Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

[charitynjw]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11243595

A referendum will be held in May on whether to change the system for electing MPs. Here is a guide to the issue.

Are you for or against?

[charitynjw]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

Anybody?

[pompeyfaith]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

undecided
------------------------------- merged -------------------------------

They say too many votes are effectively wasted under the current system, with elections decided by a small number of voters in a handful of seats where no single party has a large majority. This discourages people from voting and makes them disengage with the political process. A key weakness of first-past-the-post, they say, is that two thirds of MPs are now elected with less than 50% of support of voters and this undermines democracy. They argue a different system will provide voters with more choice, force candidates to appeal to a broader section of the public and work harder to get elected.

This could be true as I live in a safe conservative seat and hence never get an MP doing the rounds here.

[Curlyben]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

What is really wrong with the person with the MOST votes winning ??

[pompeyfaith]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

Absolutely nothing because if they do not keep to the manifesto which the public voted on they will be voted out next time around anyway.

[leclerc]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

What is really wrong with the person with the MOST votes winning ??

I think women will enjoy the AV......"I just can't decide who to pick!!"
Well now you can, the good looking one down to the ugly duckling, or the one you'd most like to do something to, etc, etc,

Now, is there an emoticon for stoning yet on the forum or am I just about safe on this one?

[charitynjw]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

@leclerc
"Now, is there an emoticon for stoning yet on the forum or am I just about safe on this one?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIaORknS1Dk

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wa...ewsam:20110419

Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday urged voters to obey their “gut” instinct and reject the Alternative Vote system in the referendum.
The Conservative leader shared a platform with former Labour cabinet minister John Reid and the two men called on the British public to vote No on May 5...............

[leclerc]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

Am voting yes on AV and then gonna see if I can get a job counting votes cos the job must pay well and AV will take longer to count

Love the clip btw

[jebedee]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

Under 1st past th epost I get 1 vote
Under AV I rank the candidates 1234 etc
But under AV if I only choose 1 then isn't that still my way of choosing 1st past the post?

What am I voting for anyway? Isn't political power just having the "lawful" ability to tell others how they must live their lives. Bonus you also get to make them pay taxes etc to pay you for doing this (lets forget expenses for now). So this must mean you get paid to tell people how to live their lives.

Cynical? yes
Accurate? More than likley.

[Garlok]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

I'm going to vote yes (not really) then in all electioons I can vote BNP, English Defence League, UKIP, etc THEN I GET several votes don't I?

Is that a bonus? If we must have AV according to Clegglet why can't we have an "abstain" box. Then if there are 30% abstentions the ballot is declared void and none of the candidates can stand again.

Its a bit like this last farce in Wales on law making powers for the assembly. Only 35% of eligible voters cast their vote, only 60% of that 35% voted yes, hence less than 20% of the total population voted for law making powers. Yet the idiots are claiming a "resounding mandate".

Yeah---- Right!!!


regards
Garlok

[Garlok]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

Or should that be "jog on kitties" from the cats with thumbs advert?

