blonde poker forum

Thoughts on this? Am really swayed on whether a switch to av would be beneficial.

This thread is useless without a poll.

In fact there should be about 5 different threads, all using a different voting system to see which method blondeites prefer.

I'm not a big fan because it cements the campaigning politician's role as being to piss as few people off as possible rather than to inspire as many people as possible.

Its just a way for marginal parties to get a bigger share of the vote

Its not often that one party gets >50% of the vote so the majority of seats would go to the second round under AV thus giving parties that are often a second choice (for example Lib Dems) the chance to get through to the second round and nick all the votes from the party that is eliminated in the first round.

I don't believe the theory that the system would give more seats to very marginal parties (BNP etc) because they're pretty much a lock to be eliminated in the first couple of rounds so the only parties that I see it benefitting are the ones that are often a second choice and it gives them a chance at taking some marginal seats from Lab/Con.

A vote for Lab/Con is still going to count as it would under first past the post because these parties are never going to get few enough votes to be eliminated so all it actually does to affect the result is give more seats to the Lib Dems. These are often going to be seats that the Lib Dems could win anyway with enough campaigning because they have to be very marginal seats for the AV system to help them anyway.

I'll be voting No mainly because I assume that the new system would take longer and be more expensive to implement when it really wouldn't change the outcome much in my estimation

This is as far as I understand it from just reading the BBC news article about it, haven't really looked into it but these outcomes would seem to be reasonable from what I've read

It strikes me that no one really wanted AV before (they wanted proper PR) and the only ones who want it now are the ones who think they will gain politically.

This group want PR and a no vote in the referendum:
http://www.no2av-yes2pr.org/

To those who are voting NO to a change, are they happy with with the 'First Past the Post' system that means a government that has received a mandate from less than half those that vote (i.e. a minority of voters) is the one that assumes overall power and makes the decisions for everyone?

Also, what about the situation where people are in constituencies that currently means a vote for the party they support is a wasted vote, as their seat is a two-horse race between the two other main parties and not the one whose policies they support?

I'm more in favour of a system that is more proportional representation, but possibly AV is a lesser of two evils when compared to FPTP and also easier and cheaper to implement?

If someone is getting past the magic 50% after third, fourth and fifth preferences are taken into account they can hardly claim a strong mandate.

Most people begrudgingly use their one vote because they think someone on the ticket is perhaps the best of a bad bunch. I don't really think the people whom these voters ascribe a number 4 next to are recieving a ringing endorsement to govern however they please, no more so than in fptp imo.

It's not really fairer either. It's just a different type of unfair.

What it means in real terms in most constituencies is that if you want to vote tory or labour you get one vote, if you want to vote for a mickey mouse party you get two votes.

If you're a mickey mouse party fan you may believe AV is fairer than fptp. You're getting two counted votes now to most people's one, that's twice the fair.

But does topping up the winning parties votes with a few votes from people that didn't really want them there as a first or a second choice really increase the legitimacy of the winning party?


Switching to AV wouldn't remedy this at all.

a) If you live in a landslide Tory seat and you vote for Labour under FPTP then its a wasted vote. If you vote for Labour as your first choice under AV your vote doesn't matter anyway because Labour are going to be eliminated before the Torys are
b) If you live in a landslide seat then the holding party are always going to get over 50% of the vote in the first round anyway


I agree that PR would be the ideal system but unfortunately there are centuries of tradition in the way and its painstakingly difficult to get around that in this country.

I don't see how AV would be easier or cheaper to implement though?

I appreciate there are constituencies where no amount of campaigning will make a difference. If your district is 95.8% Labour though, why is it unfair that these people are represented by a Labour MP?

Most constituencys can and do change hands, but they wont change to your party of choice if your party of choice parachutes in a teenager on their gap year to run for the seat. If you want to contend put up a viable candidate, a local buisnessman, lawyer, teacher, doctor, other professional or even a career politician with a decent amount of experience.

If there's no-one out of 75,000 odd people in a constituency (or the 300,000 next door) who fits this bill and can be persuaded to run for your party of choice then I don't think it's particularly unfair that these 75,000 people are not represented by your party of choice.

People talk about their wasted votes on election day, if there's enough of them they should instead be talking about their wasted oppurtunities to campaign prior to election day.

