to ask for your opinion on the AV referendum?

[redexpat]

I've read all the arguments for and against AV and first past the post, and listened specially to Radio 4, but I simply can't decide which way to vote! They all seem equally valid. Thoughts?

From my understanding AV is the same as preferential votiing in OZ.

Please please don't go there.

ElmMum is right.

You don't end up with the party that the majority of people voted for.

That's why In OZ we are stuck with a moronic Labor party.

Er, I obviously wasn't clear.

I'm saying vote YES!

I'm voting yes.

Arf at the morons who think it there is something ironic about voting for AV using a "fptp" system, and who also think that pointing out the irony makes them look clever, rather than someone who has entirely missed all the points. :o

I feel it will make no difference whatsoever. If it were PR I would definitely vote YES .
This is a no win situation in my view but I will vote yes simply because the hope of PR will be nullified if we do not try to move the system along.

I will vote yes. The conservatives chose not to offer a referendum on PR which would have been a better system, because they were scared they would lose a referendum on PR. It is their fault that we are being offered a system which is not as good as PR but better than FPTP. I have been very angry with Nick Clegg but I do not think it is right for the No campaign to personalise their arguments around one individual. It is obvious they are trying to use his unpopularity to persuade people to vote no rather than logical argument.

I think if we have the AV system there is more chance people will put the party they really like first rather than thinking anything other than a vote for the three main parties is a wasted vote. This would hopefully lead to a few more green mps possibly the odd UKIP one which would be no bad thing.

i will be voting yes for AV, not least because i am told i am to thick to understand it really and on that basis should vote no.
nor do i think its a bad idea because only 3 countries have it. most countries have a similar situation as here, two major powers that battle it out election after election for our votes we get to 'choose' between the 2. just like the Tories here, these parties are not going to advocate their possible loss of power so why would they push for AV or PR, you could call those 3 countries politically progressive.
i am sick of tactical voting, i actually want a choice when i walk in to that little booth.not ummmm who do i hate least i so wanted to vote for lib dems but was terrified of Tories getting in (that went well obviously), so ultimately what are your options... you have none and it drives me crazy.
if we vote no to this we will never get another opportunity for ant kind of change in our life times, the no voters will sigh with relief sit back and things will continue with the declining apathy of voters because people cant be bothered with the lack of choice.
rant over

Voting yes, not the PR we want, but it's the only chance we'll have in my lifetime to show that 'we' want PR!

Plus, anything Ballbag Cameron says, I tend to veer the opposite way.

Clytaemnestra : "I'm voting NO. Partly because the leaflet I got through the door the other day which basically said "All politicians are currenly evil and crap. Through AV only shiny happy politicians will be elected" was s stupid it put me off the whole thing."

Honestly, are you a grown up? We can't always avoid doing what people we hate are doing (if it accidentally happens to be the same as what we think is right. Just pretend to yourself that it's an accident that they agree with you, not that you agree with them). Think about the arguments, rather than about being seen to agree with people you think are stupid (as it's a secret ballot, it doesn't actually matter what you are "seen" to do).

ill be voting NO

Hi, all, I've done a namechange, and added some arguments to my profile (I was masquerading as plusRoyaliste).

gawdblimey, why are you voting no?

The arguement by the 'yes' campaign that we will end up with MPs with the support of 50% of their electorate is utter rubbish. If a candidate did not get 50% in the first round then s/he did not get 50%. Full stop. Repeated run-offs and massaging the figures does not change that fact.
We will not end up with 'the most popular politician', we will end up with 'the least hated politician' which is something entirely different. We would end up with all-things-to-all-men shallowness.

Suppose we had a constituency of a thousand people and the vote was Con 491 Lab 490 and BNP 19. Under AV, no-one would win on the first round. On the second round the BNP would be eliminated and their supporters' votes redistributed. So the vote would be decided by the BNP. Is that what you want: fringe parties to be kingmakers? major parties having to court the loony fringe vote for their second preference?

On its own AV would not make much difference but it could lead to PR

the result looks cut and dried in the opinion polls; but give it a go and vote tomorrow

its ironic the gov dousnt want av (tories at least) becuase thats the sytem used inside the gov itself!

few people voting yes want av, most are just doing it because they want pr and av is a small step in the right direction.

il be voting yes.

