There are three papers in Voting matters Issue 27, now available at the Voting matters web site:

• The paper by Joseph Durham and Peter Lindener, Moderated Differential Pairwise Tallying, considers a method of electing candidates using a preferential ballot which is quite unlike STV. The paper details the rationale behind the method, using Borda scores and Condorcet as starting points.

  As with all such methods, it is difficult to convince people to use a new system, even given a detailed analysis of its effects. How do voters react to knowing that later preferences can affect the earlier ones?

• In the second paper, David Hill considers the problem of filling a casual vacancy when an election uses the Meek algorithm for STV.
• The last paper, by Philip Kestelman, presents a detailed analysis of the proportionality attained when using the Alternative Vote (or IRV). This is particularly relevant at the moment since the use of AV has been proposed for the UK House of Commons.