to ask what exactly AV is ?

[bubbleschimp]

that's it in a nutshell ! i understand what the pr voting system is but the av system has me all in a dither ! anyone willing to take the time to explain ?

On your voting paper you mark the candidates in order of preference (1 - like best, 2 - second best etc)

When they count the votes, the candidate with more than 50% first preferences wins. If no-one has more than 50% 1st choices, then the papers for the person with fewest votes are redistributed according to their second preference. And so on, until someone gets 50% of the highest preferences.

so it's kind of like the PR system in that votes get moved around .?. thats me a little less confused

i feel really stupid because i still don't get it :S so if the first set of votes don't get more than 50% do they totally disregard the first lot and go on to the second set of most prefered? or do they add the first lot to the second so people are effectivly voting twice?

Here's a youtube video on it

Flisspaps explains it well, but bubbleschimp get's it slightly wrong, as it's not a proportional system.

Imagine three choices for candidates, X, Y, and Z. They're ranked 1, 2 and 3 by the 100 voters.

X gets 40 first choice votes, Y gets 35 second choice votes, and Z gets 25 votes.

Under the current system X wins. However, under AV, Z is eliminated, but for the people who put Z as their first choice, their second choice votes are shared out.

Imagine of the 25 people who voted for Z, 20 put Y as their second choice, and 5 put X as their second choice. They are added to the original votes.

X now has 45 votes. Y has 35+20 votes = 55 votes. Therefore Y wins.

It's almostly like X factor (except rather than voting on a week by week basis, it's done instantly), and it's simple.

(I made a mistake above and bolded the change)

Imagine three choices for candidates, X, Y, and Z. They're ranked 1, 2 and 3 by the 100 voters.

X gets 40 first choice votes, Y gets 35 first choice votes, and Z gets 25 votes.

Under the current system X wins. However, under AV, Z is eliminated, but for the people who put Z as their first choice, their second choice votes are shared out.

Imagine of the 25 people who voted for Z, 20 put Y as their second choice, and 5 put X as their second choice. They are added to the original votes.

X now has 45 votes. Y has 35+20 votes = 55 votes. Therefore Y wins.

However, if those 25 votes were split evenly (or 12 + 13), X still wins. It doesn't change things massively

It's almostly like X factor (except rather than voting on a week by week basis, it's done instantly), and it's simple.

It means that everyone gets what no one wants! :o

should be

X gets 40 first choice votes, Y gets 35 first choice votes, and Z gets 25 votes

They only redistribute the votes for the person with the fewest votes.

Example -
200 people vote.
Counting the first preferences the result is...
Party A = 80
Party B = 70
Party C = 50

No one has more than 50% of the vote (which would be 101 votes) so they take all of the votes for the party with the fewest (Party C) and see what the second preferences for those voters were and add them to the counts for parties A and B....

Now we have...
Party A = 82
Party B = 112

That means party B is the winner because they have more than 50% of the vote. Note that 6 people who voted for party C as first preference didn't put a second preference so their votes don't get redistributed.

The current system means everyone makes one choice from a list of candidates and the candidate that gets the most 'x's wins.

AV means we can make several choices in order of preference. If a candidate gets 50% of the first choices, they win. If no-one gets 50% of the first choices, the lowest scoring candidate is eliminated and the people who voted for them get their 2nd choices counted instead. This continues until someone gets 50%.

The systems are extremely similar, both are equally flawed and neither are the same as proportional representation where everyone votes once, all the votes are counted up and MPs are allocated from a list according to what % of the vote their party got.

finally i get it! thank you! its been bugging me for weeks because i didn't have a clue how it worked! :)

it is not PR in that there is not distribution of seats in proportion to the votes (to do that you need to decouple constituency seats and make a regional pool of candidates).

Everyone's first choice is counted. If no-one candidate gets 50% then the votes for the lowest placed candidate get thrown away, and those voters second choices get added the existing piles. This carries on until someone gets 50%.

The current system means that a person can win with 30% (eg 70% voting against them), AV should mean the person winning is at least acceptable to more than 50% of the electorate, even if not their first choice.

So you can vote x party in a y party area, to express your true preference. But if y don't get an outright majority then, your second choice might get counted instead of your first choice, and potentially party z gets elected because more people prefer them (even as a second choice) than party y.

Overall though most constituencies are likely to stay with results similar to the current system - it only comes into play when the choice is split fairly evenly.

I've heard it said that we already have a form of AV, except one which involves guesswork and is more complicated (by having to vote tactically)

"It means that everyone gets what no one wants!"

Only if you're stupid enough to vote for a party you don't want in govt .

Personally, of the big three parties, there are two I toy with and one I hate. I would happily put down either of the two parties I am happy to be in govt, but would never put down the third. If you only want one party in, only put one party on your voting form. Then you'll never vote in a party you don't want. Simples