Shocked! - I have been reading about this AV referendum!

[Heroine]

I am really shocked! I have been reading about this AV referendum, and have found out that not only are the people against it largely people with really safe seats (eg Ian Duncan Smith) but also that a) their main campaign is 'It will be really expensive' - but they are saying this by making up an idea that the country will 'have' to buy counting machines (that are only used in America for first past the post) and then adding the cost of the referendum itself which is actually the cost of the local election that the AV question will be added to i.e they are adding the costs in twice and then exaggerating by lying. What's worse is they are peddling this out to voters in the hope they won't check!!!! Whats even worse is that its working!!! see [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358914/Alternative-vote-Yes-campaign-activists-breaking-rules-cold-calling.html#ixzz1Ea4AVMUW this] I mean I do dispair for the stupidity of some of the electorate, but for politicians to use this so brazenly.. grrr

Its bloddy brazen if nothing else and it just shows how much contempt the more establishment and conservative politicians have for the electorate - it just makes me to think they can get away with this BS

I have just also read the DM after my indie over a coffee, and there is an article in there saying that the 'No' people have also been regularly complaining to whoever regulates canvassing (Information Commission perhaps??) to try to block any campaign going ahead for yes... Its just absolutely disgusting and definitely pushing my vote in the way of AV.

I hate the way politicians just put out bollocks figures in order to frighten us, and don't care if they are true or not, its bloody Iraq war all over again.

Please god I hope we get some integrity back into politics soon, its draining me it really is...

Giddy,
Cat has come second from time to time so it isn't a complete no-hoper. A boundary change came into place after the last election which makes it harder to read as slices of neighbouring Cat constituencies were added.

That might have added some Cat voters but it might mean that Dog voters have been added to this electoral role and the Cat party has been strengthened in the neighbouring constituencies.

I disagree fundamentally with Dog and his party yet I admit he's a very good constituency MP. In local terms, if I can't have a Cat MP then I'd rather this particular Dog continued but in national terms I would like Cat to succeed.

What I definitely don't want is for Bear to benefit in any way from my vote.

the thing is that it is so complicated that the majority of people don't understand it enough to make the right decisions in order to get their candidate of choice elected.

As it is we have a low voting turnout in this country, if AV were to be brought in I suspect that the voting turnout would drop even more because people either don't get the concept or won't be bothered to vote for anyone more than their first preference, and will just tick boxes to tick boxes for the other preferences iyswim.

As it is there needs to be a voting turnout of more than 40% of the voting population to even get this debated, and I suspect that it's unlikely that many will even bother to vote..

I too think it will make people less likely to vote. I always vote whether it's a 'wasted' vote or not because I don't consider any vote to be wasted - it registers a point of view to be counted.

However, if my vote is going to be transferred to a candidate I don't want then it will be wasted so I might actually be better served by not voting under an AV system.

Also, as Giddy says, they will all be scared to state what exactly they want to do for fear of alienating voters. Then they will do exactly as they want in government because they will claim to have a mandate.

I think I have cleared my mind now and will vote against AV.

May I ask what constituency you are lucky enough to find yourself in? The Dog, Bear and Cat parties sound much more appealing than the winning Rat party in our constituency, even though it maintains that it is a progressive party.

I am veering towards voting for AV, because I feel that every Dog (Bear and Cat) should have their day.

Otherwise the system is just used as a Rat run by those in the Rat race, which leads us all down the Rathole.

Under the current system, elections are often won and lost depending on the two major parties' ability to swing a few hundred thousand floating voters from a Labour vote to a Tory one or vice versa. This is one factor among several for the total failure of the party system to aggregate policies into coherent packages of consistent political principle, and arguefor/educate the public in a consistent political philosophy underpinning manifesto content. They feel the need instead to adopt zeitgeisty policies that can appeal to politically uninterested media-influenced floaters.

Under AV parties instead can focus on appealing to fellow travellers in politically adjacent parties to attract second-pref votes. So for example, Lab could reach out to left-leaning LibDem voters, or to Greens.

I think that AV could do a significant amount to counteract the awful creaking failure of our parliamentary system, and of our parties. And that is something imperative. Turnouts in elections now are very low; the reflection of the national vote in the distribution of seats is very poor. This does something to contribute to the sheer weakness of Parliament in relation to govt which makes our political system only barely democratic.

