What is the best option for electors in a First Past the Post, Single Member Constituency parliamentary system? Imagine an election is coming up in a few days time. You are talking to 100 people who think and feel very much like yourself and and live in the same constituency. You all know the results from the last election and hence to what extent it is a 'safe seat' or a 'marginal'. You also know what the national polls are saying. - Vote for party A
- Vote for Party B
- Vote for Party C
- Don't vote
- Effect local constituency result (i.e. probability of effecting)
- Effect national result (i.e. probability of effecting)
- Financial effect on me/us
- Social effect on country
- Economic effect on country
- Global effect
- Supporting current democratic process
- Symbolic gesture of solidarity
 Ratings and Weightings are illustrative of course. In Slide 1 the Ratings are those of a person who believes that 100 votes by people like him/her will not effect either the local result or the national result and rates any form of voting bothersome. While avoiding bother is only given 10% weight this is enough to produce Don't vote as the highest scoring option. The other six sets of ratings (Financial.... Symbolic) are the same in all 3 Slides but in slide 2 we have someone who doesn't rate the voting process bothersome and thinks there is some chance of these 100 votes effecting both results if they go to Party A, which they rate as best on private Financial benefit, an attribute to which they give 20% weight. In slide 3 we have a person who gives much more weight to what is socially good for the country as opposed to financially good for themselves. With exactly the same ratings for all 9 Attributes as in Slide 2 we find voting for Party B emerging with the highest score How likely is it that someone's ratings will actually vary as in this illustration? Will it be more likely one party will be rated best on all or most attributes in order to reduce 'dissonance' - and make weighting unnecessary? (Remember, if one option is best or equal best on all attributes in a choice situation, no variation in weightings can prevent it emerging as best overall.)
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