I haven't got involved in, nor read about in much depth, the petty, nasty and dirty bun-fight that has been the push and pull of the Yes or No to AV campaign (referendum vote in the UK tomorrow: only the 2nd ever in the UK). Ows' opinion isn't much but I thought I'd add my tuppennyworth: when the most popular candidate by miles can fail to win I cannot see how the system is better: imagine 8 candidates: in the first round one polls 49%; amongst the others one polls 9% and six poll 7% each. With AV, after further manipulations, the candidate that got 9% can be the overall winner - how is this sensible or logical?
"When public opinion ceases to matter, democracy is not only diminished; it is denied." [Cranmer]
4 comments:
That's how I see it Span...and in a safe seat as we have where I live AV will make no difference whatsoever.
I expect turnout to be very low and it has not ignited the public's imagination.
Where I live we have no local elections to vote in, just the ballot to say yay or nay to AV.
Hi Gildy! Yes, it's all a bit rough isn't it and i doubt it will lead to a PR referendum. On the Guardian CIF I agreed with a few others that it was right to slag off both camps re the campaigning but that a great opportunity had been wasted: the need to get out and vote, this was a chance to get the interest back and "persuade the voting public to re-engage with politics and the political system", the fact that it almost did the opposite is a crying shame. I would be good to get back to 75% turnouts being the norm. I siad that 'Maybe voting should be made compulsory after all, a legal requirement, if you don't vote you have to pay higher tax or something.'
I like the comment I saw about the voter who wrote on his/her AV paper - 1st choice Yes - 2nd choice No.
PR makes sense to me but not AV. Funnily enough we were discussing this the other night and I was making the point that the only election that AV would have impacted on since 1992 was........2010. Based on Essex University research who have been producing data for elections since the early 1960's.
Even further back: can't remember where I read it but at least from 1955 to 2005 it would have made no difference.
2010...Brown still in power: the No2AV needn't have wasted so much time, effort and money: that's all they had to say!
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