Metropol

So, give that the No campaign have recently launched this rather interesting video I'm curious to see the opinions of Metro types on how they're considering voting in ye old referendum.

But first, here is that video:



Dunno about you but I interpreted that along the lines of "you're clearly too stupid to understand AV, therefore vote No"

And here's the Yes campaign video.

I still dunno what i'm going to vote for yet. Not that i'm confused about it all because i got my little handbook through the post the other week. However i'm always open to reading metropolians healthy and educated debates over these subjects to help me make a decision.

I got a No leaflet in today. It says that AV is only currently used in three countries, Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji, and that Fiji is planning to drop the system, and in Australia 6 out of 10 people want to go back to our current UK system.

And without wanting to tread close to Godwin's law, Germany used a similar AV system in the late-1920/30s, which allowed Hitler to rise to power.

As you can tell, I'm voting no.

OK so its not PR. But it is closer to PR than the current system, which is crap.

To claim that it is somehow too difficult and complicated to understand is clearly bollocks and ignores the fact that people use a 1,2,3 etc to select candidates in order of preference in many other elections which take place in the UK (here in Northern Ireland the Westminster elections are the only ones done in first-past-the-post) and this doesn't seem to have caused much in the way of voter confusion.

I look forward to hearing why people would vote no. And telling them why they are wrong.

I have half a mind to vote no to punish the Lib Dems - by removing their only route to power (that doesn't involve selling their souls to the devil); but FPTP serves the tories rather well, so my greater motivation is to stop that.

I loved Charlie Brooker's take on it all on the Ten O'Clock Show a week or so ago - where he lampooned the ridiculous "Say NO" campaign ads - the ones with pictures of sickly babies and the suggestion that you can't make babies well AND have an alternative voting system.

The man is brilliant.

Does the No leaflet give any reasons as to why FPTP is a better system than AV? All the publicity I've seen seems to be based on the idea that AV isn't the best system, but carefully staying away from the topic of whether it's better than FPTP or not.

One of the main issues I see with FPTP is that many people happily waste their vote by voting against a party rather than for one - the people who are lifelong Tory / Labour voters simply to keep the Labour / Tories out of power and not because they agree with their policies. This type of voting behaviour leaves us stuck in the current flip-flopping government with very very rare upsets when the consensus is that we can't decide who we dislike the most. AV allows you to protest against a party much better, by allowing you to vote for everybody but the party(s) you dislike, but more importantly, it allows you to give your first vote to the party you want to win (look at the number of people who would vote Green but won't because they feel they need to keep someone out), and then if they don't get in, your vote hasn't been wasted and can instead go to your next "best of a bad bunch" option.

Sadly at the moment, I'm seeing a lot of people who are adamant that we all should vote NO, simply to punish the Lib Dems rather than because they've got an opinion on the way we choose our leaders.

At the moment, I'm voting Yes, mostly because there are actual logical reasons for using AV over FPTP coming from the campaigns. I would quite like to know why people on here are voting No though, as you'll probably talk sense (but please don't use the "don't vote AV - it caused WWII argument again, that just made me laugh).

It's immorally wrong for anyone other than the winner of the poll to be elected. I'm happy that my vote was 'wasted' at every election bar the last.

Those in second and lower places lost the poll, end of.

FPTP gets the most liked rather than the AV less disliked candidate elected which to me is far more satisfactory.

An edition of my free local newspaper from a few weeks ago had one to the 'cover' adverts for saying no to AV. The front was 'NO to AV', the back was 'AV causes death*' and then the inside cover was all 'This Soldier wants money for the front line, not AV!'.

I may well vote No to AV. The video for voting towards AV above doesn't help.

Leaving aside any current issues with the promises of the Lib Dems, are we agreed that the current system is disproportionately allocating seats to the two bigger parties than their vote should allow?

Are we also agreed that, while very much not perfect, AV would be better in this respect?

Also, we're hearing about how few countries use AV. How many countries use our form of First Past the Post?

How many use other forms of PR?

We (as in I) are satisfied that smaller parties national vote share seems to indicate unfairness. This is perfectly satisfactory to me as we elect a single member to represent a seat not a Government.