Which way are you going to vote? I'm probably voting no.

what are we voting on?

Yes what are we voting on ??

on whether to adopt AV as the new voting method. First past the post is what we use now (one vote per person) and AV is when you list the candidates in numerical order. That way, if you vote BNP say, and they come last, your vote is used again based on who your second preference was. If it was Monster Raving Loony Party, and they came second last and nobody had 50% of the total vote, your third preference would then be used.

I personally think we should only get one vote per person, and whoever has the most votes should win. Search yes to AV and No to AV on google for the official sites of both campaigns. I will warn you though, it all appears to be based on ideaology rather than facts, so I'll just stick with what I think is best and that's what we should all do, vote based on what we believe is the most effective way to elect MP's etc.

You should have added 'Don't Care' in your poll.

Typical politician!

and the point of voting is...........

Do you mean in this poll or in general?

I vote yes then anything to upset the apple cart

What's proportional representation then ?

In General - I and many other people i know have lost all interest in voting. There are no politicians out there that listen to what this country actually wants/needs

All parties seem to be too similar in what they are saying and none of them actually follow through with any promises.

MP's are a joke!!!

Too true. You only have to read this board.

I have never voted & never will. I almost voted for our own Apolitical Democrats, but actually voting was not being Apolitical, so couldn't.

The current system is an absolute disgrace. In NW Hampshire where I currently reside the local Conservative MP achieved 58.3% of the vote in the 2010 general election. If I vote anything other than Conservative in this constituency then my vote is essentially a wasted vote. I would personally like to see a more direct link between the percentage of votes cast for each party nationally and the percentage of MPs from each party elected. In my opinion this is the only way to reduce the falling turnout and revive interest in politics. Obviously the two main parties are against this because in different parts of the country they both hold seats with huge majorities and general elections at the moment can essentially be fought just in the marginal seats, which reduces campaign expenditure.

With the current system the vote is for the person, and the winner is supposed to work for all constituents regardless of who they voted for.
All other systems are a dilution of that, moving towards a vote for a party, with the winning party deciding who the representatives will be based on their own priority list.

I prefer the current system on the basis it is not perfect, but is better than the others.

Your vote wasn't wasted, you just didn't vote for the guy who got the majority of votes. That's how representative democracy works.

The rules for AV are very like the rules fore One Tune to the Tune of Another, excepting they're more complicated.

I'm voting no.

The question should be who would you preferred to be screwed by A? B? C?

I can fully see why the common man has lost all faith in politics.

Sounds like you're in favour of Proportional Representation then.

I'll be voting Yes for AV. I think it's a fairer system than FPP.

Alright then, my first preference is to vote no, and then my second preference is to vote for whoever User voted for.

Even with AV, if the Conservative MP get's over 50%, nothing changes. Same here in Newbury, Benyon would still be the MP with or without AV last time round. The only Labour members I know who want this are those who live in Tory Labour marginals and they want it because they think it gives them a free ticket to Parliament. The Lib Dems want it because they will have more seats overall (well, providing their vote doesn't collapse after the coalition like the greens is expected to in Ireland).

I agree with a lot of posts on here, the only reason people would vote for AV is to get some kind of advantage, which is wrong. I don't know what the answer is, but it certainly isn't AV.

Richard, I agree with your analysis in terms of what the parties believe, but are the libdems right to think they'll get more MPs? With PR yes, but AV? Al lthings being equal AV will still pretty much return the same result as FPP won't it? I can't see any particular reason for the alternative vote of the third placed candidate to go preferentially to the second placed. Am I missing something?

Depends on how many candidates stand etc. As someone else pointed out, under FPTP, an MP should represent the whole community, and if not, will soon find themselves out on their ear. AV may even help Labour boost it's share in Newbury, but that's no reason to support it on it's own. If I was selfish, I'd be going for it like a shot, but having met people like Brian Burgess, David Yates and the like, AV would pretty much kill off any chance of them getting elected. How is that a fair system? If somebody wants to stand on a local ticket, they shouldn't be excluded by a system that is designed to favour the big three parties. Deep down, the Tories and the Lib Dems know this, as do Labour. But like everything at the minute, the politicians we have seem to vote for whatever suits them and that's not right.

the politicians we have seem to vote for whatever suits them and that's not right.

