A brilliant alternative to first-past-the-post and proportional representation?

A brief foray into politics here, folks.

Firstly, I want to stress that I did not invent this idea - I read it in the Guardian a few years' back.

Secondly, I want to stress that I was up until 8am and have had about three hours' sleep.

The system of electoral reform I am about to fling out there to the masses was devised by a group of mathematicians and its beauty is in its simplicity. I cannot find the original article and will amend this blog to post it should anyone be able to find it.

It goes like this: You walk into your polling station and you take your ballot paper and you mark a cross next the the name of every candidate whom you find acceptable. You may mark as many or as few boxes as you wish.

All the votes for every candidate are then added up. Each cross in each box on each ballot paper carries the same weight in the count - there is no preference.

The winner of the election is the candidate who has been voted as acceptable by the most people in that constituency.

Example: I put a cross next to Labour, Liberal Democrats, Green - these are the parties whose policies I find tolerable. You put a cross next to Lib Dem, Conservative. Someone else votes Lib Dem, Labour and Socialist Worker Party.

In the above instance, the Liberal Democrats are the party acceptable to all three voters, and so they win the seat.

Beautiful, no?

Any feedback by cleverer/less exhausted people welcome. And I should say that I don't call the above system proportional representation because I was told last night (by someone who knows more about maths and statistics than me) that it isn't strictly PR. Willing to be corrected on that, too!

Happy hung parliament, folks.