Referendum on AV

What is all this yes/no stuff going on at the moment.
It seems I need to vote either way on May 5th. I don't like not voting as people died for my vote blah blah.....

But this time it seems everyone is lying. If I vote yes, does that mean things will change?

What to do?

It's about how votes are counted, yeah but no but yeah...

Yes, defiantly (definately) vote, but if you don't like the options explain that on your ballot paper. All spoilt ballot papers are read by representatives of each party (it's why they are at the count) that way you complete your democratic right to vote which as you say people have and are dying for - and you get your message across.

If in doubt, probably, vote for change.

an anti-av lady knocked on my door and explained it to me

Basically AV means that if the party you voted for are knocked out, your second choice is counted

I agreed with her but antagonised her anyway, for interrupting my saturday morning

I'm sick of doorknocking batsards round here. I actually shout "go away" now.
Polite but firm.

AV is probably the weakest of all proportional representation voting systems, but it's still a vast improvement on the first past the post system we have now, where the two main parties take it in turns to get approx 40% of the votes cast, but at least 60% of the seats in the House of Commons. That's not democracy.

I think it should be your vote counts for your area, but then the total of the parties' votes in the country make the winning prime minister

do you think this is a rubbish plan? what do I know?

AV is probably the weakest of all proportional representation voting systems, but it's still a vast improvement on the first past the post system we have now, where the two main parties take it in turns to get approx 40% of the votes cast, but at least 60% of the seats in the House of Commons. That's not democracy.

AV's not perfect by any means but FPP is only good for the big two parties, and haven't they had enough goes at fucking up the country? Why not try something else? Even if it doesn't work it'll be easier then to change it again. Resisting electoral reform smacks of desperate clinging to power.

I think it should be your vote counts for your area, but then the total of the parties' votes in the country make the winning prime minister

do you think this is a rubbish plan? what do I know?

kind of like MMP, lots of countries have this system.

I think I heard on the radio that there's only 3 countries with AV, and 2 of them want to get rid of it

It's quite simple really, like the rules of cricket. You might win, in which case you haven't lost, assuming you've come third out of 5 entrants, in which case you're a loser, yet a loser who has won. Paradoxically, the winner, or he/she who has not lost, can lose, but not if they place first. Second, third or fourth, or losing, can still ensure a win. But not if the winner wins, because he wins due to not losing.

Or just tick a single box.

I think I heard on the radio that there's only 3 countries with AV, and 2 of them want to get rid of it

the pamplet I got in the mail mentioned this. Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
It's called STV in Australia and works fine. Fiji is a Army-run dictatorship and PNG is pretty lawless at the best of times. I wouldn't read too much into this statistic.

So a Yes means I am voting for AV which is only slightly more democratic than what we currently have, but still not that democratic?

yes, sort of.
but it's seen as a stepping-stone to what could be a more just system by those who (rightly in my opinion) support a greater reform of the voting system.

not that that should be a reason to vote for it..

Its not perfect, but is an improvement on FPTP and as irisque says it might pave the way for increased proportionality in the future. Osborne has come out and said a no vote closes the matter for the future, and I tend to think that although the referendum is on AV, a no vote will be interpreted as "the people voted to keep FPTP" rather than "they didn't vote for AV". A yes vote will enable further reform to be built upon it, I'm hoping for a yes and then some proper referendums like are happening in New Zealand, preferably with a short list of other electoral systems to be used. To those who say yes to AV will kick further reform into the long grass I say poppycock! It has already encouraged debate on FPTP and other systems, bare in mind FPTP isn't used by that many countries some of which don't have the best record for democracy, and people seem more aware of the issues around it and well, I think it will be easier to built on AV and to push for further reforms from there than from FPTP.

May 6th: Day 1 of the new campaign for proportional representation (preferably STV)

If it opens the door for increased proportionality, whats the eventual outcome?

In my mind I keep coming back to the analogy of a horse race - if you back a loser, you dont get another crack at it from a single bet

I stilll think my idea is a winner

what is perhaps most concerning about av for me is the likelihood of hung parliaments - although the two parties which will remain the most popular and continue to get the most votes, labour and conservatives, are growing closer and closer to each other in terms of policy and public image, they remain fundamentally different on some issues and this could lead to a lack of direction of the leadership..

stv would be great, and av plus wouldn't be too bad either, but i can't really see a full reform happening anytime soon.

