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.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

It's a bad, expensive, complicated system that will give more power to both the Lib Dems and BNP - two sound reasons to vote No.

More importantly - why the bloody hell do I care what bloody Honour Blackman thinks about a voting system!?! Or Colin Firth!?

Nick Clegg himself called it a miserable little compromise, only 3 countries in the world have it and 2 are trying to get rid of it, it's AWFUL

Furthermore.... How on earth can an electoral system be 'broken'?!?! CATEGORY MISTAKE, like a happy triangle.

Rant over

DebKC you are wrong in your massively uninformed assumptions. The majority have voted against the government in almost every election since the 1960s

YES YES YES...YES..YES!!!

give me AV!! AAHAHAHHAHA

Missing is right, most governments have been elected with only a minority of votes, typically around 30%. This is not democratic.

AV means all MPs will need a majority of support. Its fairer and more democratic.

'Night all.

Gosh, people are getting surprisingly cross about this, aren't they? I'm voting 'no' because AV is even worse than FPTP but people are free to disagree with me. Don't understand why it's so heated.

just marking place so I can read this tomorrow as I have no idea which way to vote. Only read the first few posts, but I thought AV WAS still the FPTP system, just a different way of doing it?

A big fat no from me. It seems a dreadful mishmash, for reasons Giddy's not even slightly dull posts have articulated very well.

"AV means all MPs will need a majority of support. Its fairer and more democratic."

Crikey.
Its not difficult
Yet again AV does not guarantee a winner with> 50% of the vote

Really HH, repeating the same lie mistake over& over again doesn't make people believe you on Mumsnet.So give it a rest eh?

MPs will need to have a measure of support from 50% plus one vote of the voters in the round that is used to elect. If the counts get to the point where there are no further preferences on some ballot papers, then it may be slightly less than 50% of the PEOPLE WHO VOTED (not of the people who didn't as well as some posters seem to want to believe) - but that will literally be one or two percentage points.

MPs who have ONLY 30% support and no measure of support at all from other voters will struggle - that is why many who have been able to rely only on core voters (party members and unquestioning supporters) are nervous, because they have not worked hard enough (i.e. they haven't bothered in up to 20 years) to reach out to people who vote for other parties - in some cases where the safe MP is particularly arrogant - he or she has actually worked to alienate supporters of other parties by campaigning negatively against them, or ridiculing them. Under AV those politicians (who should, after all be representing consituency views to parliament) will have to rely on some of those people they have alienates to give them at least a measure of support - it is the avoidance of that (what they see as) humiliating climbdown that is fuelling the safe seat support for AV - in several major metropolises, safe MPs from all sides are incredibly nervous that they don't hold the support needed to hold the seat - and that , in my view, is exactly how politicians should feel.

There is absolutely no doubt that politicians will no longer be able to hold safe seats without any campaigning if their support from the entire constiuency is only 28 - 30% and other voters don't have some appreciation of them as an appropriate constiuency representative - and that, I think, will be good for politics - I am in a safe seat and I hate the fact that every year people tell me that they aren't voting because for 20 years they have been in a consituency where the MP is elected on a core vote who don't care for the opinions of others in the constituency - that's just wrong.

'WTF? what has fighting overseas in someone else's was got to do with having a fair voting system in this country'...and it would be nice if they got to vote on it, but they won't as the service postal voting doesn't always get the voting slips there on time.

I've set up a postal proxy as we are service voters and the voting slips won't get here as we have no post over Easter until approx 4th May and I will be voting no.

Giddy's posts on this thread are wonderful. Whoever said they were dull was very rude and inaccurate indeed. I am voting no. No system is perfect and fptp is far from perfect but it is simple, usually returns a clear winner avoiding all this wishy washy pseudo- cooperation coalition crap, avoids a long drawn out count (can't be doing with waiting ages to find out who wins- staying up all night is one thing but having to stay up all week while 4th preferences are counted is quite another!) means you vote for your own MP rather than a stranger from a list and keeps the pipsqueak fascist parties out. I think there are
some strong arguments in favour of pr (apparently lots more women and ethnic minority MPs are elected under pr because you don't need local popularity to return a candidate, for example) but actually very few in favour of AV. Strikingly few positive reasons mentioned on this thread. The best people have come up with is 'it might be a stepping stone to PR'. Well, possibly but by no means necessarily.and in the meantime (90 years in the case of Oz) we get a very flawed fudge. I reckon all voting systems have flaws but AV has more flaws than most. It will please no one.

It is strange that all this talk is about what the electors will do. Do you really think that the politicians will meekly sit there and accept it. No, they will be plotting behind the scenes. We will get even fewer 'conviction' politicians and more 'do whatever it takes to get elected' politicians. Less passion and more grey suits. They will wnd up trying to be all things to all people.