Did you see the example poll the BBC carried out? Labour won with 49% of the votes after all the rounds of AV had been done...

(http://orderorder.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/beebav.jpg?w=480&h=280)

And this site reckon that in 3 out of the last 4 elections AV would have resulted in less proportionate results than FPTP:
http://www.av2011.co.uk/Q3.html

I also don't see how making you rank the candidates in order of preference and then picking your lowest preference makes your vote count any more than otherwise.

Tank, are you really that stupid or are you just on a wind up?

He's not stupid.

Must be on a wind up then!

I'm not on a wind-up. If you think I have said something that is stupid then I would be happy for you to point it out and explain why you think it's stupid.

I don't think I'm stupid but that doesn't mean to say I can't sometimes think and say stupid things.

If you simply say that everything I've said on this subject is stupid and offer no explanation as to why then I'll confess that I probably won't take this criticism too seriously.

Just my personal opinion but, if anyone can see the fairness in a party getting 40% of a vote and claiming that they have a mandate or a majority, then claim that they represent the peolple..........sounds stupid to me!

So if 40% support Party A
and 30% support Party B
and 17% support Party C
and 6% support Party D
and 4% support Party E
and 3% is spread between a few independents

Party's B, C and and E form a government.
B in control, C with quite a bit of influence and E getting a few pieces of legislation through to keep them on side.

Is that fair?
Is that fair that a party that 70% of the country didn't vote for gets to run the country?
And that a party with only 4% of the vote get's to have legislation they want passed?

And FPTP does regularly see a government elected with about 40% of the vote - but it also regularly results in the winning party having gained over 50% of the vote, i.e. is it really worth changing it when it regularly gives the party with the most votes overall the most power overall?

I listened to Eddy Izzard and he seemed very passionate about it.  A change seems good, anything it better then the current system we have.

You know the Conservatives are fuked when they bring out their chairman Baroness Wars to claim the BNP would get more power with AV, gg you utter useless unelected *****.

None of the systems are 100% fair but we can all create scenarios where flaws are highlighted.

The Tories don't really want the AV referendum to return a no. Not really really.

Not seeing as how it would likely result in the collapse of the coalition which would likely result in the collapse of the government and governments tend not to like that so much.

The token campaign will be funny/maddeningly infuriating.

If you believe it's as black and white as that and that there is no room for nuance then I heartily recommend a life of reading tabloid newspaper editorials and columns, watching BBC's Question Time with David Dimbelby and harumphing in the pub that all those bastard politicians are as bad as each other.

You'll have a good time.

Just one question, why do you think the previous 27 generations have put up with this unfairness in this first past the post system?

Were they all as stupid as me, were they not as politically aware, or not as politically active perhaps, did they not have twitter, was the unfairness never applicable before, is it the leadership of Clegg that they lacked, was endemic corruption stopping them turn this first past the post dictato (a dictato is ~60% of a dictatorship) into a 'country where all people get an equal say in making desicions' ('country where all people get an equal say in making desicions' is my 3rd preference way of saying 'democracy')

Lots of reasons, most of which don't mean switching is not the ideal solution now though.

And if AV is so good why have the Western Provinces of Canada switched back to FPTP from it? Did they decide having used both that they wanted the lesser system?

The reason the libdems aren't a bigger force in UK politics is not because the voting system is unfair, it's because they're shit.

That Nick Clegg their leader has turned out to be such a bald arsed liar should not be a shock. For a long time they've been saying whatever the hell they think will win them votes with no regard to actually having to do it.

They've never had a problem with producing localised election literature thats says one thing in some part of the country and the opposite thing somewhere else.

It's as if there's a culture within the libdems whereby whatever you say before an election doesn't really matter, that it's all a game. (Of course you could argue that this is true for all politicians, but the libdems take it to another level)

The end result is that when they do win a seat, they can't hold on to it. Voters have memories and they aren't always idiots.

A lot of the reason there are so many 'safe' Tory and Labour seats is that people sort of know what they're getting and then they sort of get it.

