#Yes2AV video warns that candidates with 30% support can win under First-Past-The-Post

Comments

[robert]

What the YES campaign really need to do is drop AV and campaign for compulsory voting in Britain like they have in Australia.
If the electorate do not come out to vote then with FPTP or AV only the voting public have their say which could be even a lower percentage of the total electorate.
Say NOtoAV.

[lastrealist]

I'm not sure what the point is in posting this video - it is true that MPs can win with 30% of the vote (or less) under FPTP. In the last Canadian general election, one MP was elected with 29% of the vote. To many voters, this isn't acceptable - they believe an MP should be supported by a majority in the riding, not rejected by a majority.

[Geoff Montegriffo]

You can (and do) win with 30% of the vote under either system. It's just that one of them goes to a convoluted and contrived additional step to parcel out extra votes and give the fiction of greater support.

[Robert Eve]

I have no problem with FPTP.

I have a huge problem with socialists and liberals.

[Martin Marprelate- A Man in the Street!]

Have a look at how close the result was in Watford a year ago as an example or even more so this one

Hampstead and Kilburn BC, North London

Glenda Jackson, Lab 17332 32.81%
Chris Philp, Con 17290 32.73%
Edward Fordham, LDm 16491 31.21%

This simply cannot be right! 2/3 of the eople who voted did NOT want the Labour Candidate who won. I have voted already by PV and it was YES2AV!

[Martin Marprelate- A Man in the Street!]

A First Class Video which really makes the point! Bravo YES2AV! I'm glad I have alreday voted YES!

[David]

So they fail to point out that the other candidates in the hypothetical election got less than "3/10". Why should any of them be elected instead?

[robert]

2/3 of the voters did not want a Labour MP in Hampstead and with AV they still do not want a Labour MP.
Changing the system to get the Conservative or the Liberal Democrat to win instead of Labour is nonsense.
What about the people who did not vote in Hampstead - will AV devise some system of giving them a second, third or fourth say in the outcome?

[Martin Marprelate- A Man in the Street!]

If people will not vote that is up to them. In this contest nobody is asking for mandatory voting as in Australia nor for the voters having to rank ALL the candidates. So if you Robert only want to vote for the Conservative in an AV election you can do so and if someone for reasons of conscience did not wish to allocate a number to the BNP, even 6th out of 6 for example, they are free to omit them.

[Geoff Montegriffo]

Don't be greedy Robert! AV would already give you half a dozen votes until you finally get it right - unless you pick correctly first time in which case you only get one go. Don't confuse an already odd idea by adding non-voters too!

[nonny mouse]

Lets look again at Hampstead and Kilburn BC, North London

Glenda Jackson, Lab 17332 32.81%
Chris Philp, Con 17290 32.73%
Edward Fordham, LDm 16491 31.21%

Under AV the LibDems get a second vote, so they put their weight behind Labour and Labour win.

Now what happens if we switch the Conservative and LibDem numbers so Conservatives come third?

Conservatives don't want Labour so put their weight behind the LibDems and the LibDem wins.

That means that the election is not decided by who got the most votes, or even by who got the second most votes, but by the people who voted for the least popular party. Under AV do I really want my party to come last so that I get my vote counted twice? If my party comes second it only gets counted once.

FPTP is one person one vote. AV is some people get multiple votes and others only get one vote. How is that fair? Why should our elections be decided by people who voted for losers?

[A Public Sector Worker]

I can't see how AV will help the Conservatives at all, if anything it just bolsters the Labour/Lib Dem vote. How many people will have a Conservative candidate as second preference? The UKIP voter base isn't that big and most of the other parties are to the left of us.

[Martin Marprelate- A Man in the Street!]

But Nonny, aren't the Lib-Dems your Coalition Partners, the very ones that Cameron, Mitchell and others tried (but failed) to help at Old and Sad by stabbing the Tory Candidate in the back? Surely YOU of all people would rather have the LDs than that nasty old Labour Lefty Crone Glenda Jackson, who you got under FPTP? Or are you being "Tribal" which I seem to remember you accusing me of being when I slagged off the idea of the coalition in the days after Cameron's failure to win with a wide open goal on May 6th 2010.

[Denis Cooper]

AV is fundamentally wrong because it violates the sacred principle of "one person one vote", so we are informed.

But that would only be for elections TO Parliament, it's fine for elections WITHIN Parliament:

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/executive/briefing-note-ballot-select-committee-chairs.pdf

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/SpeakershipElectionResult.pdf

Oh no, that's not quite right; here it is, again, but this time being used for an election TO Parliament:

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/holbynotice10052011.pdf

So I guess it must be something more subtle, such as:

"AV is OK when we parliamentarians are using it, but it would become fundamentally wrong if the rest of you were using it".

[Geoff Montegriffo]

Different systems in different situations Denis. What's your point?

[robert]

The Hampstead AV example described brilliantly by Nonny Mouse is the best yet - all read.

[Mr Angry]

AV does not in fact give genuine democratic legitimacy to the winning candidate unless they have got more then 50% on the first ballot. AV creates a fake impression of support for a candidate where it does not in reality exist, it is just that the voters might hate their 2nd, 3rd or 4th preference less than other options. That isn't democracy it is nonsense.

Oh and Martin Marprelate is almost always on the wrong side of any issue so I am pleased to find that as ever he is at odds with what is plainly the better and more democratic choice in this unnecessary unwanted and utterly pointless waste of time and money.

By all means let's look at a proper Proportional Representation system, but AV just isn't it it is nothing more than a Dog's Breakfast of a bodge job with a nasty side effect of enabling extremists.

[Chad Noble (ex ToryBlog.com)]

"Different systems in different situations Denis. What's your point?"

Indeed. But no2av are not saying that as then they would be forced to admit that non-FPTP are being successfully used in all sorts of UK political votes, so instead they say that AV is fundamentally flawed, creating false, "perverse" results and trying to suggest that AV is something new and unknown that would be risky to introduce.

As Adam Boulton said on Sky (not what you would call a 'leftie' channel), Warsi and the No2AV are insulting the British people with their campaign.

That was a positive ad. Well done Yes2AV.

[Denis Cooper]

Correct, Toryblog, if an electoral system is FUNDAMENTALLY flawed, which is one of leading charges laid against AV by NO2AV, then there are NO situations in which it could legitimately be used; and yet we see parliamentarians using it even while some of them tell us the lie that it is FUNDAMENTALLY flawed and we should vote against using it.

[Martin Marprelate- A Man in the Street!]

To Denis Cooper @ 06:29pm.

Sacred? MY ARSE! We are speaking here about a man-made system to elect MPs NOT a religion or the teachings, morals, tenets, and sacraments thereof. GET REAL!

[baccarat]

Sinulla on mahdollisuus äänestää joko puitteissa. Se on yksinkertaisesti, että yksi heistä juoksee sekavia ja keksi täydentävää voittajana niputtaa pois ylimääräisiä ääniä ja antaa fiktio fantastisempi tukevat.