We need to think more about unintended consequences.

I would like FPTP for the Commons and use those same votes to fill the Lords (renamed) with PR.

Totally agree with purits. I would really like the idea of AV, or PR, if we lived in an ideal world, and thought that I would be voting yes, however, Eddie Izzard convinced me on Sunday that it isn't workable. He argued that candidates will need to speak to every part of the electorate, not just their supporters and convince them that they will listen to and represent them too.

The way the Lib Dems did at the last election? They were convincing enough saying what they stood for, but when the chance comes to be in power, they have set aside too many of their policies, in order to cling onto power. Words are cheap. I think that it's better to have people standing for government who really believe in what they stand for and are prepared to win or lose on those grounds.

I would rather have FPTP and be governed by a party I didn't vote for, than AV and be governed by a party I voted for, who then changed their spots once they were in power.

honestly, why the hell to people think that AV means coalitions - we have had more coalitions here under first past the post than Australia has had under AV and the CURRENT COALITION WAS VOTED IN UNDER FIRST PAST THE POST.

In areas where the count goes to 2 or 3 counts, it will take about 20% more than the time needed to make the first count, so if you normally get a result at 1am, you might get the result now at 1.40 am - all this BS about it taking 'weeks' to get a result sounds like more no campaign fear-mongering - ITS NOT TRUE.

Its true that some politicians don't want to accept the electorate's views - 'conviction politicians' are quite often people who represent their personal view to parliament rather than canvassing the views of the constituency they represent sure a minority might support that but its interesting that people who 'like conviction politicians' often hate politicians with convictions in the other direction! Democracy is not supposed to be about electing people who don't represent you just because what they say or how they say it is amusing - that said, the London Mayor is elected by AV and that type of conviction mayor who can get things done as well as amuse is exactly what london has got and done very well on.

Politicians who are trying to block AV are typically doing so because a) they don't want the electorate to tell them waht to do - a power thing b) they are safe and are worried that they will be less safe under AV c) they have good careers and have found out what 'works' to get them in time after time and don't want to have to work out new tactics d) they have contempt for the electorate and think that if it is given more freedom it will return the 'wrong' decision - as can be show by the lying no campaign from typically establishment and safe-seat politicians.

Also interesting to note that the strongest argument for First Past the Post is 'its simple' so is bread, but I wouldn't eat it for every meal.

I will bother to vote and I'll be voting YES

I've not read anything to convince me that AV is something worth voting for. Just because it's not FPTP doesn't seem a good enough reason to me.

This site is an interesting read.

"So far from doing much to relieve disproportionality, AV is capable of substantially adding to it."

A key objective of the the Independent Commission Into Voting Reform ("the Jenkins Commission") was to find a more proportional voting system. For decades electoral reformers have held that any change to our voting system must be based on the principle that it offers at least some increase in proportionality.

After considering substantial evidence in its two volume report, which also weighed the benefits of AV, the Jenkins Commission rejected AV on its own, primarily because it can be signficantly less proportional than our current system.

AV was unacceptable to an independent commission looking into electoral reform.

It should be unacceptable to electoral reformers now.

This is what I can't get away from. The Jenkins Commission totally rejected AV, yet this is the only option we're being offered as an alternative to FPTP?

Jenkins commission recommended AV+ A VERSION OF AV - where AV is the main component - don't hide the facts in making your argument.

AV+ is where in addition to the constituency AV system a pool of MPs is also elected to the house that is proportionate to the national vote. AV is a small change in that direction, and we could add the preferred system of the Jenkins Commission at a later date if another referendum approves it.

AV keeps the constituency link as robust as it is now (one of the strong features of our democracy in my view, particularly in getting run of the mill MP work done) and also returns a government that can govern (which is less likely under full PR). If there is no change now, it is unlikely that AV+ - the system which you seem to respect wubblybubbly (if you are not just using the Jenkins Report as a stick to beat AV with - which sounds likely from your post and missing information) will get considered - if AV gets voted in we can look at further refinements at a later date.

A small change which only affects the counting procedure rather than the admin of a pool of MPs that have no constituency mandate sounds good to me!

Sorry, haven't read the whole thread. Has anyone mentioned the fact that Australia has AV? It produces a very stable government, unlike PR, and it hasn't empowered parties of the far right (or indeed left); it has however given some power to centre parties. Can we not look at this as a model rather than at Cameron's weird fantasies?

I am not too keen on the implications of AV, but I am concerned that a No vote could result in no further opportunities for electoral reform for another 100 years. Voting reform is only on the agenda because the lib dema are part of the government, and it might not happen again for some time.