Say what you mean before an election and sort of mean it is the key. We as voters don't mind so much if you say before the election that you're going to deliver a dozen eggs and then you end up only delivering three and one of them has a bit of a crack in it. We understand that's just how it works.
What we object to is the promise of a dozen eggs being followed up with no eggs and a vote in the House of Commons to eradicate chickens thus eliminating the prospect of all future eggs.

The LibDems lost 12 seats in 2010 (net of 5) and held onto another 4 by the skin of their teeth. That’s 25% of their seats gone or almost gone, they weren't all marginals either. All this despite the Cleggomania sparked from the televised debates where we all gazed on with wonder as he remembered the people's names.

The party is like a broke ass corporation that goes chasing after new customers with fluff and doesn’t care a jot for it’s existing customers. With that kind of strategy is it any wonder they never break the monopoly of the 2 market leaders?

I say again, the reason the libdems aren’t a bigger force in UK politics isn’t because the voting system is unfair, it’s because they’re shit.

*Question time style applause*

It's odd though because it seemed clear from what was said before the election that a Tory-LD coalition was more likely than a Lab-LD one.

Also think that the LDs have a pretty wide range of views from people who are left of Labour to people right of Labour and libertarian.

In short a LD candidate/MP could have any beliefs and thus you never really know what you're going to get (without engaging with that person in some way).

Very true, and why Mr. Milliband may not benefit as much from AV as people suspect.

LibDems on the left denying Labour their second preference because they're still bent on foreign policy desicions Blair made.
LibDems with the right leaning libertarian stance denying Labour their second preference because Labour do tend to belive the state should be in control of more of our lives.

The Liberal Democrat administration itself is basically comprised of the previous Liberals - who are pretty much liberal Conservatives, and Social Democrats - who are pretty much very left wing Labourites. It's support is mainly from old Liberals, but it's grass root activists are mainly Social Democrats. So it's not really surprising that it's hard to figure out exactly where they stand, the only surprising thing is that their system seems to work well at local government level.



The polling and statisticians have suggested that generally speaking AV would provide LD seat gains LAB losses and CON about the same

Both of which are true points.

And the scenario I've put is a proportional representation one rather than an AV one (as I think nobody really actually wants AV other than as a stepping stone to full PR)

But a coalition like we have of only two parties is a pretty rare occurrence in any country where they've been needed; FPTP resulting in a government with less than 50% of the vote, whilst fairly common, is still a much less likely scenario than PR resulting in a government which gives a tiny party a place in government.

AV is a bad system, but FPTP is worse so I will be voting Yes.

AV is a bad system, but FPTP is worse so I will be voting No.

Personally, I believe we'd end up with even more useless government under PR, so I'd vote no to that as well. If we ever get the chance, which I doubt.

That said, I believe that the coalition is delivering better policies so far than a Conservative government would have. Doesn't mean I'd want to see a Lib/Lab coalition in future tho (we'd probably end up with a semi-permanent one if we went to PR, I reckon), as in that case we'd end up with the worst of both worlds. Tax and Spend nanny-state spin-meister Labour, and the rise of the left of left wing part of Lib Dems. Shudder.

Is it actually a more likely stepping stone to PR then keeping FPTP though?

My favourite from the #notoav hashtag on twitter.

"It's not a majority of support, it's a majority of meh."

BeccaCTaylor

I'll be voting Yes.

In my entire adult life I've had precisely one vote where I could actually influence the result (marginal seat while at University).  Other than that I've been in either a Labour or Tory landslide seat and it pisses me off that no-one bothers to chase my vote because it doesn't matter.

In fact, the only time my vote has been targeted was the last general election where I had a choice of NONE of the main parties because I happened to live in the Speaker's constituency, where they don't stand against him due to tradition.  Consequently, I was given a choice of Speaker, 10 independents who were Tories under another name, UKIP, the BNP and the Monster Raving Loony Party.

AV might not make a big difference to this situation, but its a step in the right direction for me towards having a vote that means something.

I don't see how AV would change anything if you're in a landslide seat or the speakers constituency though, you'd still get a landslide or the speaker, you'd just get to vote several times each election.

But it's the first (and probably only) chance I'll get to say that I'm not happy with the current system.  It's more of a no to FPTP than a yes to AV.

If the Yes vote isn't significant in this referendum then I doubt we'll get asked again in our lifetimes.

