Yeah I just woke up in the middle of the night so you’re in luck. :)

I love our voting system. All seems very logical when you have actually been through it once and it makes for a bit of excitement as transfers happen after each count.

You just number your candidates in order of preference essentially. If after a count they haven’t hit the required number for all seats to be filled the lowest gets eliminated. The eliminated candidates 2nd preference votes then become first preference for someone else.

This process repeats until all seats are filled.

I vote all the way down the ballot to the point of choosing between rankings of less desirable candidates until I hit “absolutely fucking not” level but honestly we don’t have too many in that category running here.

Edit: I’ll add that the only real down side is that you need to go off an and actually investigate the policies of independents. Many of them do get elected though.

There are helpful websites that pop up around each election to help. Some of them will ask you a series of questions and then tell you where each candidate falls on the issues you’ve been asked about.

Another edit: I bring my younger kids with me when voting so they get to see it in action and before the point where my choices would affect theirs but it’s taught in schools too. I remember doing mock elections on actual candidates in primary school.