I WOULD like to correct a misunderstanding held by Allan Woodham about the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system of voting (Adver letters, August 8).

Although STV allows the voter to place all the candidates ‘in order of preference’, one does not have to do so; one can register only one’s ‘first preference’, or as many preferences as one chooses. Thus, if one is “loyal to just one party”, one need only vote for that party’s candidate.

However, the very existence of the smaller newer parties and their considerable growth in recent years, demonstrates that a considerable number of citizens are dissatisfied with the two larger older parties.

The STV form of Proportional Representation (PR) negates the need for ‘tactical’ (or ‘negative’) voting that the present system encourages – where a voter votes, not for the person (or party) of their first choice, but for a person of a different party in order to prevent the election of the candidate of a party they dislike!

In a true democracy, Parliament (or local council) should represent ‘the will of the people’ so it should consist of people who command the ‘support’ of the majority of voters. And, once elected, they should represent all their constituents, not just those who voted for them.

MALCOLM MORRISON Prospect Hill Swindon