Oh come on. "the vote would be decided by the BNP". That is the utter rubbish.

Under AV, the same party would win as if the BNP had not stood in the first place. Under FPTP the vote gets split and yes, you get a winner with minority support.

AV almost always gives you a winner who would win in a head to head against any of the other candidates (where there is one). FPTP often does not. AV is fairer.

Wow! Great response - thanks everybody. Think I'm going with the yes option.

purits, that point about a hypothetical election being decided by BNP voters is a striking one, but I do believe mainstream parties court the fringes even now, and especially now, because it's important not to let the rightwing/leftwing vote (whichever your party depends on) be splintered.

In the French election I mentioned above (the one in which Chirac was elected; he was president before Sarkozy), leftwing voters were very divided in the first round and there was a lot of apathy, and then the leftwingers got a massive shock when they realised that the "mainstream" leftwing candidate was out, and all they had left was Chirac (a conservative, who was disliked by many left-voting people) and Jean-Marie Le Pen, a fascist (effectively BNP, but much more powerful in France). In the French presidential voting system, there was a second round, so thankfully (a) leftwing-voting people had a chance to vote out Le Pen (which some did while wearing a clothespeg on their nose), and (b) rightwing-voting people who were conservative but not fascist did not end up with a fascist because some leftwingers had been apathetic and had not voted for what they really wanted/would accept.

If there were a way of expressing preferences (like AV), voters could thumb their noses at Labour/Conservative by making the party wait for their second vote - without risking a victory for a party they really don't want in.

With our current system, if you cast a protest vote, you risk allowing in the Other Party (the one which is designed not to appeal to you, since parties are currently dividing us up between themselves!), whose voters may be more disciplined.

The current system basically encourages us all to be dishonest, to ourselves and to one another: voters and politicians.

I am not keen on AV as an electoral system - I want PR - and I really feel the choice between AV and FPTP is no choice at all for me.
I don't want either.

The only reason Cameron agreed to a referendum on AV is because he knew it would fail.

I'm not keen on Propoportional representation, as I think it's important for MPs to represent a real, physical constituency, as that is what we live in; we don't live in political constituencies, do we?

I'll be voting no. The yeses give Australia as an example, but it is a requirement for everyone to vote in Australia, you cannot abstain, so it makes that situation different. I like first past the post, it's obvious who's won.

It's a yes from me. The current system made sense in a 2 horse race but nowadays people have more choice. The Tories wouldn't have been able to govern had AV applied this time so that's a good thing in my book.

Vote YES!!!!!!

If you vote no, you're voting to maintain the status quo. i'm so sick of the no campaign's 'Only Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Australia have AV, and Australia want to get rid of it.'

Can i just break that statement down... firstly, what's wrong with Fiji and Papua New Guinea? Are we supposed to write off their political systems because they're far away, or small in population? or just because they're not white european in origin? All three reasons remind me what reactionary racists the tories really are!

Then there's Australia - we're supposed to believe that all australians hate AV and want to go back to FPTP. How can that possibly be true? There's no such thing as what Australians as a whole want; different individuals want different things, just as in the UK FGS! Even if a majority of Australians wanted FPTP, we don't know what their political leanings are or what their motives might be and it certainly doesn't make FPTP better than AV.

And the only Labour MPs who support FPTP are the ones who care more about holding on to their own seats than giving Britain's left leaning majority a real voice, which says it all really.

Thanks, guys. After reading this and watching the videos I'm voting YES!

Apparently the "noes" have it before anyone has voted !

I think we are all well informed enough by now and trying to make us all look like idiots really annoys me !!

It doesn't matter which way you vote. It won't change a thing because in almost every situation AV will give the same result as FPTP. That's been proved by looking at the results from the few countries that use AV. All it will do is make elections cost more to administer and the referendum will make sure proper voting reform doesn't get back onto the agenda for the next 20 years.

Remember that Nick Clegg described AV as "a miserable compromise" so we know that the Lib Dems don't actually want it.

It's about time they invested in an online voting system, which will save money in the future. They could get the software sorted at the same time as changing the voting system.