Btw, re a post just above, I'm guessing that we wouldn't be forced to add a second, third etc pref -- we could choose only to include a first pref if desired. Does anyone know?

Yes, AV may be a bit of a Dog's Breakfast, but surely it is better than the Rat-arsed system we have now?

I'm certianly going to be voting for AV. I hope there are lots of threads discussing it on MN, because the worst enemy of electoral reform is the high degree of ignorance and apathy regarding it.

With AV, new candidates would arise. The good people of Hartlepool voted a monkey inso often in the past.

MP Roland Rat, I'd back that, he'd sort out some of them fat cats.

I think that a lot of you are assuming that either your vote gets tranferred without you having control and/or that you have to make preferences - you don't.

Your vote only gets transferred to people you have expressed a preference for so there is no likelihood that a pref for cat, then dog would have a vote transferred to bear, similarly if you vote only cat, and cat is eliminated, your vote will not be transferred to either.

people wishing to vote only one preference can add an x or a 1 in the box and make no other marks.

Also if people who would ideally vote Cat are currently voting Bear as the only likely opposition to Dog, because they would rather see Dog under threat than waste their vote - under AV these people are likely to vote Cat first, then bear, which, if this is significant amount, cat would get more first prefs, and if this is not 50%, would get Bear's second preferences (which if they are majority Cat, could mean cat could win - if they are majority dog, then Dog could still win, but would be dramatically aware that the Cat vote is much stronger than he/she had previously believed - this would switch the agenda in favour of Cat in the next election because all parties are now aware that if they can move Cat first preference to them, and the weaker parties second preferences to the Cat agenda (or more likely move the parties' agenda to accommodate the views of Cat supporters) they will have a stronger likelihood of doing well - i.e. they will have to reach out to more of the electorate i.e. AV makes winning parties work harder for views ...

Actually that really helped me make sense of this!!

I thought I understood it, but that last post has just thrown all the balls back up in the air.

While Heroine's post is complex, don't infer that AV is itself complex. It is actually really intuitive. You rank the candidates in your preference order, 1, 2, 3, etc. Bish bosh job done.

The tactical ramifications of that can be complex or relatively simple. But you don't have to think tactically.

heroine almost swayed me there. If my vote won't go to Bear unless I say so then that settles one of my doubts.

However, Bear is sitting in the middle picking up preference votes from people who aren't as strongly in favour of Cat as I am.

If the Bear party will work with any other party who will give it a foot paw in a government then Bear can't be trusted. Bear will end up gaining from all this without making much effort and without having to be held to account for its manifesto - ever.

I think I just outed Bear!

Oh for god's sake giddyPickle - YOU DON'T HAVE TO PUT A SECOND PREFERENCE and IF YOU PUT NO SECOND PREFERENCE NO_ONE WILL 'GET' YOUR VOTE

Not only that but again we have the idea that the best party is a minority that does not represent the views of the contituency in parliament, but the narrow views of some who vote for them want them to have - if people in a consituency all want prinipled candidates who don't speak for the majority they can vote them is, you sound like you only want a system that returns what you want - that's not democracy!

and for the record, the reason we have samey wishy washy policies now is because the parties are aiming their message at a tiny 100,000 votes i.e. at the same people across the country because that's all they need to do to win. This should mean less tending towards the centre with the same message not more.

yy heroine. I think it creates slightly more prospects for decisive, principled policy formation by parties, by avoiding the necessity of appealing to what is called 'Worcester Woman' (nasty label, but a shorthand for the Labour-to-tory/tory-to-labour floater)

no you won't, you will have a vote that is added to your parties first preference count. If they are excluded at any point in the AV count, they would have definitely lost in first past the post anyway, so I can't see why you are complaining. If your party is eliminated and you don't put a second preference because none deserve your vote - ie you have no partial support for another party then your vote is out of the count and won't help another party. IN first past and the post and AV everyone's vote is limited to how well their party does .. The idea of a democracy is that government reflects the views of the majority of consituents.

You are perfectly at liberty, as is anyone, to not vote for people with unclear policies! I don't understand why you can't see that

Oh that's silly - we don't have an either/or choice any more! What you are saying is similar to saying that the referendum should be on AV or PR or AV+ or STV or First past the post, but we should only be able to answer Yes or No!

Even Winston Churchill wanted AV as early as 1920 because there were more than two parties emerging!!! (oops you can see I have dived into reading about all this!!:))