AV no campaign

" the arguments about fair/unfair are all partisan-political "

Of course they are. PR was only ever a manifesto item for the Lib Dems because they knew it was their only chance at government.... not because they thought it was better for the country. Mainstream Labour and Conservative are therefore not in favour and Milliband nailing his colours to the 'yes' mast is merely another attempt to distance himself from the Brown/Blair years.

Surprised at the misinformation and bashing of the Electoral Reform Society. It is a company limited by guarantee - it has no shareholders (so no profits and no distribution of profits).

The ERS was originally called "the Proportional Representation Society", so it should hardly make anyone fall off their chair that ERS are in favour of a more proportional voting system.

The thing that annoys me most about the parties' campaigning is that the arguments about fair/unfair are all partisan-political - the Conservatives will lose heavily from it, so are vehemently opposed, Lib Dems will be big gainers so are very pro and there has been almost no literature giving an unbiased explanation of it.

Very few people seem to know that in AV you can only have a winner with >50% of the vote - but where you have two big political beasts who benefit from the current system, you could be forgiven from reading their material for thinking that a candidate with the minority of the vote could win.

May be my post wasn't clear.

If you want a clear and 'disinterested' explanation of AV, read this:

PSA AV Briefing Paper

www.psa.ac.uk/PSAPubs/TheAlternativeVoteBriefingPaper.pdf

Losing the referendum would be much worse for Cameron than for Clegg. The Liberals can try again in a few years if they lose now. If we move to AV now, FPTP is gone forever. The Tory right would never forgive Cameron.

I don't believe all the lies, so I'm voting Yes. I think the noes will have it though

Giddy, have i missed something the LD's want a fully elected Lords not one with 80% appointed.

"The proposal to appoint 80% of a reformed upper House of Parliament is being considered by No 10 in the event of a 'no' result in the upcoming referendum on electoral reform"

TBH Cameron is in a no win situation.

If it is yes the drooling right wing tory will have palpitations.

If it is no his bitch Clegg will get shit from his own party for entering a coalition with a bunch of scum tories who will cause untold damage to society and public services whilst even further enriching their "mates"

Giddy

I really, really hope that AV is lost in England but goes through due to Scottish voters, the right wing filth Tories will go nuts and Dave will get slaughtered.

One can only hope.

The extreme dodginess of the Electoral Reform Society has to be exposed

At least they are up front about their donations unlike the no campaign.

It is a FACT that they have a subsidiary which sells expensive and unnecessary voting machines

Which will not be required as stated many times.

It is a FACT that they are one of the very largest donors to the yes campaign.

Which they have never hidden, the clue is in the name ELECTORAL REFORM SOCIETY

It is an EXTREMELY STRONG LIKELIHOOD that they stand to profit massively from a more complicated electoral system

A fallacy

There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying so. So what if that offends Chris Huhne's mistress? Boo-hoo.

Maybe it's the utter bullshit and lies that most find offensive

Good question but I've no idea, sorry. I've had a NO leaflet through so I'm going to do a bit of research.

Apparently though, if we vote NO to AV, we get £250 million to spend on teachers, firemen etc

Misleading to say the least.

Oh, and we won't need to pay people to count and recount ballot papers as machines will be bought to count votes.

LFN the yes vote is lost.

Lets hope the non ministerial LD MP's grow a backbone and bring down the coalition.

I am sure "Dave" will find a nice Tory seat for quisling Clegg after he is dumped by the LD's.

A stupid question to those who know - what happens to deposits under AV?

If UKIP gets only 200 first preference votes, but 10000 Tory second preferences - do they get to keep their deposit, or not?

Imagine working at the count if AV got in.......and if the losers demanded a recount.........bloody hell, results would be severely delayed.

Well we have had nothing through our door. Nada, Zilch. So many folk I know, know nothing about either FPTP or AV.

I'll be voting no. I think AV will help minority parties and losers. Personally, would rather be beaten comprehensibly by the opposition.

Jim Murphy is the Labour frontbencher who I feel makes Labour's case most potently - I think he is a superstar, and thank heavens that he was a David Miliband supporter, and has therefore been given the relatively boring and consensual Shadow Defence portfolio by Red Ed.

He has written an intelligent article on why he is voting no to AV. Of course, I disagree with many aspects of it - but it is worth reading.

labour-uncut.co.uk/2011/04/19/put-aside-the-cleggphobia-and-vote-no-to-av/

Jeez... isn't there a way to edit posts?

Not sure it is easy to find any unbiased info about it.

PSA AV Briefing Paper

www.psa.ac.uk/PSAPubs/TheAlternativeVoteBriefingPaper.pdf

As for the merits/demerits of the two voting systems.

I slightly prefer FPTP as it is more stable and leads to fewer coalitions. I won't vote for AV, but might just be persuaded vote for a variant of AV, if it was a "knock out all but the first two" system.

Imagine a constituency was a Labour/Tory marginal, with the Lib Dems a strong third, and BNP/Green/Loony making up the rest.

Under AV, the second preferences of BNP/Green/Loony will largely determine who wins. Under a redistribution of everyone but the first two, it will largely be Lib Dem second preferences which decide - far more preferable.

Sadly, that isn't on offer. FPTP is far superior to AV itself, which gives disproportionate weight to worthless votes of the most worthless parties.

The extreme dodginess of the Electoral Reform Society has to be exposed.

It is a FACT that they have a subsidiary which sells expensive and unnecessary voting machines.

It is a FACT that they are one of the very largest donors to the yes campaign.

It is an EXTREMELY STRONG LIKELIHOOD that they stand to profit massively from a more complicated electoral system.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying so. So what if that offends Chris Huhne's mistress? Boo-hoo.

It is pretty boring and I think most outside the Westminster Village have more important things to worry about, to be honest. The only interesting thing is watching the whacko cross-party alliances develop e.g. Cameron and John Reid, of all people. Apparently, in the 1975 referendum on whether we wanted in or out of the EC, the 'no' campaign was so popular with those on the extremes of parties that it caused major problems of cohesion. Notably, Wedgie-Benn and Enoch Powell were both arguing for 'no' but, because they refused to share a platform, their message was fatally weakened.