I want to say a couple of different things.
One is that I've had the experience of having the candidate I voted for get elected, and then in the very next election having to go and campaign against that very same candidate. That's happened to me a couple of times. That's when I quit. I no longer belong to any political parties, because I've just given up on being betrayed.
I don't see how any electoral change is going to change that, but I still favour some electoral change. I like the mixed proportional representation system myself. That's what I would support.
One thing I will say about the current system is that it is honest. When I was a member of a political party, I would do things like volunteer as a scrutineer. I've done it several times for no pay and no benefits at all. It was an interesting experience. I found that the members of other political parties were professional. We worked together. We even did the lists for each other, though we were miles apart, supposedly. We took it as a service to democracy, and I think that's an important thing.
One of the things I'm very concerned about as a former scrutineer is voting machines. Some of the systems that you're proposing involve the use of voting machines. As we saw in 2000 in the United States, and again in 2004, some very hinky things can happen with voting machines, and some very bad people can get elected. Therefore, I'm very concerned about that.
I support a post-referendum. I think that is a very good idea. It's an idea that I've heard here, and I think it would add legitimacy to it. I don't think that this is so complicated an issue that a pre-referendum is necessary, but a post-referendum would be a really good idea.
The other thing I would like to ask you to consider is a negative option ballot. A negative option ballot will work in any electoral system, and it's based on my own personal experience of not really being happy with some of the promises and things that politicians are saying. There's often a candidate that I really don't want to see get elected, and I would really like to ask the returning officer for a negative option vote, which would take away a vote.