impossible to find impartial explanations of AV!

[ChocolateCoveredlissielou]

the "no to AV" leaflets make a compelling case. I dont really want my remaining votes spread across the other parties. I dont want my third place to win.

BUT...

the "yes to AV" campaign is also very convincing. there were three local parties in the last election that I would have happily voted for.

please help me decide!

The Avs and Av nots.

I think AV is a good idea. Weirdly, because I hate this Coalition, I'm rather in favour of coalitions in general. I don't think any of the three main parties have the same priorities as I do any more, and having to negotiate with coalition partners might rein them in a bit. Plus I think more Green policies might get through.

And I think that the main problem with democracy is that the first priority of the party in power has to be to stay in power, so they feel they have to win our support by lying to us/bribing big business, etc. Having a coalition will muddy the waters. It will make it more difficult to identify which party is responsible for certain policies, because individuals from different parties will have to work together and thrash things out.

Look at the present lot as a pilot scheme, a dummy run. The next government will be better as it won't have any Tories or Lib Dems in it ...

I think AV would lead to more coalitions. But PR does seem a fairer system than either AV or FPTP. I don't know why they didn't go for that. I think it was because it was seen as a LibDem policiy and the Tories wanted to water it down?

To AV or not to AV? For me, it's yes. I'll just drop a few of points into the discussion.

The Yes campaign is not as rich as the NO campaign. The Yes campaign has published it's funding sources, the NO campaign refuses to follow suit.

AV is not that complicated. The Electoral Commission explain it in a video at the bottom of this page

First past the post was fine while we just had the Whigs or the Tories to vote for. Nowadays there may be as many as ten candidates on a ballot paper. We need AV so that parliament better reflects the will of the people. At the moment MP's can be elected with 30% of the vote, leaving 60% of the vote unrepresented in the constituency.

Australia, with AV, has had less hung parliaments than we have here with first past the post.

If AV is good enough for party leadership elections, it's good enough for us plebs.

You don't have to give a second, third or fourth choice, if you don't want to. You can just vote for one candidate, if there's only one candidate you like.

" I don't know why they didn't go for that. "

If the Lib-Dems really had any sense, they wouldn't have agreed to the coalition without PR being on the table. The one solitary thing they have been campaigning for for decades and they blew their best chance of getting it. Clegg's made many mistakes in his first year as Deputy PM but arguably the biggest mistake he made was buckling under the pressure from the people and the media to quickly form a government. I am not sorry this happened, I should add, but when they come to write up the history of Nick Clegg, that will prove to be the crucial moment when he failed as a leader.

What I feel is that even in the scenario you describe, Giddy Pickle, of the Greens getting 20% and LIbDems 23%; whether they like it or not with the Greens breathing on the backs of their necks, the major parties will have to throw them some scraps and adopt some of their policies.

This happens already but not enough, and will be more under AV, imo.

It's very odd, but in the last election, I agreed with a lot of what the LibDems said, but not what they did. As far as Labour is concerned, I don't agree with much of what they say, but really liked a lot of what they did in the last government.

There seems to be such a big difference now between the policies that get a party elected and the ones they carry out once in power. I think it makes sense to look at the pressure groups surrounding the parties in power, and to boost their importance.

Devious lot, aren't they, GiddyPickle!

But I disagree that they will just be able to shrug off the Green issues once elected. There's always the next election to think about. Also, the Green policies make sense. They need to be tried out. AV is a perfect cover for a party who is in power to put something into practice that the majority of their supporters might not agree with, because they can then blame the system. However, sometimes it's not the case that the party faithful actually disagree with a policy. They might well think it's a good idea, but they just don't know how it can work in practice.

You make a good point about the BNP, but I don't think the situation is the same as with the Greens. Green policies are socially acceptable. Other parties feel guilty about not being green enough and would like to bring in policies that up their green credentials, while not having to take responsibility if they fail.

It is possible that the people in the main parties are - subconsiciously or consciously - sexist and racist and would act as you describe. But the BNP are pariahs and any party that did behave in this way would be rightly condemned. But I do think you have a point because these things are often pandered to already, and they are more about a state of mind, a way of thinking, than anything else. However, the way to deal with these racism/sexism issues is not through the voting system, imo, but through quotas, positive discrimination etc - all the things the parties do already (but should do more of) to try to ensure that their MPs reflect the population at large.

In fact, I don't think we would get so many rich, young, white men representing us under AV, for exactly the same reasons.

I'm not being argumentative for the sake of it, btw, GiddyPickle. Discussing things with you is helping me to think this through, as you have obviously done already, and you have made me think twice a few times!

I am beginning to wish we were going to be given the opportunity to vote on PR. Maybe if AV goes through we will?

AV is being discussed at the moment on Radio 4's Any Answers.

Apols if x-posts:

" I dont really want my remaining votes spread across the other parties. I dont want my third place to win."

In that case, you can only vote for one person, ranking them first. You don't have to rank every candidate.

From the BBC page:

"The AV system asks voters to rank candidates in order of preference. People can nominate as many preferences as they like."

I came across a couple of good things online today about AV

A piece from the Independant called If You Can Get The X Factor You Can Get AV

"It comes down to this. On May 5th, you can vote No with David Cameron, the BNP and a campaign that thinks you are too thick to count to three ? or you can vote Yes with all the progressive forces in British politics, massed together to move democracy forward a few small inches. What?s your preference?"

Wow, thats my explanation! but with pubs/cafes not chocs. so cool to see it on film, and with Dan Snow - how lovely :) :)

He's so lovely, isn't he? Great video. Thanks for the link.