'Is AV really so complex? Or is it just confusion marketing?' blog discussion

Onyourcase

kermitfrog wrote: »

What's the difference?

Much as I hated the Thatcher and Major Governments, was disappointed by the Blair and Brown Goverments, I'm really hacked off by the present crowd. OK it happened this time under FPTP, but I think AV would bring us this current poor outcome more frequently.

dggar

Onyourcase wrote: »

Typo!

Should read "If the Yes campaign win this referendum, we will not have another chance to change the unfair AV voting system, perhaps for decades...[/

How do you know it's a typo? it isn't your posting.

If the No campaign does win I believe the spin that will be put on the outcome will be something like:-

" The british people have shown they have no appetite for electoral change."

and any chance to change the present voting system will be lost for decades.


I have checked this posting very carefully. There are no typing errors in it.

kermitfrog

dggar wrote: »

If the No campaign does win I believe the spin that will be put on the outcome will be something like:-

" The british people have shown they have no appetite for electoral change."

and any chance to change the present voting system will be lost for decades.

And if the 'Yes' campaign win the spin will be that...

"...a minority of the electorate has imposed its will on the majority."

For it would be won because of apathy on the 'No' side. That's democracy for you! And any chance to change the new voting system will be lost for decades.

(Regarding typos, British is spelt with a capital 'B')

flexrider

We Need Pr voting Reform not av voting

If your stuck on the fence on which way
to vote or dont understand here is suppost to work

The old system....When you vote the old style way you choose one mp to represent parliement to the finish line on the votes, ifc no votes reach the finish line then as we have now its a coalitian goverment or the member has to get other partyts to bunk them up over the line to form power or share the vote,

The new system will work like this
you vote your favorate (1) second favorate(2) 3rd faviorate (3)(least favorate(4) all votes in this system will then be aco!!!!ed until its the last two mp's or on e wins....

This system has been round for a while in Europe however it has it flaws so i will be voting no to av plus a bonus to voting no is showing the lib-dems a good kick in the teeth

jeanmd

kermitfrog wrote: »

And if the 'Yes' campaign win the spin will be that...

"...a minority of the electorate has imposed its will on the majority."

For it would be won because of apathy on the 'No' side. That's democracy for you! And any chance to change the new voting system will be lost for decades.

(Regarding typos, British is spelt with a capital 'B')

Do you really think so?
Try talking to my daughter and all her eighteen year old friends at college. This is the first time in many years that I have seen the 'new' generation take such an interest in politics. From what DD says the majority of her friends can't wait to vote. The belief seems to be that a coalition government is much worse then any that would win outright due to the AV voting system.

kermitfrog

flexrider wrote: »

We Need Pr voting Reform not av voting

If your stuck on the fence on which way
to vote or dont understand here is suppost to work

The old system....When you vote the old style way you choose one mp to represent parliement to the finish line on the votes, ifc no votes reach the finish line then as we have now its a coalitian goverment or the member has to get other partyts to bunk them up over the line to form power or share the vote,

The new system will work like this
you vote your favorate (1) second favorate(2) 3rd faviorate (3)(least favorate(4) all votes in this system will then be aco!!!!ed until its the last two mp's or on e wins....

This system has been round for a while in Europe however it has it flaws so i will be voting no to av plus a bonus to voting no is showing the lib-dems a good kick in the teeth

Thanks flexrider, for so succinctly summarising the issues for those of us who find it all so confusing and difficult to understand.

jamesd

dggar wrote: »

FPTP produced the situation that you are complaining about.

Right. And it's expected that AV will produce it more often. So I'll be voting against AV, based on the practical demonstration we've had.

dggar wrote: »

For you to have the situation that you want there would need to be a change in the law which forbids political parties from forming coalitions or pacts without the proposition being put to the electorate again.

I'd support such a change. Until then I'll take the system which is most likely to place one or a few smaller parties in a position to make such deals.

clouty wrote: »

With a choice of more than two, there is no way that FPTP is fair to the majority.

It's easy for it to be fairer to more people than AV. All it takes is a coalition government. Then almost nobody will have received what they voted for.

clouty wrote: »

Australia has had less coalition governments than the UK in recent times

At least 23 of 35 governments since AV was introduced in 1922! Including the current one, a coalition of Labour with three independents and one green member. It's so ingrained there that the most common pairing is even known as the Coalition. The current one is a fine example of how AV allows minor parties to extort things from major parties as the price for their support.

