To AV, or not to AV?

[Tezcatlipoca]

Re. "AV is too complicated / AV is too confusing"...

[Partially pinching from my own post in the original thread]

Although the UK only uses FPTP for electing MPs, it is not the only electoral system used in this country.

N. Ireland uses STV for local, European, and Assembly elections. Scotland uses STV for local elections. The Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and Greater London Assembly use AMS. Great Britain uses the Party List system for European elections.

Those are all more complicated than FPTP. If people across the UK can handle those various systems, surely they could handle AV?

How hard would it be to explain how to vote in an AV-based General Election? How complicated or confusing would it be?

You just rank the candidates in order of preference, until you have no preferences left. If you only want to rank one, you can. If you want to rank three, you can. If you want to rank them all, you can. Surely people can understand that?

OK, there's more to it than "Put an 'X' next to the candidate you want. You may only vote for one candidate", but it's hardly complicated, though, and there'd be voter education if it went ahead.

What's wrong with e.g. ...

"Put a "1" next to your first choice candidate, a "2" next to your second choice candidate, and so on. You may vote for as many candidates as you wish, from just one candidate only through to all [six] candidates."

Is that really too complicated for the British voting public? Are they really too stupid to understand something as simple as that?

Originally Posted by Hugh

tbf, the "Yes" campaign have sometimes been a little flexible with the facts, re "The Tories elect their leader under AV".....

Neither side have covered themselves in glory, imho.

True. I don't think anything the "Yes" campaign has claimed has been anywhere near as bad as the some of the stuff the "No" campaign has come out with, however, plus at least they haven't used emotive scaremongering either.

Has the "Yes" campaign actually said the Tories use AV, rather than just say that they don't use FPTP?

The ERS only says that Labour & the Lib Dems use AV, while all I can find on the "Yes" website is "Political parties use it to elect their leaders".

Originally Posted by Stephen

I'm voting No for the reason that it should be one person one vote.

Pick the candidate you want to vote for and not a few others you might like just in case.

AV is still "one person one vote".

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=55

http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/d...0FAQ%20web.pdf

http://www.yestofairervotes.org/pages/av-myths


And if you don't have any preferences other than your number 1 choice, you simply do not mark any candidates other than that one.

Just got back from the polling station having put a big fat X next to the 'NO'.

I can't believe how hard the Scotland Office is trying to sabotage the Holyrood elections yet again though - the referendum ballot is grey, the constituency ballot for Holyrood is (allegedly) lilac - but unless you hold the two side by side in a very well lit room, it's damned hard to tell them apart.

I predict more than a few will end up in the wrong ballot box.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Damien

Voted Yes this Morning.

It's not going to win but I prefer some adjustment to the situation now. I live in a very safe Tory seat, the constituency contains some very wealthy areas of the UK but the town I live is more middle class to working class. We tend to return a mix of all three parties in the council election. Either way, My vote is often utterly pointless, along with most of my town, because the towns of the other side of Epping Forrest will return the same Tory MP.

I there are plenty of valid reasons to vote No. However the No campaign has been an utter disgrace, making up complete fabrications in their posters it's a wonder they got away with it. They made up the cost of the £250 million to switch to AV (And then had posters with babies saying they needed medical care and not a new voting system) when they included the cost of the referendum itself, voting machines that won't be needed, and invented another £50 million from heaven knows where.

I find myself agreeing with you. I am in a safe labour seat, so different party but same boat, useless vote every general election. The last election my MP was done for corruption on a prime time documentary and in combination with labour's poor time under brown still managed a majority in excess of 7k, labours lowest for 20 years on the seat and likely will be bottomed out at that. I got a NO leaflet through the door, read it and found they pount their points across well, but the problem was as you noticed a lot of it was rubbish made up but people will believe it, the leaflet was designed in my view to make people scared of change as it used a lot of fear tactics. Incidently I got no yes leaflet, so either the yes campaign has less funding or they less organised.

Originally Posted by Matt D

And if you don't have any preferences other than your number 1 choice, you simply do not mark any candidates other than that one.

This is the fatal flaw in AV: The grand claim that every MP has to achieve 50% support in order to get elected. Even if we leave aside the somewhat optimistic claim that a 2nd or 3rd preference vote amounts to anything like 'support', the fact is, if enough people fail to mark anything more than a first preference on their paper, sooner or later a returning officer is going to find out he's run out of papers to re-allocate before anyone in his constituency has crossed the magic 50% winning line.

AV is entirely capable of electing MPs who don't get that 50%. It isn't worth the name 'PR', is as likely to result in un-proportional results and frankly those who are enthusiastic about proportional representation should be campaigning against AV fervently.

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Chris

I can't believe how hard the Scotland Office is trying to sabotage the Holyrood elections yet again though - the referendum ballot is grey, the constituency ballot for Holyrood is (allegedly) lilac - but unless you hold the two side by side in a very well lit room, it's damned hard to tell them apart.

I predict more than a few will end up in the wrong ballot box.

Yep. Plus the party ballot sheet is freaking huge. That coupled with the small slot in the ballot box made it pretty difficult to post in.

Purely as an aside how come most other countries you see have clear ballot boxes but the UK ones are dark so you can't see inside them?

[Skyranger]

Trouble is that if the vote results in a 'no' to AV then the 'yes' campaigners will say that under an AV system they have won.

Personally I'd just like rather more of the electorate to get off their arses and go and vote.That way we might just make that 50% quorum.

There is no quorum - that amendment was eventually defeated. In any case it would have been 40%.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

Personally I'd just like rather more of the electorate to get off their arses and go and vote.That way we might just make that 50% quorum.

I hope you understand why normal elections get low turnouts, as FPTP is just aweful.

For this I cant vote as nothing came in the post.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Derek

Yep. Plus the party ballot sheet is freaking huge. That coupled with the small slot in the ballot box made it pretty difficult to post in.

I can entirely empathise with trying to get something large into a small slot.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I need to complain to someone, I registered for postal voting before the last election, since then I get nothing in the post at all, not even the traditional polling card.

I'd complain to Royal Mail...

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I can entirely empathise with trying to get something large into a small slot.

Break the chocolate bar into smaller pieces....

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Break the chocolate bar into smaller pieces....

Well AV certainly hasn't captured the imagination here - a very slow day according to the officials at our polling station.

I haven't voted ,to be honest i forgot all about it .From my point of view it seems to have crept up on me .I knew it was happening but until this morning i was never sure exactly what date and couldn't be arsed to find out because i really don't give a smeg

[Gary L]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Break the chocolate bar into smaller pieces....

We don't get it, Hugh