the proposed question is impossible and can neither support or refute our hypothesis.