Many thanks for share! I really enjoyed the reading and the insight info.

You made some decent points there. I did a thorough research on the subject earlier and think most will agree with what you brought up here. Definitely +1 to the Author!

@Phil Ruse

Perhaps you're right about the tone of the article. If I had been writing it I'd have been more positive. Still, the style of this article shouldn't detract from the advantages of AV over FPTP that I outlined above.

AV is the least worst option on offer. That is why the LibDems are pusinf for it. We've already seen what a sham of a democracy FPTP leads to. My MP can comfortably tell me to stick it because he knows he's in a safe seat where my vote doesn't count. At least with AV people will vote honestly and not tactically.

"The New Statesman endorses the Alternative Vote"

Izzard, too. That finishes that, then. FPTP till we're all dead.

A.V. Is really not that complicated, but the media, predictably, treates the general public like children and come up with flashy comparisons that serve only to confuse the issue.

One of the most common complaints about AV is it would support the BNP, well, no, it wouldn't. It would mean that elections are not two-horse races any more and, if thousands of people would have voted BNP voted for tories/labour in order to keep out tories/labour then yes, that would mean that under AV, BNP would get in. But if there is a majority of extremist voters in this country who are unable to express their political views under FPTP, then surely that is a pretty telling sign that FPTP doesn't work.

If that country votes no on may 5th the politicians will come out with the line "The public has spoken! The country supports First Past the Post!" Questions of proportional representation as an alternative won't come into it once the spin doctors start.

For my whole life politics has been a two-hore race between two equally unsuitable parties. This is our chance, as a country, to make some changes that could vastly improve our lives. Don't throw the chance away just to give Clegg a black eye. He is absolutely not worth it, we're better than that.

Voting yes to AV could pave the way for a host of improvements to the way we all live (including a referendum on proportional representation), we can always go back if it doesn't work. Voting No to AV would pave the way to another generation of the same old slimy, self serving, hypocritical career politicians which most of us gave up on years ago.

Please, this is our chance, dont waste it.

Matthew Fox claims, "AV is fairer than FPTP."
Not so.
The Jenkins Commission Report of 1998 concluded,
“AV on its own suffers from a stark objection. It offers little prospect of a move towards greater proportionality, and in some circumstances, and those the ones which certainly prevailed at the last election and may well do so for at least the next one, it is even less proportional that FPTP. ...

“Added to this, AV on its own, because it makes use exclusively of single-member constituencies, would fail to address several of the more significant defects of FPTP which we identified earlier. In particular, there would still be large tracts of the country which would be electoral deserts for major parties. Conservative voters in Scotland, for example, might only hope to influence the result through their second choice. And although AV would probably increase the number of marginal seats thus reducing the number of voters effectively excluded from influencing the overall result, most seats in the country would remain safe.”

AV: Yawn.

Royal wedding: Yawn.

Both subjects could put an insomniac to sleep.

No to AV, yes to PR.

Won't let me post my rationale.

Then why host adverts for a NO to AV, YES to PR campaign? Which is quite obviously a NO to AV campaign... what did i miss?

If AV is better why do only 3 democracies in the world use it AUstralia being the biggest and 60% of people in AUstralia would rather FPTP.
We are seeing an age of Dictatorial nations changing to democracy either via war or internal protest. I think most of these new start up democracies will end up using the FPTP system, which focuses on establishing government quickly and fairly. All Parties start out small and grow depending on how they perform at local levels then moving up, and i dont think they should be given a route directly into parliament without earning the right just because they are less wanted than the others on the ballot paper.

I havent decided yet but im leaning towards NO, as the yes vote is less clear to me!

Democracy is about choosing people who ask the right questions from the right people. With reflective voting systems, we are asking the politicians to reflect our opinions. This is a bad thing. Under no circumstance do I want politicians pandering to mob ideals. What we need is politicians who are accountable yet reflect the best ideas from civil society. From lecturers, bankers and doctors. Its not perfect, but its better than asking Jack and Jill.

Great article and pretty unanswerable case for AV, given the circumstances we're in politically and constitutionally. Especially appreciate the mention of election of the second chamber. Not much has been said about this - the UK has an hereditary head of state, an unelected second chamber and a government that is nearly always a minority one in terms of actual votes cast in an election. There is a lot more to do if the political system ins to become democratic and I think a No vote will make sure it never even gets started.

