In my constituency, for example, last time there were eight candidates. Assuming I used all my preferences (and I would, to ensure the Christian Party were firmly at the bottom) that would give me 8! different possible rankings—roughly sixteen bits of information I could put into the system, rather than one.
A nitpick—but a vote for one of 8 candidates usually carries around 3 bits of information.
A nitpick—but a vote for one of 8 candidates usually carries around 3 bits of information.
That’s assuming that any of the candidates other than the top two matter to the final result.
Well, you can’t have 16 bits and 1 bit. If it’s 16 bits it is surely 3 bits.