AV...

[max_tranmere]

The 'yes' camp and the 'no' camp have been talking a lot today. I personally am in favour because it means the winner will have won with over 50% of the vote (once second prefences have been added if they didn't get more than half initially). We already have this with the London Mayor election.

It has to be better than what we presently have where, for example, Labour 'won' six years ago with 36% of the vote. This means 64% of those who voted didn't vote Labour yet they are still returned to office. What are people on the Forum's views on AV?

I feel the Referendum in May will be swung by millions of 'white van men' who haven't really looked into it voting whichever way The Sun and the News Of The World tell them to. So what Rupert Murdoch thinks of it will be more important than what most other people, who have studied it, do.

[randyandy]

I am in the NO.

Lots of bollocks from the Yes campaign, most of it untruths or terminology deliberately used to tell porkies.

Claims include it will stop safe seats, prevent tactical voting and help minority parties but there are many others depending were you look.

So called safe seats (if they exist) will only end with people campaigning in them and only then when the voter has something to vote for.

Campaigning will only happen with funding and a change to the voting system will not create that funding.

Tactical voting is a myth purely to say people are making a preference vote now.

The biggest bollocks though is it will help minority parties.

What it will do is allow votes (preferences as the AV lot prefer them to be called) which will be cancelled out.

The claim being this will defeat the likes of the BNP and as such is worth it but by some miracle (the Yes campaign won't say what that miracle is) will not effect other minority parties like the Greens.

The reality is at the very least it will let the BNP make their mark/vote/ preference while at the same time also let them have a say on other parties.

It could even encourage people to vote for them (make a protest vote) safe in the knowledge they can also vote for who they would normally vote for.

It should also be remembered that AV is a miserable little compromise and only a first step on the voting reform ladder.

This referendum is costing millions ( the yes lot try to dismiss the referendum costs by trying to turn it to voting system costs) and the next stage will again cost millions.

The other crap relates to the percentage of voters and my vote doesn't count nonsense.

Low turn out has nothing to do with the voting system but everything to do with not having reason to vote.

If votes didn't count we wouldn't have gone from Tory to Labour and now Coalition.

One last point has to be on it will make MP's work harder to appeal.

We are currently seeing what trying to appeal equates to when those who have 'appealed' get elected to Government. Their leader (now deputy PM) is the unofficial face of the Yes campaign but they are trying their best to airbrush him out of it.

[Arginald Valleywater]

No. It will fuck several hundred years of perfectly acceptable elections.

[steve56]

Cleggs pic on the back i chucked mine down the recycling chute should have been rubbish

[Peter]

AV in action courtesy of Auf Weidersehen Pet.

As Dennis says, "Everybody gets what nobody wants"

[David Johnson]

I don't see why people who have voted for the loony parties e.g. BNP, Lib Dems who end up coming at the bottom of the poll should get a second chance to influence the vote.

They have already cocked up their vote. Why give them even more influence?

Cheers
D

[Sam Slater]

[quote]I don't see why people who have voted for the loony parties e.g. BNP, Lib Dems who end up coming at the bottom of the poll should get a second chance to influence the vote.[/quote]

The Lib Dems came 3rd, if I remember, and thus nowhere near bottom. Nearly 1 in 4 of us voted Lib Dem. Nearly 1 in 3 voted Labour. Hardly a massive difference. You wouldn't think that looking at the seats in the HoC, though....FPTP and all that. And to even attempt to categorize the the Lib Dems in the same bracket as the BNP is truly desperate, trollish stuff.

[quote]They have already cocked up their vote. Why give them even more influence?[/quote]

Uh? What's classed as 'cocking up your vote'? Voting for the party in opposition? And why are you against giving more influence to minority parties? Are you against minority ethnicities having more influence too? Bit like a BNP supporter?

[David Johnson]

We really could do with a "I'm being flippant" icon, couldnt we? Believe me, I do understand that the Green Party are a minority party.

And yes, I know "I never mentioned the Green Party to be fair".

But it's still No for me for a number of reasons including as the Lib Dems have themselves argued "AV is not proportional, and can actually produce less proportional results than the traditional first-past-the-post system."

Cheers
D

[Sam Slater]

Why is Milliband supporting AV?

[David Johnson]

Ask him and tell me what he says