Friday, April 15, 2011

AV or not AV?

Wanting to pick the bones out of the current debate about the possible changes to the voting system? There is a good article by Paul Bickley of Theos on the LICC Connecting with Culture webiste here. It will take about three minutes to read and manages to avoid the worst excesses of spin being pedalled by the yes and no campaigns at the moment.

3 comments:

Richard said...

I'm having trouble understanding all the fuss.

AV works because it mirrors the way people think about voting.

Unless you live in a very rare constituency where more than 50% of the voters back the winning candidate, most voters do not get the candidate they want.

And most people don't vote for a candidate, they vote against one.

AV allows people, for the first time. to vote for the candidate they want and then for the candidate with the best chance of defeating the candidate they don't want.

That's how most of us want to vote. AV gives us that opportunity.

Anonymous said...

The worst advert that I have seen for the NO vote was where a 'teacher' was explaining it really really badly so that no-one could understand it.
I thought the electoral commision leaflet that came through the door was very easy to understand.
Pauline

Anonymous said...

I'm also having trouble understanding the fuss but the opposite to Richard. I think first past the post is still fairer, though flawed, than the AV system which doesn't strike me as fair at all.