There's a group that's been set up specifically for people with your views (I think), and they seem to think you should vote no:
http://www.no2av-yes2pr.org/why-vote-no/

[2] AV
[1] PR
[3] FPTP

That's how I'd vote on this. Well, technically I wouldn't, as I'd leave FPTP blank unless there were other choices such as dictatorship or raffle, etc.

No arguments against PR here but why is AV better than FPTP?

I was telling a friend how I wasn't going to bother voting as I don't really care and normally when I don't care I go for the guy with the funniest name but can't do that this time. he pointed out to me that if av comes in then I'll be able to vote for several people with funny names. for that reason I'm voting yes

Interesing. While the downside (for those that want a change from FPTP) is that it splits the vote, the upside is that (in the event of the country voting no) they can legitimately challenge any claims that the result means Britain is satisfied with the status quo.

(http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc43/kinboshi/scaled.png)

is that blue for boys and pink for girls coz girls minds work simpler?

If that was the case why would you see candidates instructing supporters to vote in a specific order to maximise their chances? It seems the AV flow chart should actually be far more complicated to me if you want to take into account tactical voting. (and if you don't the FPTP one should be simpler).

None of my family have recieved polling cards.....Sigh, I feel another vote fixing fiasco coming on...

xx

For those of you with confused cats....

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiHuiDD_oTk

Shouldn't a Referendum on AV have more than just a Yes/No option??

same.

You don't need a polling card in order to vote.  As long as you're on the electoral register, you can turn up on the day with ID and vote.

Not even voting day and we've already got fixing claims....

when theres only two options no ldo

Ok - badly expressed, BUT why has the choice been narrowed to FTPT vs AV? Why no opportunity to say 'I don't like FPTP, I like AV even less, but I'd vote Yes for a Regional List style of PR'
(NB, I'm not advocating the Regional List per se, just asking why other options that are not FPTP got taken out of the equation)

Our local council has put together the AV vote and the county elections on the same day.

If AV was operating before the last General Election,  the Conservatives would have probably lost, lol

Thats why they are against it

Bit of an over-simplification.

Basically you can't work out what the results would actually be, you can only make your best guess based on voting and polling data.

All the data I've seen is that the last election would have the Conservatives as the largest party but without an overall majority - whether you used FPTP, AV or any form of PR. The only difference would be the degree to which they were the largest party.

your right I'm only guessing.

So like the Lager adverts I added " Probably "

Because AV is a miserable little compromise?...I'd prefer a wider choice but guess Coalition based  on compromises?

Paddy Power already paid out the people who punted on 'no' winning.

Feel free to vote anyway.

If the polls are anything to go by it looks like the no vote is going to take it with an absolute landslide.

I think the mistake the yes campaign has made is that they've devoted so much of their energy into talking about how AV isn't complicated.

We've got slogans like...

"AV is as easy as 1,2,3"
"They think you're too dumb to understand the voting system they use on X-factor."
"AV is so easy your dog can do it"
"My 4 year old understands AV"

We've got the Cats and Dogs video the central premise of which is that the cat is confoosed.
We've endless analogies about ordering meals in fish and chips shops and how people like their eggs that are all designed to sell the simple.
We've even got attempts to flip it like kinboshi's flowchart that claims AV is the simple one and FPTP is complex. (good luck with that)

The thing is, by doing all this they've made the argument something that they can't win. When comparing the two voting systems, if you just want to look at complexity vs simplicity with the implicit condition that simple is good then AV is never going to come out on top.
That is basically what the yes campaign have been doing, and the results (going by the polls) have been disastrous for them.

They should have largely ignored the simple/complex argument and instead spent time talking about either...

The positives of AV (whatever they are)
or
The negatives of FPTP.

Fight on ground you can win. Seems pretty basic to me, I don't know why they've got it so wrong. This could have been a much closer campaign.

It's like if me and some rich bloke were trying to chat up the same girl.

I shouldn't be talking about how I'm not really that poor, or about how being poor isn't so bad really.

I should be talking about my great big cock or about how the other guy doesn't know what the capital city of Norway is.

Tank you have convinced me to vote no.

ty

^^^not sure how lying about my dick or an impromptu geography quiz is going to ever get me laid but for the sake of my point lets pretend those are killer strategys.

