I can’t honestly see a BNP candidate getting anywhere near 21% in a five party constituency, so that argument simply doesn’t wash

Why don’t we have FPTP with a “none of the above” candidate? Same difference, and now & again one – yes ONE – of them gets in, e.g. Martin Bell. Hardly enough to make a majority, and usually voted back out again at the next election anyway.

I wondered where that post had gone…

Those that think that AV is the first step towards true PR are (IMO) naive at best, sadly very deluded at worst. Does anyone really think that the alternating ruling party would actually let true PR happen?

There’s certainly more chance of it happening than if people vote no to AV.

I’d be more interested in seeing STV than full PR, I think it would be a much better fit for UK politics. A no to AV vote will nix any chances of electoral reform for a long time though I suspect.

AV should ensure that every election returns a ‘winner’ with at least 50% of the vote.

even if that “winner” is second third or even fourth choice for more people than the candidate who would have got most votes in a FPTP system?
Doesn’t make sense to me. I will probably vote “no” unless I hear a convincing argument that 51% of the voters’ third choice is better than 49% of the voters’ first choice
Firstly in many seats the same person wins either way.

Secondly the situation you describe is impossible, some of those 51% would need to be 1st choice votes otherwise the candidate is eliminated at the first round. Even allowing for that with a four candidate election (a small number in today’s politics), you are assuming:

49% vote 1st choice A
Say 30% vote 1st choice B
20% vote 1st choice C, 2nd choice D, 3rd choice B
10% vote 1st choice D, 2nd choice C, 3rd choice B
11% vote 1st choice D, 2nd choice B,

It seems very unlikely that A picks up no 2nd/3rd votes. Even if it did happen would you not see this as 51% voting “NOT A”.

I happen to live in a constituency which follows your “split”, it is a safe labour seat but the labour candidate had a 49.9 and 47.7% share of the vote at the last two elections. On a FPTP vote 51.1 and 52.3% of the electorate said “not him” – yet he gets elected. In my seat I think it is still very likely he will win again, because he will pick up some second and third votes; but it is possible that some of his votes were tactical to keep others out – but even with them more than half his constituents didn’t want him.

Junkyard – Member

and av lets you vote for everyone but the one/s you really hate so the winner can claim you really support them despite them being your fourth choice

Still with this? There’s no “claim” or “despite”, if you vote for them you’re supporting them.

AV is the first step towards removing the emphasis on tactical voting and avoiding ‘wasting your vote’, because you could actually vote for who you wanted rather than merely against the lesser of two evils.

I’ve voted no

“a miserable little compromise” was that Clegg’s description of AV or Cameron’s description of Clegg? – probably both

As far a I can see, there’s not a jot of evidence that should we vote for AV that a discussion on full PR would follow – just wishful thinking.

I don’t buy the tactical voting angle either, there’s a bunch of seats now where tactical voting is rife, if we bring in AV there still will be albeit different ones probably.
And as someone else mentioned, there’s an awful lot of people would put loonie down as their 2nd vote rather than Labour or Tory, or whatever party they really didn’t like.
e.g. I would never – in a million years – put a mark next to a Tory candidate on a ballot paper, unless there was an option for which one should be put in stocks in the market square twice a week.

AV will mean I get to vote for who I DON’T want as well as who I DO want. Bonus! More power to me. What’s not to like about being given more voting power?

Doesn’t make sense to me. I will probably vote “no” unless I hear a convincing argument that 51% of the voters’ third choice is better than 49% of the voters’ first choice

OK, flip this around. Assume we already have AV and are voting on introducing FPTP. Give me one convincing argument why someone who is not the preferred choice of most of the electorate should be declared the winner.

AV will mean I get to vote for who I DON’T want …….

Well it doesn’t actually – it simply gives you the opportunity to express your next preferred choice.

But I can see how the whingeing middle-classes with their incessant moaning concerning everything under the sun, would like to see it in the context of giving them power to be negative and “anti”.

The ideal voting system for your miserable grumbling Daily Mail reader, I would have thought 💡

The ideal voting system for your miserable grumbling Daily Mail reader

Ooh please say I’ll be able to denote my preferences with overly emotive nonsense!

give it a try.. we can always have another vote to change it if we dont like it..

http://pre65trials.blogspot.com/

we few we happy few

I’m still unclear what the problem (or requirement) is to which AV is the proposed solution.

Ecky-Thump – Member

I’m still unclear what the problem is to which AV is the proposed solution

2/3rds of all current MP’s were elected without a majority.

in other words, they ‘won’ with less than half the vote – and that’s not a mandate in my book.

to win an election under AV rules, they’d have to get at least 50% of the vote.

and that’s a proper mandate.

and of course it’ll reduce tactical voting – you won’t have stop yourself voting Green because you’ve got to vote for A to keep B out. you can vote Green, and then put A as your second choice.

easy – and we’ll get to see how people really want to vote.

Actually ernie I DO get to register who I DON’T want by simply not giving them a number at all while ranking the rest. Giving a number to all candidates is not mandatory. In fact all the FPTP fans can just use ,’1′ and not rank any other candidates. No votes to transfer then. Everyone is happy! 🙂

Just a thought here but with AV FPTP fans can still just give one vote. But I expect they wouldn’t do that because the AV fans would use their full armoury of options most likely and the FPTP fans would likely feel a bit ‘left out’ because why should those AVers get more of a say than them eh?

Which is sort of the point of AV. It gives the voter a greater ‘ownership’ of the result

I DO get to register who I DON’T want by simply not giving them a number at all

You mean like now ? If your criteria to “get to vote for who I DON’T want” is simply that you “don’t vote” for them, then that option already exists.

As I said, the alternative vote simply allows you your next preference……..if you want to see it as an “anti” vote, then hey, be my guest – I know how important it is to some to be negative.

.

The bag of dogshit analogy works well if a substantial amount of people choose a bag of dogshit as their preferred choice when shopping for sweets, but as no one actually does, it’s a really crap comparison.

The reality is that whilst the most popular choice might not be the punters first choice of sweets, it won’t something such as dogshit which isn’t even a sweet.

Still, don’t let that stop the alarmist from blowing things out of all proportion.