UK AV Referendum Poll

[Silent Hunter]

Hope the Boardbashi has no objection to this...

That is the official question.

[afleitch]

No.

AV entrenches and indeed may even worsen the disproportion that exists between votes and seats. I will only support STV in multimember constituencies.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The more I think about this, the more I'm tempted to spoil my ballot.

[Serenity Now]

The more I think about this, the more I'm tempted to spoil my ballot.

Yes I've been having similar thoughts myself.. I have my doubts about AV*, but I feel like actually voting against it would effectively be voting for FPTP.

*I basically share Afleitch's opinion on this.

[tpfkaw]

Sure.

[Јas]

Of course.

AV would result in constituencies having representatives that enjoy, on the whole, more broad support from their constituents.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

It's preferable to FPTP, so in the choice of the two, definatley.

[Barnes]

Between the two, I'd vote for AV, but I'd much prefer what afleitch said: PR with multi-member constituencies.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

No.

[Franzl]

Strongly support.

My prefered voting system.

[Silent Hunter]

No. It's not my preferred alternative to FPTP (which is actually the Scottish system) and I really, really don't like a system that would risk the Lib Dems holding the balance of power on a permanent basis.

[Хahar 🤔]

Is this fake IRV like the kind in London mayoral elections, or real Australian IRV?

No. It's not my preferred alternative to FPTP (which is actually the Scottish system) and I really, really don't like a system that would risk the Lib Dems holding the balance of power on a permanent basis.

There really isn't any evidence at all that this system would do that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A lot of people would probably just vote for 'their' party and not bother to fill out the rest of the ballot.

[Insula Dei]

I allow for the possibility of me being a cynical partisan hack, but I'd vote against AV for a number of reasons.

-If AV passes that possibly means that (meaningfull) Electoral Reform will be off the agenda for a generation.
-AV isn't really more 'proportional' than FPTP in my eyes and is likely to reward the party that has managed to least antagonize the other parties' supporters, and I'm not a great fan of Parties being rewarded for a lack of position-taking. (As for the 'not more proportional' part: I can't see the Greens get more than 1 seat even under AV)
-AV would either make the Liberals king-maker in every (relatively) close election for decades or cement the current Coalition as the LibDems and the Tories would have a lot of incentive to stick together, thus in my opinion also making AV failing desirable to the Tory right and the SDP-wing of the Liberals.
-Labour's chances of reclaiming government  in 2015 seem to be better under FPTP than under AV.
-Yeah, the Coalition (and Clegg) taking a hit this soon would be nice.

I'm ready to admit that those last two reasonings might come across as petty partisanship, but remember guys, politics is a means to a goal and as long as everything happens legally and in the spirit of democracy and responsability I don't see a problem in playing a bit of obstructionism on a government I'd vehemently oppose.

[You kip if you want to...]

LOL no. It's not PR and the Liberals shouldn't be rewarded for their poor governmental skills.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I'm ready to admit that those last two reasonings might come across as petty partisanship, but remember guys, politics is a means to a goal and as long as everything happens legally and in the spirit of democracy and responsability I don't see a problem in playing a bit of obstructionism on a government I'd vehemently oppose.

There's really nothing wrong with basing a vote (even a hypothetical one) in a referendum on considerations other than those on the ballot.

[redcommander]

No, I'm pretty much over anything Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems think of trying to deceive out of the British electorate. If anything, I think a MMP system like the one in New Zealand is the best. It allows the electorate to be represented more directly with a constituency, but also allows non-regional smaller parties to have greater representation. Too bad it is at risk this year, but either MMP or FPP are better in my opinion than AV.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That system is used in devolved elections in Scotland and Wales (though in Wales the percentage of proportional seats is lower than in New Zealand). It's not been a brilliant success in Wales (to risk understatement) and there are potential problems looming in Scotland. Of course that doesn't mean that that system is inherently bad, just that it's not the perfect solution it's often proposed to be.

[Хahar 🤔]

It's not been a brilliant success in Wales (to risk understatement) and there are potential problems looming in Scotland.

Now you must elaborate.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's not been a brilliant success in Wales (to risk understatement) and there are potential problems looming in Scotland.

Now you must elaborate.

It's late and I'm tired. So a ramble this must be.

How much do you know about what happened after the Assembly elections in 2007? That Godawful mess was a direct consequence of the halfway-house electoral system; parties fight elections as if they were held under the 'normal' electoral system and that's how most people vote (I know more than a few people, intelligent people at that, who were quite bemused at being presented with two ballot papers). But, of course, the results will never be the same as those held under the 'normal' electoral system. This provides an incentive for parties to lie about their post-election intentions, which is exactly what happened in 2007 and there are all sorts of other obvious problems. Not good from a democratic point of view.

There was (is?) in Wales an additional problem, and that's the error of having only a third of seats elected by the list. The main issue there is the political culture it promoted (promotes?). One particular party can win a working majority in a good year (and did so in 2003). None of the others can. This encouraged a very specific - and very unhealthy - form of backroom politics, one that the electorate knew very little about (apart from the occasional crisis; and there have been too many of those).

So you end up in the ridiculous farce of a ramshackle three-party coalition (the possibility of which had been denied - often quite angrily - during the campaign) with no obvious democratic mandate being agreed to by the three party leaders in question, only to fall apart before made formal because the leader of the smallest of the parties had forgotten the rules and procedures of his own party. But at least we did then get a properly conducted set of negotiations between Labour and Plaid a logical-ish coalition with a coherent programme, so it didn't end so badly...

[Хahar 🤔]

the leader of the smallest of the parties had forgotten the rules and procedures of his own party

This is the one thing that I'm unfamiliar with. It sounds hilarious.

[Silent Hunter]

To be honest, I'd be happier with a PR-based system if we had a party system more like that of Germany; with a fourth large party.

[minionofmidas]

How much do you know about what happened after the Assembly elections in 2007? That Godawful mess was a direct consequence of the halfway-house electoral system; parties fight elections as if they were held under the 'normal' electoral system and that's how most people vote (I know more than a few people, intelligent people at that, who were quite bemused at being presented with two ballot papers). But, of course, the results will never be the same as those held under the 'normal' electoral system. This provides an incentive for parties to lie about their post-election intentions, which is exactly what happened in 2007 and there are all sorts of other obvious problems. Not good from a democratic point of view.

This is an argument to end that insane fptp crap at Westminster too so that it can stop poisoning politics at other levels, right?

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Not necessarily; I think the better remedy would be not to change that ratio but simply reduce the number of regions. Either way, right now there's just too few list seats per region to make the results proportional. It also creates quite a high de facto threshold.

[Franzl]

It's hard for me to understand why people actually want PR with any type of party list.
STV would be quite good though.

[Chancellor of the Duchy of Little Lever and Darcy Lever]

It's hard for me to understand why people actually want PR with any type of party list.
STV would be quite good though.

The people who get to compile the lists might quite like it.