This referendum feels like an election in which the government of the day has decided that only two parties (including its own) are allowed to stand. My first inclination was to boycott it, to refuse to participate in this sop to Nick Clegg, in the hope that if enough people did likewise, it would be discredited by a poor turnout and that one day we will get a real vote on electoral reform, with more than one alternative to FPTP. I also can’t see why a Yes to AV will hasten the introduction of PR; we’d no doubt be told that it will take time to see how AV performs.

The leading article says that “if the next election results in a hung parliament, the Liberal Democrats will no doubt demand a referendum on PR as the condition of any coalition”. Why next election? That should have happened last May, but Nick Clegg fluffed it. He could have said that without at least the option of PR on the ballot paper, the Tories would have to rule as a minority, perhaps with “confidence and supply” – but that’s for another discussion.

This thread exposes why AV appears to be the worst of all worlds. It makes hung parliaments and coalitions more likely, hence its appeal to the Liberal Democrats. The thought of Nick Clegg in government in perpetuity ought to be a clinching argument for a No vote! Yet at the same time, AV can make landslide majorities even bigger (“Labour’s majority in 1997 would have swelled from 179 to 245”), which can hardly be good for democracy.

An argument for changing the voting system is that only 65% of voters chose Labour or the Tories in May 2010, and that FPTP doesn’t work if there are more than two parties in serious contention. If the opinion polls are to be believed, 80% of voters now support just two parties. Those who support this appalling government will vote Tory next time, while those who want to get rid of it have no realistic alternative other than to vote Labour.

I agree that the No campaign has been poor, and it’s also been hypocritical. A leaflet from the predominantly Tory No camp dropped through my letterbox this morning, and it attacks “unpopular” Nick Clegg for his broken promises on tuition fees, the VAT increase, job and public spending cuts. You could be forgiven for thinking that the Tories had nothing to do with any of that! It complains of “back-room deals after the election”, those very deals that handed Cameron the keys to Number 10. The claims about the cost of the referendum (which the Tories agreed to hold), and how the money could be spent on doctors, teachers and nurses instead (when we all know that it wouldn’t be spent by a Tory-led government with a pathological hatred of the public sector, and that in any event the money could only be spent once) are just beneath contempt.

The Lib Dems don’t really want AV. For Clegg the introduction of such “a miserable little compromise” would just be a face-saving exercise and would delay his downfall. Writing in ‘The Guardian’ in February 2010, Chris Huhne compared AV to “an ill-fitting corset attempting to squeeze all the diverse strands of opinion in our society into an inappropriate and deeply uncomfortable shape”
http://cuttingedgeuk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=uk&action=display&thr...

I think the Labour Party, which I support, would be harmed by AV. A year ago I would have given a second preference vote to the Lib Dems under AV, but I wouldn’t now. I can’t believe that Labour would want to enter a coalition with the Lib Dems, especially in view of the way in which Labour is regularly slagged off by the likes of Clegg, and even by bloggers at ‘Liberal Democrat Voice’. I hope that one day we will be given a real vote on electoral reform, and I can wait for that. On 5 May, I will hold my nose and vote No.

I'm a BNP supporter so how do I vote? Do I vote Yes even though to my party AV is worse than FPTP but one that might hold out the prospect of Britain finally growing-up and becoming a democracy with PR or do I vote with the self-serving, selfish scumbags of the Tories and vote No for a system which is better for the BNP but which is also saying that the archaic and blatantly undemocratic FPTP system is the best one ever devised?

well, i have voted yes in my postal vote.

Why is it that so many endorsements of AV begin with how much better PR is than FPTP? Your entire first paragraph is therefore irrelevant - that'd be the paragraph that's supposed to grab the reader with your argument of how good AV is.

Then you mention the smear tactics with respect to the BNP. I agree the "No" campaign was dreadful, but perhaps you should navigate to the "Yes" campaign website and you'll discover how they are equally culpable - "BNP say No, therefore vote Yes".. erm, what happens when the BNP say "Yes" to PR? Talk about cynical...

@chris8hr

Can you explain why you think FPTP leads to more accountability and participation than AV? A bold claim given that under FPTP an MP can be elected with a small share of the vote.

