AV referendum.

[CanisMajor]

Just watching the Andrew Marr Show and the PM said that AV is used only by Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinnea. So do we really want a system that is so unnattactive? Apparently to make this work Australia has made voting a legal requirement. Surely any system where a stick is needed if flawed. Sorry if this has been discussed already,I'm a recent joiner.

[venator]

Colin - that sums it up for me!

[whiskeryron]

MarkRae, I appreciate what you are saying but surely you can see my point that in every election we've ever had the collective total of voters for other parties has always outnumbered the votes of the winning party therefore to me the country is usually governed by people not elected by the majority of voters ( totally undemocratic) Ron.

[MarkRae]

Yes, Ron, but suggesting that we replace an imperfect system with a crackpot one is plain daft, IMO...

[Kromovaracun]

If I remember right, a form of AV is also used to elect the French president (who is far more powerful than their legislature is, so assuming I've remembered right, claiming that French government isn't selected by it is rather misleading). A form of it (SV) is also used for Mayoral elections throughout the UK (though to be fair it does have a significant difference to the one being proposed in the referendum).

My own view is that for all its flaws AV is better in practice than PR, and far better than SMP/FPTP...

[whiskeryron]

I think that what I am really after is Proportional Representation & I really think that P/R should have been the alternative choice in a referendum but of course the top 2 parties ( Tory/Labour ) wouldn't dream of giving the electorate that choice because they know very well that they would lose out & we can't be having that can we ? So I will at least be registering my disapproval of the first past the post by selecting A/V ( not that my little vote will make any difference ) Ron.

[MarkRae]

> So I will at least be registering my disapproval of the first past the post by selecting A/V

Wow!

[Tizzi24]

Why should we vote for a system which is only in 3 countries in the world, and one of them is trying to lose it! I won't be voting for it.

[whiskeryron]

Yeah M/R Wow indeed ( No need to be sarcy mate) Ron.

[Kromovaracun]

Doing something (or not doing something) because everyone else is/isn't doing it isn't a particularly logical argument, I remind you...

[Kromovaracun]

It's also a rather lazy argument, actually. If you have problems with AV, then fine. But don't just resign thinking critically about it because other people have problems with it.

[MarkRae]

Seriously, Ron, you're demonstrating your dislike for the present system by voting for something that's even worse? How on earth does that work?

I really dislike Conservatism so, at the next general election, should I demonstrate my dislike of the Tory candidate by voting BNP...?

[whiskeryron]

Tizzi24 I'm really not interested in other parts of the world, we are talking about elections in this country & it's really time to alter the situation ( I'm not saying A/V is better) but as I've already stated 1st past the post ( the present system) is totally unfair.Ron.

[boxtops]

I looked for the referendum question because I wondered if we would be tricked into voting yes (with a double negative), but it seems that this is it:
http://today.yougov.c...gn-really-will-matter

[boxtops]

^ no, that's not it but it's a typical question - does anyone know the actual question?

[I.Don No]

For a lot of people I think the problem is that if the 'no' campaign gets its way then politicians will think that we are happy with the FPTP system....and I, for one, am not.

[mike11111]

I have already voted NO. Your link shows the correct question as it appears on the paper.

[CanisMajor]

Cameron was not elected under AV, although there are similarities. They actually vote at each stage and then in the final stage the whole party is involved, see here:
http://en.wikipedia.o...he_Conservative_Party

[MarkRae]

^^ Fair enough but, regrettably, that isn't what Thursday's vote asks.

If it asked "Are you happy with the FPTP system? Yes / No", I'd probably vote "No".

But it doesn't. It asks "Do you want to replace the FPTP system with the AV system? Yes / No"

So, I'll be voting "No" because I don't want to replace an imperfect system with something which, in my opinion, is a million times worse...

[whiskeryron]

so who has decided what the question shall be for the referendum,because it would appear to be a loaded question to start with, as MarkRae says if the question asked had been different there would have been completely different answers,so was the question asked in such a way as to bias the result of the referendum?Ron.

[boxtops]

Mike's voted, he says the question in my link is the one we will see on Thursday