A chara, – Eoin Curtin (October 6th) raises the interesting possibility of introducing a “negative vote” into our electoral system. In fact, the Single Transferable Vote effectively already allows this, and is one of the few electoral systems in the world to do so. Voters can make a statement that they do not wish to have a candidate X (re-)elected by continuing their preferences all the way to the end of the ballot paper, and placing candidate X last. Voters in many constituencies may do well to bear this strategy in mind at the next election. – Is mise,