I dunno. The mere act of changing the status quo sets a precedent for changing the status quo. Keeping things as they are sends the message that there’s no point even trying.
I’m really sorry, I’m having trouble parsing your last sentence.
If AV is to be introduced, it shouldn’t be seen as a victory for one particular brand of political parties to spite another, that might be an impossibility, but it’s how I feel about it.
[Nitpick]
The colored commas should be periods with a new sentence following or at least semi-colons, which is why your posts are hard to read.
Not a criticism. Just an observation.
[/Nitpick]
Counterargument:
- Should AV prove to be popular, we will probably just stick with it. Since it would be no more proportional that FPTP, and possibly even less proportional, it could not sensibly be used, in itself, to show that a more proportional system is better.
- Should AV not prove to be popular, I think it is more likely that people would say “well, this electoral reform idea was a lemon, let’s go back to FPTP.” That would *really *put the kibosh on any future referendum on PR.
- Any new electoral system deserves to be tested over the course of several elections, so it would and should not be changing to PR or anything else any time soon.
- Furthermore, a general principle in stable, well-governed countries is that the constitution should not be changed easily, or often. It would risk encourage constitutional tinkering for partisan gain. Therefore, if we are to change our electoral system, we should do it once and get it right first time - some kind of PR system, not the “miserable little compromise” of AV.
Sadly, I think either way this referendum may put back the likelihood of PR by some years.
Well, I have already voted “yes” because I like the idea of being able to support minority parties without “wasting” your vote. I have found a lot of the literature to be quite misleading, in my opinion, particularly that saying that AV is more complicated - it isn’t more complicated for the voter, it is more complicated for the vote-counters. I also think it is a specious argument to say that minority party voters get their vote counted several times, and major party voters may only be counted once - if your first preference ends up winning the election, why worry that your vote was “only counted once”?
In terms of voters not understanding the system, plenty still manage to unintentionally spoil their ballot papers under the current one - you shouldn’t try to cater for the lowest common denominator. And while I think Ximenean makes some reasonable points about a “Yes” result making PR less likely, I think that in practice this issue will not come again in my lifetime if a “No” result is obtained (and I’m only 25). Besides, I’m not sure whether I want PR anyway, because for one thing that would make it almost certain that a few BNP MPs would be elected.
Basically, I think it would be wrong to vote “No” just because you feel AV is not a perfect system - I have voted “Yes” because I think for all its faults, it is better than what we currently have.
I have got over my fit of pique at the Lib Dems and voted yes. Looks like the no vote will carry the day to me though.
Ryan_Liam, I’m really sorry (again, this isn’t a criticism, I just can’t understand what you’re saying):
“Telling the electorate to vote yes primarily in order to keep one party out or reduce its power because they don’t agree with its electoral stances is just as bad, if I want AV. It should equally hurt all the parties.”
or
“Telling the electorate to vote yes primarily in order to keep one party out or reduce its power because they don’t agree with its electoral stances is just as bad. If I want AV, it should equally hurt all the parties.” ?
Haha,
Bottom one 
But the present system doesn’t equally hurt all the parties; it generally favours the Conservatives and Labour, and penalises the Liberal Democrats and other parties. If this inequality is to be rectified, then clearly any new system would (in comparison with the existing system) have to penalise the Conservatives and Labour and “boost” the Liberal Democrats.
This argument really irritates me. The way to combat the BNP is not to deliberately cobble the electoral system so that they can never win. Besides being utterly anti-democratic, it also potentially allows them to fester away until they become a real problem.
So what was the referendum result? It’s early morning in the UK - more than enough time to have counted the ballots for what was presumably just a simple YES/NO question. I can’t see anything online.
The AV vote isn’t going to get counted until about 4pm on 6th May BST. There’s other ballots getting counted and declaring just now. The Liberal Democrats seem to be getting fucked in English local council elections, and in the Scottish Parliament elections the SNP are rampaging everywhere.
Also, the AV referendum is going to be lost by a large margin. The polls have been 2:1 against for ages.
I don’t entirely disagree, but the practicalities are different. In my experience (and bearing in mind that Australia has AV) it’s not that the small parties get much of a real, lasting boost. It’s more that AV gives the electorate the chance to send votes the minor parties’ way as a message to the bigger parties, without throwing their votes away. The end result is that the larger parties move across and swallow up the smaller parties’ platforms. So the smaller parties don’t necessarily end up in power, but at least they cause the larger parties to move in a direction the voters want.
That last one seems the most interesting result of this election to me. Scottish independence is becoming less of a pipedream.
I’ve heard the AV result is expected around 8pm. Turnout in my local authority area, where there was only the referendum, was 32.7%! {sigh}
In my view there have been a number of problems in relation to the referendum.
Firstly, very few people seem to understand how AV actually works. Last night, for example, someone was discussing the proposed reform with me, and was talking about a 10% quota?! The mechanics of AV have not been adequately explained. Too many people think it’s some form of PR, which is itself misunderstood and misrepresented here (in England, at least). And the leaflet sent out by the Electoral Commission did a poor job, in my view.
Secondly, the “No” campaign lied through its teeth, with repeated scaremongering.
Thirdly, the “Yes” campaign was only able to allege rather vague, qualitative advantages for AV.
Fourthly, too many people will view a “No” vote as a kick in the teeth for the Lib Dems, and will vote accordingly.
Fifthly, most people don’t care. This is in part because very few people understand, or even seem to be aware of, the problems caused by how FPTP works.
What’s particularly silly about all of this is that FPTP isn’t used in the UK for European Parliamentary elections, nor is it used exclusively (or at all) for elections to the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly, or the National Assembly for Wales! {sigh}
True. But votes for the SNP are not the same as support for independence.
I’m not a Scot, but my sense is that if the SNP went ahead with a referendum, the result would be support for a continuation of the Union by a clear margin.
Agreed. People seemed to be voting for the party which wasn’t any of Labour, Lib Dem or Conservative.
BBC saying that, while not all votes have yet been counted, there are enough NO votes to say definitively, the NOs have won. Expected ratio 69:31.
Bollocks. Oh well. Maybe in another 30 years.
It’s probably true. Pretty much all the talking heads on TV were pointing out that the SNP had dialed back on their independence talk leading up to the election, so likely enough even they recognise it’s not all that popular in the short term. But with them in power, it’s perfectly possible that a series of gradual unlinkings could occur, making independence, or at least more independence, more popular.