But its not a horse race, and not gambling. Its about who decides what happens in the country we live in for 5 years at a time, and where I can probably stand to lose a tenner on a horse, I'd rather have someone I can tolerate as my MP than someone I know who doesn't represent my point of view.

With races, think of heats and finals, the outcomes of the initial heats give who runs in the final, and then its where they come in the final that matters not the heats, or something.

First Past the Post < Alternative Vote < Proportional Representation, in my opinion.

Most countries use PR as their system, as it's the most democratic, 50% of the vote gets 50% of seats in parliament. It does have some drawbacks though, in that you are just voting for a party (and a list of candidates), rather than an actual local candidate. Also it often leads to coalitions, as it's very rare for any party to get 50% of the vote, and coalitions don't have a great record of getting shit done, as it's always a compromise.

FPTP on the other hand massively favours big parties, as even if a party gets a large number of votes across the country, unless they get 50% of the vote in any one area they won't get any seat in parliaments. Also it encourages tactical voting, as voters know that the party they actually want to vote for won't get in, so they vote for the big 3. But the plus side is it produces strong governments as it's rare for a party to not get 50% of the vote, so shit does get done.

AV is very similar to FPTP, but with one exception: if any one party in your area doesn't get 50% of the vote, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is removed, and the people who voted for him have their votes transfered to whoever is their second choice. This process continues until someone gets 50% of the vote. This largely gets rid of tactical voting, as you vote for whoever you prefer, and then for whoever you least dislike.

So if you would vote Green, currently you probably vote Labour or Lib Dem, as the Greens have basically no chance of getting 50% of the vote in most areas. But with AV, you would vote Green first, and then second and third choice Lib Dems and Labour, so even if the Greens don't make it then your vote still counts for something. And the plus side is, for the next election, if they see that 15% of people actually voted Green as their first choice, they may put more effort into winning that seat outright, and more people will vote for them.

In reality AV is unlikely to change much, the same parties are still going to win most of the seats, except that you are likely to see more first choice votes going to parties outside the big 3. The Conservatives are likely to lose votes to UKIP and the BNP, and Labour and the Lib Dems will lose votes to each other, and to the Greens, Respect etc.

I hope the above is a fairly balanced view of the situation. The No to AV campaign have come up with some ridiculous arguments, which I think detract from what is an interesting debate. They claim it's too complicated (Is it really that hard to sort candidates by what order you like them in), they claim it's more expensive (if you have to have automated counting machines then yes, but I don't see that you have to), they claim it's unfair (that doesn't even mean anything), and they claim that the most popular candidate in the first round won't always end up winning (Yes, that's the point).

Personally I think AV is a step in the right direction, but I'd still rather see Proportional Representation. In both AV and FPTP most votes are pointless, as most constituencies are safe bets anyway for one of the parties, and it's very rare for 1 vote to be the difference between two parties. Only a small number of votes, in a small number of constituencies actually make a difference. But with PR every single vote counts, as even 1 vote can tip a party over a certain percentage, and get another seat in parliament.

If AV was in place in the last General Election, would we have ended up with this coalition Government?

It's impossible to be sure, but I'd be fairly sure we would have. The reason we got a coalition is that Labour were very unpopular, but the Conservatives not popular enough to win enough seats to win. So the Lib Dems ending up picking up a load of seats off Labour, but losing more to the Conservatives. That wouldn't really have changed with AV.

It's impossible to be sure, but I'd be fairly sure we would have. The reason we got a coalition is that Labour were very unpopular, but the Conversatives not popular enough to win that many more seats than they had before. So the Lib Dems ending up picking up a load of seats off Labour. That wouldn't really have changed with AV.

I wouldn't say labour were very unpopular (maybe unpopular in comparison to the last general election) - they got many more votes than Lib Dems yet have comparatively little power in the current government. But yeah, assuming that everyone who voted for labour/tories/lib dems put that choice as their first, the coalition would probably still have happened (judging by my small amount of knowledge on the subject)

Yes, unpopular compared to their recent performances, as you say, as a percentage they still got more than the Lib Dems.

ha, whoever voted for conservative or labour would probably put lib dem as their second choice, meaning they might have won