so are you going to bother to vote on the electoral reform referendum?

[easternstar]

Or not?

To be honest I don't think either AV or first past the post is the best method.

When I did my government and politics A-level donkey's years ago I always thought that the fairest method was to have larger constituencies and make up the difference with a party list system based on percentages.

1 - this is just silly - a vote doesn't get redistributed until a party has lost outright. If there are two parties much bigger than all the others, neither of them will get redistributed, just the small ones will. So as long as you put your preferred of the two big parties first it will make no difference whether you put the other one on at all or miss it out.

If you put a small party first and nothing else, your vote ends up in the bin: you are letting someone else decide. But there is NO WAY expressing a second choice can make your first choice lose.

2 - this is just wrong: it is FPTP where votes get split letting one party win which would lose to either of the others, not AV. In your example you make the same mistake as in 1 - a ballot paper with tory first would only get redistributed if the tories were eliminated so it doesn't matter whether they put UKIP or LD second; they've lost before that gets looked at.

If you had three right-ish candidates in FPTP and one labour candidate, there is a good chance labour could win with 30% of the vote against 20% for each of the three right wing candidates. That would be unfair. While with AV the smallest rightie gets shared out amongst the others and chances are one of the right wing candidates ends up winning.

3 - mainstream parties already try to borrow policies from small parties to get votes - whether green ones or BNP ones. We already have abuse such as Woolas. If we had a more honest / less biased media this would be less of a problem but I don't think we should rule out a better system because of this.

I'm still waiting for an example where 'tactical voting' in the sense of putting parties in a different order from your actual preference will be more likely to get a good result than just putting them in order of preference.

Or for that matter for a realistic example where AV does not give a result that all would agree is fair. And the one where all A voters put B second, B put C, C put A is not realistic - would never happen in real life.

Finally!

I do agree that AV is not perfect but was struggling to find an example of tactical voting.

Your link doesn't go straight there but I found this

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2010/08/26/tactical-voting-can-still-occur-under-the-alternative-vote-and-it-may-lead-to-unexpected-outcomes/

It is an example of tactical voting working under AV. However I find it very hard to believe that anyone would try it in real life - tory voters voting labour on the off chance that exactly the right number will do so to ensure that labour don't win outright; lib dems do enough better than tories so tories get redistributed benefitting LD.

I don't see how you could do it. Unless you told your voters to vote according to the first letter of the surname so you could split the vote just right. But you would have to start by assuming you had no chance of winning and I can't see any party doing that.

See this one too:

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/2010/09/02/tactical-voting-isn%E2%80%99t-a-practical-strategy-in-alternative-vote-elections/

Just seen the 'Yes' campaign on TV. What a disappointment. I had more or less decided to vote yes, but the campaign is pathetic. It's so vindictive and punitive. 'Get the politicians to work harder' seems to be the only reason they want us to vote for AV. Whereas the 'No' campaign at least had a valid point: AV does sound quite complicated.

What's wrong with treating us like intelligent human beings and telling us why each system is fairer or more representative.

Still don't know what to vote for.

That's the problem with democracy in a nutshell, Giddypickle. You can only choose who to vote for based on the information you're given - and maybe a few personal experiences. All the main political parties spend so much time and money and energy spinning their policies in order, it seems, to trick us into voting for them. Why? If they believe what they say, why not give it to us straight? No policies are ever going to appeal to everyone. Surely each party has to choose which sort of people they are going to look after best. Why not just say so??!

Reasons for AV and fairer votes:

1. It means all MPs will need a majority of voter's support. At the moment, 2/3 of MPs were elected when most of their constituents actually voted for someone else.

1. They will need your vote. They will need to aim for 50% of the vote so will need to appeal and work for all of their constituents, not just a small section of the community.

1. The end of tactical voting. You no longer have to guess how everyone else is going to vote. Just list your favourites in order of preference. You can state a preference between 2 parties even if they were not your first choices - no more wasted votes.

Its as easy as 1, 2, 3. As straightforward as saying "If they dont have coke, Ill have lemonade". It will give more people a say in who they want as their MP. Vote Yes to AV.

Useful summaries, thanks. But HHLimbo local politicians already work hard, and they don't get paid, either, as far as I know. Most local councillors simply want to make the world a better place. They're not all career politicians, and it's a shame to buy into that stereotype.

Thanks Giddy. A good summary. I'm definitely going to vote no. For me FPTP is far from perfect but it sounds easier to understand than AV.

