Imagine a Greyhound race in which the dog that crosses the finishing line first loses against the dog who most people have placed bets on!
Unthinkable! Of course. Yet that is exactly what is being proposed by
those who want to change our democratic voting system to what is known as 'The Alternative Vote', in the referendum today.
Crazy? You bet. The Alternative Vote is costly, complicated and a con.
It will cost taxpayers up to £250 million to implement (not forgetting the additional £80+ million cost of holding the referendum). This is money that could be spent on vital public services.
AV is also fiendishly complicated as instead of placing an x by your preference, you have to rank candidates in order of your preference, as each vote is shuffled and counted between your choices. That's why AV has only been used in three other countries.
It is also a con - because AV is less democratic because it often means that the person who wins is often not the one who got the most votes, but the one who gets the most second, third or even fourth and fifth preferences.
That is why support for keeping First Past the Post (FPTP) goes across
political boundaries. In Harlow, former prominent Liberals, Colleen Morrisson and Linda Pailing, Les Coben (Chair of the Pensioners Action Group) and Murray Sackwild, the local NUT representative are opposed to AV. Nationally, many senior Labour MPs also want to keep FPTP.
Our First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system is democratic, fair - is least costly to the taxpayer - and has stood the test of time.
I am certain that Harlow - and the rest of the country will vote to keep our democratic First Past the Post voting method.
P.S. The pictures show me with Les Coben, Chairman of Harlow Pensioners Action Group and also with Two former Liberals, Colleen Morrison and Linda Pailing - all against AV
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device
"It will cost taxpayers up to £250 million to implement (not forgetting the additional £80+ million cost of holding the referendum)."
ReplyDeleteThat's the most outrageous stretching of the cost argument that I've seen. The £250m figure that the No2AV campaign have been using _includes_ the cost of this referendum. You're trying to double count it.
That figure also contains £130m for counting machines. Where this figure comes from nobody knows. No-one has suggested that we need counting machines.
"AV is also fiendishly complicated"
How stupid do you think the electorate is? Don't you think we can count to five? "Slightly more complex" might be a fair description, but "fiendishly complicated" is ridiculous.
"AV is less democratic because it often means that the person who wins is often not the one who got the most votes"
The person with the most support wins. And AV gives us a better way to judge that support. Sounds fair to me. Not a con at all.
Lots on
ReplyDeletehttp://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2011/05/william-hague-condemns-av-as-un-british-unwanted-and-undemocratic.html
and my own humble analysis on
http://richard-tebboth.blogspot.com/