First past the post vs Alternative Vote

[gzagee]

There's a referendum on 5th My 2011 about which voting system to use.
Here's a quick guide to what's what:

First past the post (FPTP): The electoral system where the candidate with the most votes gets into office.

The argument against it says its not representative of the total votes cast in that Constituency. If one candidate wins the majority vote with 31% in an election race of ten candidates, it is viewed that he/she cannot morally be representative of the Constituency as they won LESS than 50% of total votes cast.

Altervative Vote (AV): The proposed electoral system which ranks candidates in order of preference. If one candidate gets 50% of the votes in a race of ten then he/she is automatically entered into Office. However, should they gain LESS than 50% in the initial vote then, the candidate with the least amount of votes in eliminated. Another round of votes are cast and so the elimination process is repeated until one candidate (with at least 50% of the vote) can be voted into Office.

The arguments against AV are that its expensive (additiional £250m in voting equipment and campaigns), complex (second or third candidate could be elected using AV) and could be fixed (case in point Lib Dems, behind-the-scenes deals and broken manifesto promises - no change there then...).

What's your opinion folks?
Also, apparently the AV system is used in Australia. How do our Aussie contingent find the system?

[Arsenal Tone]

I was sat in a cafe on dartmoor with my mum, we were surrounded by old people and listening in on some of their bizzarre conversations.

One woman said "i don't really understand it all, i'm going to vote to stay as we are, i don't like too many changes"

Sadly I think the government have done a good job of not giving people enough information. The info is there, but lets face it, there are a lot of people out there who aren't able to 'google it'!

[Gunner Down Under]

The AV system has made it that in Australia that there is a minority government in parliament.

At the moment in the last election the Australian Labor Party (yes it's spelt Labor) took government, but out of 150 seats they had less than half, (can't remember the exact number) there were either 3 or 4 Independents, 1 for the Greens and the rest for the majority Australian Liberal Party.

It did make for a dramatic election night as in the end for Labor to make power more Independents voted for them, but at the moment opinion polls show that the Australian Labor Party's support is slipping through its fingers through Australia's Carbon Tax.

At the time of the election there was slightly more support for the Labor Party, but now at the moment support has swung the other way, and that has been a pattern that has been kept going since just a few weeks after Kevin Rudd left as Prime Minister.

That's my political fix for the day, that election's been a while and I can't remember too much!

[Reverend Gooner]

I was sat in a cafe on dartmoor with my mum, we were surrounded by old people and listening in on some of their bizzarre conversations.

One woman said "i don't really understand it all, i'm going to vote to stay as we are, i don't like too many changes"

Sadly I think the government have done a good job of not giving people enough information. The info is there, but lets face it, there are a lot of people out there who aren't able to 'google it'!

And the no campaign giving out lots of misinformation and irrelevant info intended to manipulate people.

[UFGN]

Support AV. It is more democratic becauuse there are less "wasted votes". FPTP does NOT mean the party with the most votes wins. It means the one with the most seats wins and that is not always the same thing.

In 1992 FPTP resulted in a conservative government which had recieved less votes than the opposition labour party.

And as for 250 million, its nothing compared to money wasted on less important things.

[Arsenal Tone]

The mrs got a 'no vote' leaflet in the post today.

Big picture of clegg on the back makes it look like its from the lib dems when it is against them!

She is really annoyed about it.

[Gunflash]

Support AV. It is more democratic becauuse there are less "wasted votes". FPTP does NOT mean the party with the most votes wins. It means the one with the most seats wins and that is not always the same thing.

In 1992 FPTP resulted in a conservative government which had recieved less votes than the opposition labour party.

And as for 250 million, its nothing compared to money wasted on less important things.

Not true. In 1992, the Conservatives won 14 million votes, the highest ever for a party in Britain.

I'm voting to retain FPTP. This AV thing seems like a gimmick, a narrow-minded technical change that will not address the fundamental issues about politics. AV is just typical of our managerial political class. Those who support it can't come up with interesting ideas, or show any political passion, so they just resort to the technocrats trick - trying to change the voting system. AV will lead to a mushy, non-controversial consensus, with candidates continuing to stand on bland, middling platforms, in the hope of capturing second preference votes. 84% of the electorate turned out in 1950 under FPTP and 77% were still voting in 1992. Changing the voting system is a red herring. If people are not turning out, it is because the political parties don't represent anything anymore. The Labour party spent years turning itself into the Tories, with added statist managerialism, whilst Cameron continues to twist in the wind, with no-one knowing what his new Conservative stand for. It is no coincidence that voter turnout started to plunge as soon as the Labour party decided to "narrow the gap" (and that's putting it nicely) between itself and the Tories. If there were inspiring ideas in politics and people with genuine passion, the public would turn out to vote for them. Changing the voting system doesn't address this.

[UFGN]

I will have to check wiki because one recent election returned conservatives with less votes than the opposition and i was confident it was 92. Dont have time now

[elkanofan]

I vote to keep the old system. Mum works for the voting registration so she insisted . They do a LOT f work this time of the year!

Not like changing or keeping it would make ANY difference anyway.

[Goose]

Isnt AV how Hitler got into power?

[Reverend Gooner]

Isnt AV how Hitler got into power?

They may have had AV back then but even if it was it was one of the last things that got the Nazi's into power, and also Godwin's law

[Libertine]

With this AV malarkey, do you have to vote 1,2,3,etc or can you just put a 1 next to a single candidate?

[Libertine]

Isnt AV how Hitler got into power?

It's how Cameron got elected leader of the Conservative Party.

[liam_cork]

With this AV malarkey, do you have to vote 1,2,3,etc or can you just put a 1 next to a single candidate?

we have something similar its not av but we vote 1,2,3 etc but you can vote 1 and leave the rest blank if you want, but thats ireland so i dont know if its the same with av

[SE13]

With this AV malarkey, do you have to vote 1,2,3,etc or can you just put a 1 next to a single candidate?

You vote in order of preference. If you don't prefer any of the other candidates, you don't vote for them at all. Basically you can vote for as many or as few as you wish, but the votes must be in numerical order without repeat otherwise your ballot paper is declared spoiled.

Only problem is that once your candidate has gone out of the vote, you have no further say if you only vote for a single person.