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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

I intend to vote, but I'm not sure I'm clear about my choice. What about you?

The Electoral Commission has produced a short(?) video to explain the difference between the two voting systems.




But I'm not sure how much that helps.........

So how what are the arguments? Campaigners in the referendum will, of course, be only too happy to explain why they think you should vote 'yes' (to use the 'alternative vote' system) or 'no' (to continue using the 'first past the post' system).

You can find out information about these campaign groups at:

 

Still no good? Try the quiz at who should you vote for or the Electoral Commission's booklet (attached below).

 

If none of that works, aaaw the hell with it, go flip a coin at random.org.

 


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Melibea Kalista suggetsed  http://www.voterpower.org.uk/ - interesting to see the different effects on voter power in Hornsey & Tottenham constituencies.

That is what I used for this post Hugh

"It's not the voting that's democracy, it's the counting"

AV for me, but from my point of view the advertising (particularly the no2av) has been woeful.

 

Mark

 

Hi Hugh,

Thanks for posting all this; though it doesn't really make anything clearer to me at least I feel I've done some research. I agree that it's important to vote, but it's difficult when you can't quite decide which way to go.

The AV system looks much more complicated/lengthy and I think it would actually lead to an increase in tactical voting, rather than voting for your favourite. Also, wasn't it something similar which brought us the lovely Boris in the Mayoral Election?

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about more coalitions either - certainly not if they are like the present one: a minority government shored up by a (very) minority party. Surely a fairer outcome would see something like a Con-Lab coalition, since these are the parties who won the most votes. But it's not really imaginable...

 

But it seems to me that the LDems have very little actual power or influence in this coalition - they have gone back on most of their election promises and stood up to the vicious onslaught on public spending not a jot. Many people voted for them so that they would NOT get a Conservative government, but what we have is in fact exactly that in terms of policies. Maybe we are just not used to coalitions as a tool for balancing power.

Whilst I agree that the post WWI resettlements were cock ups, don't you first send in the settlers and then "leap to their defence" with your army?

 

Sorry, back on topic. What is not decisive about an AV election?

 

All the arguments AGAINST AV could also be applied to democracy itself; expensive, anti-establishment, leads to coalitions, gives minorities a voice... etc

 

If you really have no idea, just look at the people who want you to vote NO...

Don't you listen to them Billy. I think a rebellious conservative is an important part of local socialism. I draw the line at Justin referring to himself as Justinian though.

They do dont they. I guess it is to do with it being more open now. It's going to make it much harder to follow things isnt it.

M

As I see it, AV's a small improvement.  It makes tactical voting much more tricky (as you'd have to second guess people's 2nd/3rd preferences) and will make a good handful of seats nationally less secure. 

 

I agree with bits of several parties' manifestos, so would like to be able to spread my support more widely under a preference-based system. 

Hope you mean overnight commenting, Billy. We ain't done no editing!
I think Billy means overnight editing by the commentators. That's what I meant. I can delete my own comments yes? And people did that. Sure it was mainly off thread but it makes the small sections of other stuff which refer to it look odd.

Strictly OT to the thread (in response to Maddy's comment on Lib Dem power/influence above - but seems to keep on moving down to bottom of page!), you might like to have a look at this document published by the Lib Dems back in March, where they go through their manifesto pointing out what they have managed to implement in government.  It's produced by the party, so is bound to put a positive gloss on things but it's a longer list than you might imagine:

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/50462179/Lib-Dem-Achievements-in-Govt-MAR...

I've really been thinking hard on the back of this post. I wasn't at all sure which way to go, and I've changed sides more than once based on different information/interpretations.

Currently, my thinking is that if we don't give AV a chance, we'll never know if it's a fairer system for electing government. So it's a gamble, but perhaps not such a massive shake-up of how things already function. I don't see it giving more seats to smaller parties any more effectively than FPTP - they will almost certainly be eliminated at first round and the votes divvied up amongst the big players. So it's not really Proportional Representation, in that many people could still end up for example voting Green without any Green MPs being elected.

 

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