You don't seem to know Australian politics very well. It's a poster child for the way AV causes more coalition governments. "The Coalition in Australian politics refers to a group of centre-right parties that has existed in the form of a coalition agreement (on and off) since 1922 ... The Liberal leader usually becomes the Prime Minister or Premier if the parties win government, while the Nationals leader usually becomes the Deputy Prime Minister or Deputy Premier if the parties win government. ... Coalition arrangements are facilitated by Australia's preferential voting systems which enable Liberals and Nationals to compete locally while exchanging preferences in elections, thereby avoiding "three-cornered-contests", usually with the Australian Labor Party (ALP), which would weaken their prospects under first past the post voting". Just have a look at the Australian election results and see the very high frequency of coalition governments.

clouty wrote: »

If the No campaign win this referendum, we will not have another chance to change our unfair voting system, perhaps for decades, for it is in the interests of those in power at the moment to keep things as they are.

One of those parties in power at the moment made it their primary objective to have a vote on this. While you may be concerned that it'll be a while before there's another referendum on this, my concern is that once there's a yes vote there will never again be a chance to vote no on it, even if it does produce an endless succession of coalition governments that can't be voted out of power because they just rearrange their coalition to stay in power. The yes campaign can try again, perhaps after a coalition government that is widely accepted as doing a good job.

jeanmd

Right. And it's expected that AV will produce it more often. So I'll be voting against AV, based on the practical demonstration we've had.

How will it produce it more often? It isn't the whole party that is moved in the next count and your vote will only be moved if you choose more then one candidate.
Why do people think the raving lunatic party are going to be added to the conservatives pile to create a large enough majority through a coalition?

In this case your vote would only be moved if you have opted to add conservative as one of your votes. The vote that is moved across is the conservative one meaning the conservatives have en extra vote. This will carry on until one party has the majority of votes. No more coalition governments!

jamesd

jeanmd wrote: »

The belief seems to be that a coalition government is much worse then any that would win outright due to the AV voting system.

Hopefully they won't be voting yes, given that objective. The AV system makes it more likely that there will be a coalition government.

jeanmd wrote: »

Why do people think the raving lunatic party are going to be added to the conservatives pile to create a large enough majority through a coalition?

Your vote would only be moved if you have opted to add conservative as one of your votes. The vote that is moved across is the conservative one meaning the conservatives have en extra vote. This will carry on until one party has the majority of votes. No more coalition governments!

I think that someone has been misleading you. And perhaps your daughter and her friends.

The AV voting only happens within the constituency. It does not continue on up to which parties and who gets to rule the country.

You vote as you wish at a local level and AV does its job. That's likely to produce more cases where minority parties win the seat, be they Liberal Democrat, Green, UKIP, Monster Raving Loony party or whoever else. All's fine so far, AV is doing what it's designed to do: help parties with less support get seats. Neither AV nor FPTP can produce a coalition MP for a single seat: it's an indivisible single person.

Now at the national level if there's a party with a majority of the seats that party will almost certainly be the one invited to form the next government.

If there is no outright majority then the backroom deal making starts. That either produces a new election or a coalition government. Or sometimes a minority government.

Because AV produces more seats with an MP from the less popular parties, there are on average going to be more MPs that aren't for the two most popular parties, so more often than now the balance of power will be held by those less poplar parties.

This has been seen at work repeatedly in Australia's AV system, where most of the governments since AV was introduced have been coalition governments.

The Monster Raving Loony possibility was shown in the last Australian election. One green and three independents representing mining intersts mainly led to the current coalition government. That replaced another coalition government, with different parties involved. Just one MP - the green - was sufficient to decide the outcome. Count on that one MP demanding all they could possibly demand on their minority interest as their price for supporting the government. The mining-oriented independents, did the same: they helped to eliminate a new tax on mining companies that had been planned.

jeanmd wrote: »

Why do people think the raving lunatic party are going to be added to the conservatives pile to create a large enough majority through a coalition?

If there was one green or one MRLP MP then that MP would be able to demand as much as they could get as the price for joining a Conservative-MRLP government. We've seen some of it here as well, this referendum is a major part of what the Liberal Democrat party demanded as the price for their support of the Conservatives. They get in via a coalition, then they try to change the electoral system to increase the chance of it happening again.

Just look at and show your daughter and her friends what happened in Australia once AV was introduced.

clouty

There have been less coalitions in Australia since AV than there have been in the same period in the UK. This is nothing about individuals, nothing to do with Nick Clegg's reputation, it is about fixing an unfair system that at present disenfranchised 66% of the electorate. It is about putting more democratic power in the hands of the majority.

FPTP suits the elite very well. That's why the No campaign have more resources. But unlike the Yes campaign, they will not say where their money is coming from.

The political elite will not allow this matter to be considered again for decades or ever, if there is a No vote on May 5th.

Check out the facebook pages for No to AV and Yes to AV. It is very telling.

I made no typos in my last post. Or in this one.