@Phil Ruse

You are incorrect. The first paragraph explains why FPTP is not suited to the current political landscape in the UK. It is suited to a two-party system. Now there are multiple parties and only 65% of people vote for the two main parties. This means that under FPTP it is possible for an MP to be elected with much less than 50% of the vote in their constituencies. AV tackles this problem by asking, in seats where no candidate achieves 50% of the vote in the first round, what would have happened in a scenario of fewer candidates?

I disagree that AV is a miserable little compromise. I think it addresses problem of FPTP in a multiple-party system whilst retaining a majoritarian system and single-member constituencies. The debate about majoritarian vs proportional systems is separate.

@Katherine:
I think that the first part of chris8hr's statement gives his(?) game away:
"Voting is such a small part of democracy"
It is egregiously counterfactual, is it not?
I'd say that it is deliberately so, in order to stun the reader's mind into quiescence, and in to not noticing that the rest of the statement - "whereas accountability and participation is the whole point. FPTP beats AV on those counts" is actually a complete inversion of the truth.

Whislt multiple-member constituencies *would* remove any hope of one's elected representatives ever being accountable to their constituents, using AV will make MP's MORE accountable; because they'll have to try to attract second-preference votes, rather than just relying on the people who'd vote for an Archer or a Mandelson to be their MP as long as he were wearing the 'right' rosette.

@Katherine - On the basis that FPTP is more effective at removing poor governments. People often vote "against governments", as opposed to, "for parties". Tactical voting is important - under AV if I don't want the Tories but want to have all my votes cast, I may have to vote for a party I actually don't want.. but just don't want less than the Tories..!

Participation as in civil society - which is the biggest contributor to democracy - not voting. Voting is a blip that allows accountability. AV is irrelevant to civil society, it may in some cases nullify it. The less your voice is heard at elections, the more you shout in between elections. I know its counter-intuitive, but its also accurate.

"Whislt multiple-member constituencies *would* remove any hope of one's elected representatives ever being accountable to their constituents"

What rubbish is this? One of the main criticisms of the Single Transferable Vote in Ireland (which at the last eletion had 43 multi member constituences electing between 3 and 5 TDs) is that it makes TD's too acountable to their constituents, so that they spend too much of their time dealing with local issues.

@deltoro87
On that basis they are equal, not stronger, as in FPTP - just don't vote for them.

Australia has a version of AV called compulsory preferential voting.

In Federal elections and variously in State elections a valid vote requires indicating support for all candidates in order of preference.

Thus extreme right wing, pro-war, pro-Zionist, human rights-abusing, pro-coal, pro-gas, anti-environment Labor scraped home on the preferences of the anti-war, pro-environment and anti-racist Greens to form a Minority Government in the 2010 elections, with the extreme right wing Liberal-National Party Coalition just failing to form a government.

First past the post would have delivered a landslide victory to a salivatingly extreme right wing, pro-war, pro-Zionist, human rights-abusing, pro-coal, pro-gas Coalition Government opposed by a (bare) majority of the people.

The Australian federal system also involves being potentially gaoled if you advocate the deliberate spoiling of your ballot (informal voting) and being fined if you don't vote, this now making most Australians complicit in the horrendous war crimes of the Liberal-National Party Coalition and Labor (the so-called Lib-Labs) in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion violent deaths plus non-violent, war-imposed avoidable deaths totalling 2.6 million and 5.0 million, respectively; see "Iraqi, Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide": https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ and "Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide": https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/).

@chris8hr

Well actually, FPTP only allows you to vote FOR one candidate. You have voted equally AGAINST all the other candidates. This is unlikely to be reflective of your views. As you mentioned before, under FPTP you are forced to vote for the most "electable" left-wing party rather than the one perhaps closest to your views. AV gives you the opportunity to demomstrate your genuine order of preference without risk of letting in, say, the Tories, by doing so. So, given that you are at least equally able to vote AGAINST governments under AV and actually more able to vote FOR your preferred candidates then surely you should vote YES to AV! :-)

I of course agree that the duty of a citizen to be informed and politically active does not end at the polling booth but I think a fair voting system is a prerequisite for a healthy democracy even if it is not sufficient for one.