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[albitz]

The campaigns have started and we will be going to the polls in May to vote on whether or not we introduce this new system.
Anyone got any thoughts on the subject ?

[Banjax]

i think the system need to be fairer and more representative, AV is one option but PR would've been better - maybe further down the road if we vote in AV now? of course it may deny the tories power for decades as most of us will vote leftish, so I can see why they don't want it, plus it may well remove Labour strongholds and safe seats so a lot of them aren't happy - will it give extremists more of a say tho thats the worry - but it should be a fairer system - Labour swept to power in a landslide in '97 and yet didnt get 50% of the popular vote, so the current system certainly isnt representative 

[mantahatch]

I believe in one person one vote.
Unfortunatly many liebore voters voted for lib dems in the last election in areas where liebore had no chance and so skewed the results. That is why we have the coalition now. So  to the moaning liebore voters, you got exactly what you voted for.

Oh yes, what was the question ? oh yes AV, current system, PR or whatever, who cares it won't change anything, the last 12 years have proven whether left or right they are both the same, it just seems we get a say every 5 years, but we don't, nothing changes.

I have voted for the last time.

P.S sorry to keep editing post.

[Banjax]

I believe in one person one vote.
Unfortunatly many liebore voters voted for lib dems in the last election in areas where liebore had no chance and so skewed the results. That is why we have the coalition now. So  to the moaning liebore voters, you got exactly what you voted for.

AV would lessen the need for tactical voting - I vote who i want unless theres a danger of the tories getting in - then its tactical - luckily up here thats unlikely 

[Varche]

Saw a bit about this today. I understood (hopefully correctly) that what was proposed if the May vote agrees it is that your ballot paper in the future will get you to rank your preference. so a ballot sheet from say an ardent labour hater might read

1 xxx Con
2. yyy UKIP
3. zzz BNP
4. ggg Green
5. eee Ecology
6. lll Lib Dem
7. LLL Labour

If so wouldn't that lead to the minority parties wrongly getting a bigger representation because of peoples deep seated hatred of in this case Labour but it could easily be 7.CCC Conservative.?   

[albitz]

Saw a bit about this today. I understood (hopefully correctly) that what was proposed if the May vote agrees it is that your ballot paper in the future will get you to rank your preference. so a ballot sheet from say an ardent labour hater might read

1 xxx Con
2. yyy UKIP
3. zzz BNP
4. ggg Green
5. eee Ecology
6. lll Lib Dem
7. LLL Labour

If so wouldn't that lead to the minority parties wrongly getting a bigger representation because of peoples deep seated hatred of in this case Labour but it could easily be 7.CCC Conservative.?   

And in your example - as I understand it - if UKIP and the BNP got knocked out in the first round of counting then the 2nd choice would be given to the Greens, even though they were actually the 4th choice. Its an omnishambles of a system, with very little connection to democracy imo.
It is the reason that many countries these days have coalition Govts. made up of minority factions who end up with far more influence than their support in the country should allow them to have.
You end up with directionless Govt. with every decision a mish mash compromise so as not to upset the minorities who can pull the rug from under the Govt.
I am a supporter of a minority party, and should perhaps support such a system but I dont. There is plenty wrong with one person one vote, but I still believe its so much better than any form of PR could ever be.
Some complex form of AV/PR would leave us open to even more manipulation by the political/ chattering classes imo, and we would almost certainly never again have a Govt. of one party with a good solid majority leading the country in one particular direction.
It may be a good thing that Clegg is leading the Yes campaign at the present time, as his personal rating is about the same level as a snakes gonads in a cart rut. Probably because he has been shown to be a shameless unprincipled opportunistic career politician, even by westminster standards.

[Kevin Wood]

I think this business of second choices, etc. is a nonsense. I struggle to find one party who I feel truly worthy of my vote, so what of my 2nd, 3rd choice? I either leave it blank and effectively have the current system or be encouraged to vote tactically, which doesn't help anyone.

What we need to do is stop the existing system being Gerrymandered, IMHO, so if we ever get a crook like B.Liar in the chair again (or, in fairness, the Tory government that preceded him), he can be dispatched before he inflicts a decade of mismanagement on the country. They need to be made to work hard to get into power, and even harder to stay there, IMHO.

Who was it that compared politicians with nappies? They both need changing regularly, for the same reason.

Some complex form of AV/PR would leave us open to even more manipulation by the political/ chattering classes imo, and we would almost certainly never again have a Govt. of one party with a good solid majority leading the country in one particular direction.

Agreed, although, in our recent experience of that...

Kevin

[albitz]

I think that the problems you have alluded to Kevin are largely caused by the fact that the checks and balances we used to have in place to stop people like B.liar doing the things he did, have been eroded, corrupted and bypassed to a degree which is criminal. A good demonstration of this can be read in the link I put in a post in the newspaper thread.
We need to rebuild/reinstall those checks and balances and reinforce and protect them in such a way that they cannot be hijacked by the likes of Bliar/Cambell/Mandelson to be used for their own ends.
They were put there in the first place to protect our democracy from people like that, but those B******* thought that they were above that sort of thing and wrecked a centuries old system for the sake of political expediency.

[albitz]

Clegg said this morning that AV is used in Australia and for electing the mayor of London.
Istr that it took many weeks of horstrading to decide who would govern Australia after the last election there ?
We dont use AV to elect the mayor of London.

[Banjax]

Clegg said this morning that AV is used in Australia and for electing the mayor of London.
Istr that it took many weeks of horstrading to decide who would govern Australia after the last election there ?
We dont use AV to elect the mayor of London.