Garlok

[charitynjw]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's




http://uk.news.yahoo.com/blogs/talki...n-p190520.htmlTalking Politics

Back to Talking Politics home

'Yes' camp is succumbing to a mean-spirited referendum campaign

Tue Apr 26 10:54AM
It's a sad truth that, in politics as elsewhere, a positive and a negative only equal one thing.By Alex Stevenson
It's not looking good for those seeking change. Last week two polls gave the 'no' camp an enormous 16-point lead in the campaign to change Britain's voting system. The yes camp could still win, but pollsters say this needs two-thirds of Labour supporters to vote 'yes'. But coalition ministers' rhetoric is preparing the ground for the public rejecting the alternative vote. Nick Clegg may end up paying the price for the 'yes' campaign's failures.
The idea that the "politics of the gutter" at the heart of the problem is a recent development in this campaign is far from accurate. It's been like this from the start.
There seemed something wrong with those early press releases from the 'yes' and 'no' camps. Something spiteful, petty, inward-looking. "The Yes campaign in May's referendum has confronted the Nos over their failure to engage in an honest debate with the British public," one 'yes' camp press release stated. Was that from last week? No - from January 15th, actually. Three weeks later, the No To AV press office were telling us: "Yes To AV campaign challenged once again to 'come clean' over Lib Dem links."
It was as if all the old stereotypes about the Westminster village looking in on itself were coming horribly true.
Matthew Elliot, the No to AV campaign director, explained to me back in the depths of winter that this was simply because the campaign hadn't got the "cut-through" to the national media yet. "There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing on twitter and the blogs, which has been magnified slightly and taken perhaps a disproportionate influence on how people see the campaigns," he explained. Despite the distraction of the royal wedding, he expected that when things really got going this would change.
I asked both campaign directors whether they were planning on holding a positive campaign. There is only one answer to this question, of course, and Elliott - leading the 'no' effort - duly gave it.
"I'm confident we're sending out a very positive message in the sense that we want to keep accountable government, while also encouraging those people who believe in PR to join us," he explained.
Three months on, with the referendum now fast approaching, that positive message seems to have disappeared.
We now know, of course, that the tone of the campaign has worsened, not improved. Both sides have attacked each other's funding in a bid to win by default. Frustrated senior figures in the desperate Liberal Democrat party, goaded into speaking out, have made the conduct of the campaign even more of an issue. The end result is a public debate ruined by acrimony and mudslinging. This wasn't what the public deserved, but it's what they're getting.
The argument over the BNP sums up the way in which the 'yes' camp has been slowly drawn into the 'no' camp's web of negativity.
Katie Ghose, chief executive of Yes To Fairer Votes, and her team were obliged to respond to the 'no' claims that the BNP would benefit from the alternative vote system. Their voters - and those of other fringe parties - are more likely to have their second preferences counted, that's true. But, as experts have pointed out, extremist parties only tend to do well because they come first with a tiny minority of the vote. That didn't stop the 'yes' camp talking about the 'no' campaign's "desperate smears".
"What really stinks is that the Nos just won't run an honest campaign," anti-fascism campaigner Billy Bragg was quoted as saying. "We've heard a lot of nonsense from them on the BNP, so we're setting the record straight."
There was no need for this sort of aggressive, punchy quote to be included. But sneering and contempt are an essential for any referendum campaigner's armoury. The public tone had been well and truly set.
The tragedy of this referendum is that both sides decided, very early on, that reaching out beyond the Westminster bubble meant trivialising and dumbing-down to the lowest common denominator. The 'no' camp revelled in overly lengthy explanations of the complex AV system - and cleverly presented the alternative as being a simple race-for-the-finish, even if few MPs ever actually make it over the 50% of vote share that most people would call the finish line.
The 'yes' camp played up the unpopularity of our lazy, good-for-nothing politicians, as they sought to capitalise on the 'let's make them work harder' argument. This approach was as fundamentally negative, in its own way, as the 'no' alternative. So we shouldn't be surprised when the public either don't care, or become even more alienated than they were before.
That can only lead to one result. Did it have to be this way? Not if both sides were prepared to have a high-minded discussion about the relative merits of each system.
You can't blame the 'no' camp for deciding to go negative in response. Doing so is playing into their hands very well indeed. The 'yes' camp do have cause for regret, however. It's a shame they didn't hesitate before lowering themselves to this depressing, knee-jerk leve

[Happyolddog]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

Yes or No to AV, who really gives a rats ass? when we have been denied a referendum on Europe, going to wars and many important issues, then we got this tripe on how votes are counted, in my opinion a complete waste of money when the country is really feeling the pinch.

[The Debt Star]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

For me its a "Yes" simply because I never want to see another 10 years of a Bliar/Brown regime or for that matter another 17 years of Thatcher/Major.

If a Yes vote spells the death knell for 2 party politics then great.

Having said all of that I can honestly say that I haven't met anyone yet who is voting "Yes". The Noes seem to have it in the bag. We'll see.

I do agree with Happyolddog though. This is the only national UK-wide referendum in nearly 40 years and its as boring as it gets. We are routinely denied a vote on the EU Superstate, the European Constitution, the Euro and GK what else that really matters.

[charitynjw]

Re: Alternative Vote - Ayes or No's

Yes or No to AV, who really gives a rats ass? when we have been denied a referendum on Europe, going to wars and many important issues, then we got this tripe on how votes are counted, in my opinion a complete waste of money when the country is really feeling the pinch.

Lol.
Btw, I'm not stating my position in this thread, merely posting various pov when I 'bump' into them.
At the moment I am fairly ambivalent, although I will admit to a very slight leaning towards the status quo (No, not the rock band, before you start....lol).
But I could be persuaded if the argument was logically sound enough.....
However, I can see that it has a very important bearing on how political campaigns may be conducted in the future.........apathy in voting will become even more of an issue.