If/when the country is ready for PR then I'll vote for it. But right now the UK isn't ready for coalition politics.

Giddypickle, when there seem to be so few differences between the main parties, the most logical way forward would appear to be a coalition, wouldn't it? I am horrified at this present coalition, but that doesn't mean they never work. It seems that even the most rooted beliefs - socialism, libertarianism, conservatism - on which the main parties were founded, are compromised when big business and banks become involved.

I think the old idea of Labour V Tory with the Lib Dems jeering from the sidelines is on its way out, tbh. I think politics is becoming homogenised just like supermarkets have become globalised ...

What we need is people who are not afraid to think outside narrow party lines. Would AV favour mavericks, I wonder? And I still think it would give minority parties (not the BNP, though, because I think people only vote for them when they are fed up with the main parties) more of a voice, as people wouldn't feel they were wasting their vote if they choose them.

I have not been given the option to agree or disagree with the AV system as it has been in place in N.I (U.K) for several years now.

Exactly Giddy. The UK seems woefully unprepared for the idea that when in a coalition, the art of compromise means you have to give and take.

You can't enter a coalition agreement saying "You can do x and I'll do y" then accuse them of selling their soul for power when that agreement is being implemented. Is it better that neither party does anything???

That said, the lib dems shot themselves in both feet with the student loans debacle which further proves to me they are not ready for power. In which case I dont want anything which gives them a better shot at it.

The uk is well prepared for AV, now that we can all count to 3. (This may not have been the case when FPTP started).

Not sure if we all shouldn't vote. This Gov done backroom deal and did not have the courtesy to have Green and White paper for the public to scrutenize.
This is Constitutional reform and deserved better. Equally a Europe referendum had been promised before this! This charade is a waste of money as there is too much repair to be done to our sham of a democracy before any referendum. By there own records about 3 million people eligible to vote but not on electoral roll and then there are others with 2 address and these people could vote twice! Also whats happened to prisoners voting? should 16yrs+ not have voting rights when they get their NI card. Bad democracy leads to bad politics! They should PAUSE, LISTEN AND DEFER as nobody is happy with it really. There should have been 2 bills as there are boundary changes in this YES vote so conservatives biggest winners, This is also attempt to try and sweeten the electorate and things are that desparate nobody is speaking out. The EMPEROR has no clothes and the wardrobe is full of fat moths!

It will cost somewhere between 30- 40 million by my estimates.Each year the Electoral Commision uses about 20/25m for elections throughtout the UK,this is without a referendum! I'm sure public would be happier with money being used wiser.Out of interest does anyone know what it cost to break EMA contract,wouldn't they have been better to change it and not incur penalty fees.A good referendum would be to change from representative democracy to 1/2 pure democracy and 1/2 representative, I don't think any of them are representing me and others at bottom of food chain. Mums/Grans need to become politically active and get better democracy as we are the ones holding homes together in the main.

The idea that 50% vote under the first past the post system will translate to 50% under AV has been tested extensively by political scientists researching UK voting patterns. Theire research suggests that between 6 and 20% of people who vote for the two main parties (Labour and Conservative) switch their vote given the opportunity to vote AV - This component for Labour goes to Greens, Libdems and occasionally Socialist Worker. For the Conservative the swing is UKIP BNP and LibDem.

There is info on the link I gave above. Note that the safer an MP's constituency is, the more that person is opposed to AV - which would also suggest that a predictible direct translation, or an improvement in the safety of a seat is not expected to be an outcome of bringing in AV.

That pattern of the MPs in the seats that might become more marginal under AV being the most against AV is true across the whole country, which I think says something about their motives.

Just looking back over my relative ignorance at the start of this! this has kind of interested me more than I ever thought i would be in politics! so that has to be something!! :)

well done, now you need to look at what being in Europe is all about. I'm just starting like yourself and I am horrified at how the European Bank has failed,and all these smart people both in America & Europe with our own Gov have made this unruly mess! I am concerned that we only have a say [limited] in the European Parliament.The European Commission and the E. Council are telling everybody in the EU what to do. I am not against Europe just the lack of democratic say as it is more of a dictatorship.We need to stand up for future generations as they will be so constrained and not be able to do anything as we have let them down. I think we need to get politically active as this referendum is in place of the one we should have had ie Europe. If they had been wishing for us to have a say they could have put a flyer in with the census form and took national opinions,only they know if they told the truth we would want rid of the majority of them.