Apr 29th, 2011

AV referendum: a useful summary?

By 38 Degrees team

One 38 Degrees member has been in touch with his attempt at a simple summary of the choice in the AV referendum next Thursday.

He’s “tried to strip out all the abuse and negative campaigning and focus on what each side is making as their positive case”. Do you think it is useful? Have you seen other useful summaries? Has he missed any arguments out?

Next week, we will need to spread the word and remind people to vote on polling day. Could this be a useful resource to share?

YES – Reform voting system to “Alternative vote”	NO – Stick with “First Past The Post” voting system
Rank your candidates in order of preference: 1, 2, 3	Put a cross by your favourite candidate: X
Will force MPs to listen to voters who don’t usually support their party because they will have to think about second and third preference votes as well.	It is tried and tested – it’s been our voting system for a very long time.
Will reduce the number of ‘safe seats’ and ‘jobs for life’ among MPs – potentially reducing the kind of complacency that led to the expenses scandal.	This is the system under which all our successful Westminster governments have been elected, and tends to produce a clear result
Will give each voter a say in who their MP is even if their first choice does not win	It is cheaper than AV (NB this claim is controversial, the YES campaign have described it as “lie”)
Will make it harder for “extremist” parties to get elected as they would need to get 50% of voters to rank them highly.	It is less complicated than AV and is therefore easy for everyone to understand: the candidate who gets the most votes wins.
Supported by the most of the Labour Party, Lib Dems, Greens, UKIP, a few Conservatives	Supported by almost all Conservatives, the BNP, some of Labour