Even if AV isn't the ideal system (or even the best of the 2 on offer, which I actually think it is), if you don't vote for this change, it will be a very, very long time before another alternative is offered.
 
But if you vote for this change and it is found lacking in some way, there will be a further chance of improvement in the voting system.

It also may be the best way of stopping minority groups 'block-voting' to get their candidate in.

I don't think this is necessarily the case, if we changed to AV there is unlikely to be anything objectively horrendous that would prompt a further change, so we almost certainly would just be stuck with it.

I think some of the supporters of PR have made a mistake by backing the change to AV.

I think it's right that it will be a long time before you might get another chance to change it, but only because a 'No' vote now will provide a very strong argument that people don't want it changed. If the PR supporters had opposed it they could have argued that people didn't want to change because it wasn't PR - but that's a much weaker argument after they supported the 'Yes' campaign here.

yup - exactly my view too

Voted no. Not convinced by either but FPTP lesser of two evils imo

Voted AV first, then FPTP second.

If you think the LIB Dems have a few good ideas , then this was a chance to support them in getting things started.

People hate change , so it looks like its a solid NO vote.

Clegg may have to step down, pity, I prefere him to Cameron anyday

Less of this please.
Please give people credit to vote for what they want rather than just voting no to change.
If yes wins I'm sure people won't be saying "people love change, that's why yes won"

Any idea what the turn-out was?  That would show voter apathy more than any particular vote.

Heard 4 out of 5 didn't vote but no idea how accurate that is.
I still don't think that indicates that people hate change. Not voting is a vote for no preference isn't it?

It's a pity that the AV referendum has such a strong attachment to the Libs Dems as I think the result will have been skewed to some extent by the unpopularity of them, and particularly Clegg, at the present time.

Whether that skewing would have been significant enough to switch a 'No' vote to a 'Yes' is a different question but, with hindsight, the timing of the referendum couldn't have been worse for the 'Yes' campaign.

How ironic that the popularity of Clegg at the General Election won them the referendum in the first place, but that his subsequent actions and unpopularity will have had a negative impact on the final outcome.

I voted No, not because of anything to do with the Lib Dems (I quite liked them joining the coalition, they did what they said they would do before the election) or because I hate change but because no one managed to put forward a compelling argument for AV.

This.

There was a pollster from YouGov on Breakfast news a few weeks ago saying that the status quo is always favourite, using comparable referendums in other countries it seems there has to be either a radical difference or something very obviously wrong with the current system.

So a vote on full PR might have stood a chance by being different enough to motivate people to vote, but I think most people are more concerned with what the government does in the 5 years in between the elections rather than the elections themselves.

No it's not a vote for the no preference.  That's plainly false.

The question on the referendum asked if you'd like to change the FPTP system to AV.  If 100 people turned up and voted YES for the change, and no one else voted, would all the non-votes be counted as NO?

Nope.  It appears that most people are apathetic towards both.

I don't fully understand your point.

Obviously a significant number of people might care one way or another but not vote because they couldn't be bothered.

But what has non-votes counting as NO got to do with it? We were suggesting non-votes are no preference

If you're not particularly bothered by what system gets used you can't vote for YES or for NO, so if you were consciously making a choice you'd vote for neither of them by not voting. Most of the people who aren't bothered about which system is used aren't going to make a conscious decision about it - they're just not going to bother. Either way the same result is that a large proportion of people don't vote because they have no preference/don't care

The people who don't normally vote in any elections obviously don't care what system gets used - so thinking about it, it's the difference between the turnout for the referendum and the normal election turnout which is the significant figure.

EDIT: just realised what you read - we weren't saying it was a vote for the 'no' preference, it was a vote for 'no preference'

Apparently so, as one article I read put it:

"...though outraged at MPs being elected by thirty per cent of the vote, the Yes camp was perfectly happy to see our entire electoral system reconstructed on the votes of three men and a dog."

Of course some no votes were simply anti LibDem but some yes votes would have been anti Tory. Such offsetting means the party political factors can't be blamed for the country rejecting a change to the voting system.

Especially with the size of the victory I think it's a nonsense to claim that another result would have been possible were it not for Clegg and tuition fees.