Well, here is where proportional representation actually is supposed to make sure informed votes are made. People just need to know the people they are voting for since their top choices are the only ones that matter. To vote under the Pacifica system, you order your votes by your favorite candidates.
So if everyone knows their first choice well, everyone is casting an informed vote. Yes, they may not know if some of the candidates running might be better, but then they also don't know if candidates who didn't run at all might have been better still. At least the people who win have to be passionately supported by the people who did vote for them.
The upside and downside the Pacific voting system- Single Transferable Vote-- like any proportional voting system, is that is cannot produce a diverse and sometimes contentious polarization of different viewpoints. Instead of electing consensus leaders with broad support by the majority of voters, you have passionately supported candidate who each represent the views of possibly a small minority of voters. So you end up needing a lot more negotiation among the elected candidates to create stable majorities on the elected body itself.
Buy hell, people on this list talk all the time about how the US electoral system is so terrible and we need proportional representation so that "real" parties could emerge. That's what Pacifica has, for better or for worse.
Nathan Newman