......errr.....I'm pretty sure you do, but I'm not a Londoner so ask one of them 

[Banjax]

Saw a bit about this today. I understood (hopefully correctly) that what was proposed if the May vote agrees it is that your ballot paper in the future will get you to rank your preference. so a ballot sheet from say an ardent labour hater might read

1 xxx Con
2. yyy UKIP
3. zzz BNP
4. ggg Green
5. eee Ecology
6. lll Lib Dem
7. LLL Labour

If so wouldn't that lead to the minority parties wrongly getting a bigger representation because of peoples deep seated hatred of in this case Labour but it could easily be 7.CCC Conservative.?   

why would an ardent Labour-hater vote labour? you just rank the parties in order of preference, if you only like one party, then you only put a "1" in that box, if you don't mind 3 of the parties you rank them "1","2","3".....etc you dont have to rank every party nor do you need to rank more than one 

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Saw a bit about this today. I understood (hopefully correctly) that what was proposed if the May vote agrees it is that your ballot paper in the future will get you to rank your preference. so a ballot sheet from say an ardent labour hater might read

1 xxx Con
2. yyy UKIP
3. zzz BNP
4. ggg Green
5. eee Ecology
6. lll Lib Dem
7. LLL Labour

If so wouldn't that lead to the minority parties wrongly getting a bigger representation because of peoples deep seated hatred of in this case Labour but it could easily be 7.CCC Conservative.?   

And in your example - as I understand it - if UKIP and the BNP got knocked out in the first round of counting then the 2nd choice would be given to the Greens, even though they were actually the 4th choice. Its an omnishambles of a system, with very little connection to democracy imo.
It is the reason that many countries these days have coalition Govts. made up of minority factions who end up with far more influence than their support in the country should allow them to have.
You end up with directionless Govt. with every decision a mish mash compromise so as not to upset the minorities who can pull the rug from under the Govt.
I am a supporter of a minority party, and should perhaps support such a system but I dont. There is plenty wrong with one person one vote, but I still believe its so much better than any form of PR could ever be.
Some complex form of AV/PR would leave us open to even more manipulation by the political/ chattering classes imo, and we would almost certainly never again have a Govt. of one party with a good solid majority leading the country in one particular direction.
It may be a good thing that Clegg is leading the Yes campaign at the present time, as his personal rating is about the same level as a snakes gonads in a cart rut. Probably because he has been shown to be a shameless unprincipled opportunistic career politician, even by westminster standards.

All the points you make Albs are very valid, and highlights how this system leads to a far less democratic system with the strong possibility that no one party is strong enough to push through policy change.

A far fairer system would be to reshape the constituencies so that they each contain an equal number of potential voters per potential MP.

[Lizzie_Zoom]

Clegg said this morning that AV is used in Australia and for electing the mayor of London.
Istr that it took many weeks of horstrading to decide who would govern Australia after the last election there ?
We dont use AV to elect the mayor of London.

......errr.....I'm pretty sure you do, but I'm not a Londoner so ask one of them 

No, in Elections for the London Mayor it is a "supplementary vote" system.  That is the voters place a vote for their first and second choices, although the latter is not compulsary, but they must vote for a first choice.

If a candidate obtains over half the first choice vote then they are elected.  If they fail to do that the second choice votes are taken into account, with all other candidates eliminated who do not obtain the highest votes in either the first or second choice voting.  The candidate who finally obtains the highest first and second choice votes wins.

[Banjax]

Saw a bit about this today. I understood (hopefully correctly) that what was proposed if the May vote agrees it is that your ballot paper in the future will get you to rank your preference. so a ballot sheet from say an ardent labour hater might read

1 xxx Con
2. yyy UKIP
3. zzz BNP
4. ggg Green
5. eee Ecology
6. lll Lib Dem
7. LLL Labour

If so wouldn't that lead to the minority parties wrongly getting a bigger representation because of peoples deep seated hatred of in this case Labour but it could easily be 7.CCC Conservative.?   

And in your example - as I understand it - if UKIP and the BNP got knocked out in the first round of counting then the 2nd choice would be given to the Greens, even though they were actually the 4th choice. Its an omnishambles of a system, with very little connection to democracy imo.
It is the reason that many countries these days have coalition Govts. made up of minority factions who end up with far more influence than their support in the country should allow them to have.
You end up with directionless Govt. with every decision a mish mash compromise so as not to upset the minorities who can pull the rug from under the Govt.
I am a supporter of a minority party, and should perhaps support such a system but I dont. There is plenty wrong with one person one vote, but I still believe its so much better than any form of PR could ever be.
Some complex form of AV/PR would leave us open to even more manipulation by the political/ chattering classes imo, and we would almost certainly never again have a Govt. of one party with a good solid majority leading the country in one particular direction.
It may be a good thing that Clegg is leading the Yes campaign at the present time, as his personal rating is about the same level as a snakes gonads in a cart rut. Probably because he has been shown to be a shameless unprincipled opportunistic career politician, even by westminster standards.

All the points you make Albs are very valid, and highlights how this system leads to a far less democratic system with the strong possibility that no one party is strong enough to push through policy change.

A far fairer system would be to reshape the constituencies so that they each contain an equal number of potential voters per potential MP.

thats just one ballot paper, how you can extrapolate a complete election from that is anyones guess  - i think people are getting uneccesarily confused over this - its really quite simple, whether its fairer or not is another matter

[albitz]

Clegg said this morning that AV is used in Australia and for electing the mayor of London.
Istr that it took many weeks of horstrading to decide who would govern Australia after the last election there ?
We dont use AV to elect the mayor of London.

......errr.....I'm pretty sure you do, but I'm not a Londoner so ask one of them 

Your wrong, Lizzie is correct.