The Alternative Voting System explained....

[curiouswombat]

As today is the day the UK have a referendum on their political voting system I thought a Public Information Post might be appreciated... :~)

I live somewhere which toyed with the idea of Single Transferable Vote - which is fairly much the same as AV. We decided against it because we have a multi-seat constituency system and no real political parties and so it was deemed that STV probably wasn't necessary.

However - we get the UK PPBs (Part Political Broadcasts) on our televisions anyway, and the current ones about AV, if I don't have the zapper within reach - and we also watch UK news. So it has not escaped my notice that many UK politicians feel that a lot of Brits can't cope with anything more complicated than a cross.

So - to help you understand AV I have a simple model courtesy of infinitemonkeys;

List the candidates in the order in which you would rescue them from a burning building. When you've listed all the ones you'd bother about, stop.

By the way - the second sentence seems to be the bit the anti-AV people don't mention - they give the impression that you HAVE TO give everyone a number - but you can just choose to replace your previous 'X' with '1' and then, if your candidate doesn't get in your vote won't actually go to anyone else.

There now - I'm sure even you poor people who are deemed too stupid to understand complicated things like politics (Fellow nurses for example...if Andrew Landsley is to be believed) can understand it now!

Comments

[azalaisdep.livejournal.com]

I voted Yes first thing this morning, and spent half the week at work trying to convince wavering colleagues. I can only see the logic of FPTP in a two-party system; as soon as you have three or more parties, what I want to do is not simply to vote for one party and thus imply that all the others are equally undesirable, but to express something like "Party A, for preference. But if I can't have A, then C. Party B over my dead body."

One of the best and most succinct summaries I saw was: "Under FPTP, the government you get is the largest minority's best choice. Under AV, you get the largest majority's least worst choice."

(Because you hardly ever, in a multi-party system, get a winning party with more than 50% of the vote with FPTP; under AV you do at least get a government which at least 50% of the population is prepared to tolerate.)

Mind you, round here we also have a Parish Council election worthy of The Archers - two competing slates of independent candidates with vigorous exchanges of views! Am intrigued to see how that one's going to turn out...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

I'm with you - I would be in favour if I had a vote in it.

Your parish elections sound like our actual government elections. We have no real party system - but lots of independents who exchange their views vigorously - it is much more fun than party based politics!