@AJHenderson CGP Grey's videos on different voting systems go into them in some depth, and demonstrate the flaws in FPTP. He also has a couple on the US electoral college, which is just weird.
I'm more used to forms of STV in which you have as many votes as there are candidates, but the general purpose of STV is that you can simply vote your preferences, without having to worry about what other people are doing. — TRiGJul 25 '13 at 21:42
:16257802 FPTP voting adds inertia to the political system. PR (PR-STV as in Ireland, or the proposed AV method the UK rejected, or a couple of alternatives) destabilise it a little, making it easier for outsiders to disrupt the status quo. It makes coalition governments more likely, which might make the govt less powerful, but also more representative of the populace.
At least the electoral college is only about the election of one person, though your president probably has too much power. The USA is, really, an early draft at democracy, and later attempts have learned from your mistakes and done a lot better. Unfortunately, the USA insists on imagining itself as unique, refuses to learn from anyone else, also refuses to learn from its own history, imagines that things as the are now are the way things have to be, and so refuses to reform
