An astonishing quirk of the Lib Dem leadership contest has been revealed and it's the most Lib Dem thing that has ever happened.
You see, the Lib Dems have never been fans of the 'first past the post' voting system - mainly because it prevents smaller parties getting elected.
So instead, they favour a 'single transferable vote' (STV) system - which allows people to vote for their first choice and second choice.
They have several rounds of vote counting, eliminating candidates with the fewest votes as they go and distributing their 'second choice' votes to the stronger candidates.
Once they get to the final two, the second choice votes become moot, because there's nobody left to eliminate.
Still, the party love STV so much that it's in their constitution that they have to use it for elections to all their party positions.
As a result, they now find themselves in the unusual position of having to use STV for the current leadership contest - which is a two-horse race.
So every Lib Dem voting in the contest has to give their first and second choice out of Jo Swinson and Ed Davey.
A Lib Dem source said “all internal elections must be STV, by writ of the constitution. However we are not blind to the humour of this peak Lib Dem predicament.”
