To start, I think first past the post leads to distortions and a significant disconnect between voter intention and results. It could also lead to strategic voting, which creates a second level of distortion between stated preference and actual preference.
I believe most people are voting for ideas rather than people, even though we have the formal voting for the person. However, I'm also not willing to give up on the possibility of calling my MP. I would like a system that does have some sort of MP who is mine, even if there's one or more of them. In terms of simplicity, I do still like the idea of a ranked ballot. It's possible that maybe, just with an implementation that an X means one and nobody else, that's an adequate addressing of the actual boots-on-the-ground issue. It is complicated.
I also want to talk about mandatory voting, Internet voting, and young people who are of voting age. With mandatory voting, I think it just papers over the problem. If we're concerned about people not coming out to vote, I think it's that they're more disengaged as opposed to lacking an incentive to show up to the polls. I'd prefer if we didn't have people walking into a voting booth, blindfolded, playing “pin the tail on the ballot”.
As an IT person, I would like to repeat the concerns about Internet voting. We have seen the experience with voting machines below the border. They're programmed to trick the voter into choosing against their actual preference. The straight-up reporting of inaccurate results....
How much time do I have?