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

ginger_nuts

under av you vote
1
2
3
4
but if you dont like 2,3,or 4 you dont HAVE to vote for them .
If AV is so bad why has it been used for years in Northern Ireland ,Scotland ,Wales and london.

trotter09

GooeyBlob wrote: »

You could just as easily vote like this:

YES 1

If you put a 2 by the NO option, this means you vote NO if the YES option is eliminated.

True, but it has the virtue that whoever wins gets 100% of the votes - what could be more democratic than that?

It seems more poetic that if you want AV you vote:

YES 1
NO 2

but if you are in favour of the good old existing system, you vote:

YES
NO X

Lewie

alexlyne wrote: »

Whatever the voting system, if this is the first round of voting, then it is the actual result. Second choices are pretty much the same as 'voting against' someone else, in that they aren't the first choice. If A gets 40% and is then boosted to 60% by 2nd/3rd/4th rounds, then they've still only got 40% of the vote, plus pull extra numbers from the little parties.

Lewie wrote: »

Whatever happens more people get more of a say.
If the 40% 'winner' from round 1 gets zero votes in round 2, zero votes in round 3 and zero votes in round 4, they don't get elected.
The 60% of voters have voted out their least favourite candidate so how is the first round vote the actual result??
Not perfect, but more people have a better result than if 60% of them were stuck with their least favourite.

alexlyne, you haven't answered the question. Do you understand what AV is? You think the first round determines the outcome, how so?


The current voting system is geared towards the big 3.
AV is still a poor system but infinately better than FPTP in it's current form.

alexlyne

I'm just not sure if I agree that people's second,third,fourth choices should be taken into consideration, with the same weighting of the first choice. At least that's what I think I think.

I know the first round won't actually be the outcome, in a literal sense.

If you want to vote for someone, then you vote for them. They would be your first choice. Then you would maybe choose to put down a second choice. This means that you're not fully in favour of what they represent, but are still willing to have them run your constituency/country, more than other parties who you do not mark down. So you would effectively be voting not for who you would like to be in, but by not voting for who you don't want in, which is the wrong way around.
Or something. beer makes me ramble incoherently. At least the spag is OKish!

mrkbrrws

I think a better way of looking at the preference votes under AV is if you were a Green party supporter (for example), but there was no Green party candidate, who would you vote for?

You put your 1 vote against your preferred candidate.
Your 2 vote is who you would vote for if your first was not standing.
Your 3 vote is who you would vote for if the first two were not there, etc...

If you arrive at a point where you honestly don't care (i.e. if the remaining candidates were the only people standing you would not have turned out to vote) then you stop putting any more preferences.

Seems straightforward enough. The reason why second, third, fourth choices are given the same weighting as the first choice is because voting for an unpopular party should not prevent you from ultimately having a say in who your MP is under AV.

OneADay

Not word for word, but the other day there was bloke in the street being interviewed - asked "What does the AV do in practice?". Reply "Electronic counting of votes".

I tend to agree with him - this whole nonsense is for the sake of nutty liberals who think it is more fairer for one person's vote to be counted more than once.

Introduced in Australia, it resulted in fewer people voting. So they made it compulsary to vote. This might be the perfect recipe to sort out the debit crisis should AV be introduced - we could all pay the fines for not voting.

I do not care how you explain the system - all people want is fairness and there is nothing more fair than one person, one vote. Anything else is a con.

Maybe the referendum could be done based upon AV - let me see what options shall we put on there

1. No change
2. Change
3. What the hell is all this crap?
4. Nick Clegg is an idiot!
5. Milliband is an idiot too.

You can make multiple choices.

And let us not forget how Millband got to be labour leader - what a brilliant system - the whole labour party must be happy!

Derivative

OneADay wrote: »

I tend to agree with him - this whole nonsense is for the sake of nutty liberals who think it is more fairer for one person's vote to be counted more than once.

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dggar

I strongly object to the name"First Past The Post". The current system is NOT A RACE.
The winner is the candidate who gets the greatest number of votes.
At a race meeting the spectators do not get to vote on who wins.
They may place bets but if you assume there is no corruption the bets have no influence on the outcome.

mikbruin

I think voting No is most likely to break up condem pact. As thats really all they came for. As i hate what they are doing, and the misery they are cauing to millions (especially the poorest) thats the over riding priority for me.
For each vote to truely count the same in all locations you need prop... representation, but that has its problems too. In reality most results would have been the same with FPTP or AV, just slightly more likely to get a coalition if libdems have a surge. Can't see that being too likely unless students lose all their memory!
just can't beleive i'll be voting the same way as that smug bas***d cameron!

redglass_2

EdgEy wrote: »

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