AV or not ?

and who owns the sydney morning herald??? ooh is it.. let me seee... a conservative backer perhaps../. it is ... yes it is! Murdoch!!!

quel surprise....

Key feature of First Past the post = Guaranteed Minority Rule! Yay!

Nice to see you are one of our more mature voters crystal.

Its surprising that we still have FPTP - a system where someone can be elected with only 10% of the vote.

AV ensures that an MP has the support of at least 50% of voters - this is essential if we want to describe ourselves as a democracy.

Yes of course. AV is a much better system, Im amazed we still have FPTP, its a relic.

But that type of argument is silly - extended it means something else - if you count second and third rounds as extra votes, and use the same logic it means that voters for main parties who are not eliminated get their vote counted three times for their party where voters for small parties only get their vote counted once for theirs.

Also anyone can be a supporter of a fringe party - if the conservatives really think that voting for a small party first, then the conservatives gives two votes for the conservatives, they can go right ahead!

Actually I wasn't sure I would bother to vote until that unpleasant little man phoned. but now I'm absolutely going to.

Missingfriend - I have absolutely no problem explaining my decision, and I am highly qualified to do so, but I just didn't see why I should defend it to some jumped up, patronising squirt on the phone.

Only about 40% of student loans are being paid back 5 years after graduation. Less that 45% get paid back at all!

I'd be interested to know where you got this information from? Are you saying that nearly 45% of students never earn above £15k throughout their working career?

My point is/was that a loan cannot be treated the same as money given away since you ultimately get the cash back (or most of it). As opposed to none of the money you simply gave away. From an economic point of view, which is better? Giving it away or lending it?

Voting no. It doesn't seem fair to me that some people get their second or third votes counted and others don't. Gives too much of a say to the supporters of unpopular fringe parties.

No - FPTP is far from perfect, but I don't think AV will make up for its shortcomings.

Many MPs in safe seats already have more than 50% of the votes anyway, so don't think it'd make that much of a difference in terms of some areas getting pretty well ignored in campaigning. I appreciate that there would be more marginals, and that perhaps people would vote differently if they felt it the outcome wasn't such a forgone conclusion, but I think in lots of areas all you would get would be suggestions as to how to rank your preferences tactically to ensure your first choice got in rather than any real attempts to address the issues that matter to the voters.

Also, think it's quite likely that many people will only vote for one or two canditates anyway rather than ranking them all. This means that the winner wouldn't necessarily get 50% of the votes. My fear is that after a while, it will be decided that you must rank all canditates for your vote to count like in parts of Australia and there are certain parties (BNP anyone?) that I wouldn't vote for even if they were my 10000 choice!

My only concern is that I appear to be in agreement with Michael Howard on this issue, but I suppose there's a first time for everything!! Seriously though, I think this is something that goes beyond party lines and should be considered in light of the impact of any change rather than as a vote of confidence/no confidence in any particular party or politician.

If it was a choice between FPTP and PR however, think I'd still be dithering as can see valid arguments for and against both......

ooh! found a facebook ad wtih a good video!..

This student guide has some factual evidence and useful links.

Living in a town with an English Democrat party mayor who got in via taking into account 2nd votes, I shall be voting no.

I'm voting Yes to AV, with No as my second choice

actually why am I surprised.. people who are blind tend to stay blind. Peopl who aer tory don't change - that 30% of the country who are now running it...

re nice guy are you serious?! You are saying that the Universities won't need so much money from the government because the government is paying for loans to students to pay higher fees.. the government is paying less to universities because the government is giving more money to universities?!?!

Only about 40% of student loans are being paid back 5 years after graduation. Less that 45% get paid back at all!

Re crystal - OH No! the ultimate fear! having to explain your decision! :) IN all elections this information is given to all political parties - who has postal votes, who is on the electoral roll etc - The AV lot have loads of volunteers but not much money which is why they are using phoning - the No campaing in funded by some of the richest and most right wing backers in politics (doesn't that tell you something about who benefits from FPTP!) which is why they are paying milliions of pounds to get royal mail posted leaflets to everyone in the country.

(also that is how they are going to pay for the children's hospital wing, 100,000 bullet proof vests, more beat bobbies and more nurses if they win!)

You'll be looking a long time for a genuine link - there was one poll that said 'do you like the current way of voting' after a really unpopular result in one consituency and that 'curent way of voting' included compulsory voting and compulsory preferences for all candidates. Cameron used this one rogue poll that had a different result than all the other satisfaction polls ever taken and extrapolated a local result to the whole country - that is the kind of politician we have running the country.

Can we have a link to most australians want to go back to FPTP please?

I have had 2 phone calls from the AV campaigning organisation asking me how I'm going to vote and whether I've sent off my postal vote yet. the first phone call was innocuous but the second caler tried to argue the toss with me about the AV versus the first past the post vote, which I really object to as it is unethical in my view and may even be illegal for all I know. The fact that he knew I had a postal vote made me feel veryuneasy. I thought these things were confidential.

Missingfriend, I think we can debate that the conservatives don't understand economics. Especially when you look at what Gordon Brown did!

The example you cite is also a bit strange. Yes, the government of course must fund more student loans but these are LOANS. ie. they must be paid back. In addition, they no longer have to give universities so much money so they can save money they otherwise would never have seen. And you call them dafties???

For me the no vote wins not because of which political party I like but more because AV was proposed because the lib dems want PR. Well....erm this is not PR and even Clegg himself says its a "miserable little compromise". So why vote for something which isn't going to do what the people who want it the most to do.