LOL, are you for real?

I think politicians do an impossible job. Good luck to them.

To my mind AV is fixing a problem that doesn't exits. FPP is simple to understand and it gives a constituency the MP with the biggest share of the vote. In as far as representative democracy is fair, that's about as fair as it gets. The winner doesn't necessarily get a clear majority, but it's still a majority. For sure, AV always returns a winner with a clear majority, but how is that any more representative than FPP?

AV isn't any different to FPP when there's only two choices.

AV isn't any different to FPP when there's only two choices.

I shall be voting yes - AV is a fairer system that ensures that whoever is elected has some support from more than half the electorate in his constituency (he/she will usually be the 1st or 2nd choice of more than half of the electorate).

Lib Dems like it because in constituencies where they are the second party they fell they are the most likely to be the second choice of supporters of the third party. The coalition may change that, if not they would probably get more seats.

As pointed out it would make no difference in many seats where the MP already gets over 50% of the votes - such as Newbury.

Someone asked what proportional representation was - with PR parties put up a list of 'candidates' in order of preference. The votes are cast for parties, not for constituency candidates. The total votes for each party are used to determine the percentage of the votes cast for each. Based on this percentage candidates are taken from the lists to fill the seats in parliament (eg. in a 600 seat house, a party would get 6 seats for each percentage of the vote they gained). It is undoubtedly the fairest voting system but has flaws - no real constituency MP, MPs from extremist parties, no chance to vote for a local independent, no overall majority party in the house. Many countries use it and seem to cope.

AV keeps constitency MPs and the chance to vote for local personalities. It's just a fairer way of electing our representatives.

I would like to see the votes cast for the MPs to be totalled and used to determine the make up of the House of Lords on a PR basis.

What's that then?

Quite a good idea that actually though having to vote twice using two different systems might cause confusion.

Then again it happens when the Euros and the Locals are combined.

You're right of course, though I think mine was actually an example of a transferable vote rather than AV. Complicated isn't it.

My bad. It's One Song to the Tune of Another.

"The game works like this. The teams have in front of them the words but not the music of a song which is different from another song of which they have neither the music nor the words. The tune of this second song, which is quite unlike the first song both in words and music, will be played but without the words to which the teams will substitute the other words they have from the first song which obviously will have no tune because that's made way for the tune from the other song without its words.
"This might be hard to explain, so perhaps this alternative definition will help. Despite the title, each contestant will be allocated two songs, or words sung to music, but from one he will concentrate only on the lyrics while trying to disregard the tune, and from the other he will focus on the music while ignoring the words.
"I know what you are thinking, which one is which? Well the first, or one song, is the set of words sung to music which no longer has the tune, and the second, or another as we know it, is the tune to some words without the lyrics but retaining the music. All you have to do is put them together, in other words — literally — one song to the tune of another."

clear as mud

Good grief. What warped mind made that up?

Edit: Oh, I checked the link.

I probably would vote for AV but it wouldn't be my first choice...

See Politics.co.uk definition
http://www.politics.co.uk/briefings-guides...036;366642.htm#
and Electoral Reform Society description of different voting types:
http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/article.php?id=5

To answer your question using some of the Politics.co.uk text:

Proportional Representation (PR) is the principle behind a number of electoral systems, all of which attempt to ensure that the outcome of the election reflects the proportion of support gained by each competing group.

PR contrasts to the Majoritarian principle, where whichever party or candidate obtains a plurality of votes within any given constituency wins that contest outright. Majoritarianism is the principle that underpins the First-Past-The-Post system that is used for elections to the House of Commons, along with other systems including alternative vote, bloc vote and various single member constituency systems.

Similarly, there are a number of different systems based on PR. A simple party-list PR system is used in the UK for the European Parliament. A different Additional Member System (AMS) is used to elect the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Assembly. There are several important differences and the principle of proportionality is applied quite differently between the two.

The single transferable vote system is used to elect the district councils (since 1973) and the MEPs in Northern Ireland, and the local government councils in Scotland (since 2007).

The extent to which an electoral system is PR-based depends on the number of candidates elected per constituency and the existence of any thresholds for successful election. A number of electoral systems combine elements of both, such as the single non-transferable vote and cumulative voting systems.