A naked power grab by the LibDems. It violates the principle of one person, one vote and doesn't address the main "flaw" of FPTP which is its lack of proportionality - [safe seats are unaffected]. Putting that aside its victory would annoy the hell out of the Tories and unsettle the coalition.

FPTP "I'm going to the shop, AV do you want anything?"
AV "can I have a mars bar, and if there isn't one then i'd like a snickers"
FPTP "hang about thats two chocolate bars!"
AV "no it really isn't - its a 'preference' - your not buying me TWO!"
FPTP "look its not really practical this whole preference business, if they don't have any mars, then it would just be fairer and simpler if I just didn't get you anything"
AV "or yeah great going. You see - this is why I don't bother telling you"

AV is simply a better system

PR would be the best set up of course, but the idea behind the proportionality problem with FPTP is that not everybody's vote counts, it simply isn't one person one vote at all, whereas everyone's vote would count under AV (but more so under PR).

You're right Putin it is a naked power grab by the Lib Dems, who were most people's second choice party no matter what your political allegiance and would have benefited hugely from an AV system in 2010. That aside it is a fairer system in my book

The whole "issue" with AV for David Cameron, is that it enables a greater expression of the will of the populse: since the support for the smaller parties will be counted, the system can truelly reflect the demand from voters, since along with expressing their support of one individual they can have a say in who they'ed prefer to serve as their MP out of the major players. - Cirtainly a more democratic system

I don't think it's fairer. People who vote for unpopular candidates' votes count more than those who vote for more popular ones. How is it democratic if Candidate A gets 45% of the first preference votes while candidates B & C get 30 & 25% respectively, and all of Cs 2nd place votes go to candidate B so B wins? Supporters of candidate A don't get to have their 2nd place votes count because their first place votes go to the person with the most votes. Maybe supporters of candidate A all despise candidate B? Too bad for them.

So the mars/snickers scenario is not quite accurate, because not everyone is getting the opportunity to provide preferences.

In the end, you end up with situations in which candidates with greater numbers of supporters lose the seat.

Everyone does have the opportunity to provide preferences, they can however choose not to.

That is fair since the majority of the population voting prefer that candidate, they therefore have majority support from their constituency. The situation therefore is that the candidate with the greatest support gains the seat

It is not "too bad" for candidate A supporters, their preference has been noted and their first choice has 45% support, though it seems an unfair system if candidate A who 55% of the voters did not wish elected won the seat

Coming from Canada which has a similar system I have my own preferences.

Multi member constituents where the members are chosen by Proportional representation. (Suggestion would be for 4-12 member ridings) Therefore it could be more about your local representatives as the leader of each slate is likely to get in and have a presence within parliament and be around and recruit down list candidates through the whole term and not just at election time.

4-12 - thats a hell of a lot of expencese! :D

"Everyone does have the opportunity to provide preferences"

Yes everyone provides preferences, but only the 2nd place preferences of the least popular parties count. Counting is what matters.

"The situation therefore is that the candidate with the greatest support gains the seat"

I don't see how this is the case. You'll have candidates who get in 1 in 5 first place votes winning seats. It's more appropriate to say the candidates who win will get the most lukewarm feelings towards them. Politicians will be rewarded for being meek and mild. Don't alienate anyone or take any bold steps, because it doesn't matter if you don't have lots of supporters, so long as your adversaries don't loathe you more than the other people. I can see why milquetoast liberals would want this. But anybody with a point of view is going to be punished.

That is likely to be the ultimate destination of politics anyway - since both the torries and labour have steadily been moving towards the centre - the centre (like that of a normal distribution curve is were most support is) the parties are only slightly differentiated in their polcies - since it is 'popular' and therefore 'election winning' to offer mild policies

That is a very deterministic look on a median voter theorem. There is no reason to assume that multimodal preferences are going to be extinct in near or further future.

And don't take it as a sign of ridicule, but I find it funny that the 3 most prolific posters in this thread are called Neocommunist, Trotskyite and Putin33.

AV all the way. Anything to annoy the tories.

Other than that, AV is fairer overall, and the No campaign's tactics have thoroughly disillusioned me. They've not really said anything good about FPTP at all.

Shame I'm too young to vote.

With electoral systems you always face a choice - especially in parliamentary ones - between representation & accountability. Ironically I don't think AV does a good job at either. FPTP enhances accountability at the expense of representation. It increases the chances of two dominant parties, which means you clearly know who is the governing party and who is the opposition. When you go to vote, it's a clear referendum on the policies of the government. Like policies - vote for the governing party. Don't like them? Vote for the opposition. However, due to the fact that there are variable opinions within both of these groups, it's not great on representation. Proportional Representation is best on representation, but bad on accountability. If you don't like the government, who do you vote for if you have 6 parties each with about equal percentage of the vote? If you do like the government, which of the ruling coalition parties do you vote for? You can run into the issue of voting for a party thinking there's no chance they'd coalition with your sworn enemies (*cough LibDems cough*) and yet they end up in coalition with them.

AV doesn't really solve the problem of lack of representation while adding new accountability problems into the mix. Safe seats are safe seats. If you vote for Respect in a safe Tory seat you're not going to have your "vote count" anymore than before. Furthermore, you end up having seats represented by people who are not the *most liked* but are just the *least hated*, with low percentages of 1st place votes.

Add to that the fact that you're now going to have a strong entrenched centrist 3rd party. So coalition government is going to be the norm. So the simple question of do you like the government or don't you becomes much more complicated.

"what do David Cameron, John Prescott and Nick Griffin all have in common?"

Does Nick Griffin really oppose AV? I know UKIP's for it since it's very likely that they'll get some seats in Parliament by being the second choice of most Conservative voters. Surely something like that must be true of the BNP too, though as the second choice of disillusioned old Labour voters.

Why can't you just have runoffs instead of going AV? Best of both worlds.

"So the simple question of do you like the government or don't you becomes much more complicated."

Is this really a simple question?

"Why can't you just have runoffs instead of going AV? Best of both worlds."

Mr Chirac nods in an agreement.

BNP opposes AV

"http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/why-bnp-will-urge-%E2%80%9Cno%E2%80%9 -vote-av-referendum-0"

Several smaller parties are urging a no vote - including Respect and the CP.

CP explains why they're opposing it.

http://www.communist-party.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1256:tim-gulliver-av-reinforces-rather-than-undermines-capitalism&catid=123:election&Itemid=165

I mean, if smaller parties really think they will gain out of this, they should take a look at Australia and see how many small party reps they have.

Some great points guys - thanks.

I think that FPTP is a crazy way to appoint MPs in an era when so many parties and independants are vying for our vote. However, AV is even crazier in that in can produce bizarre results - candidtaes that finish third in the first round can be elected even if their overall support is less than the second place guy. That can not be good for legitamcy.

Also AV can so easily be manipulated by the libdems, consider the following. AV could still produce 250 safe tories and 250 safe labour seats and 50 odd LibDems - the remaining 50 odd are lab/tory marginals - all the libdems have to do to ensure a share of power (assuming lab/tory don't form a coalition) is to get their voters to list tory as 2nd favourite in 50% of the marginals and list labour as second favourite in the other 50% of the marginals - result either libDem/Tory coalition or LibDem/ Lab coalition. Any system that can be so easily rigged can never be a better alternative than FPTP - I'm voting no - and awaiting a PR referendum.

BNP do oppose AV - they want PR - which is really inconvient for the yes campaign as they say that BNP support NO therefore vote yes. But later if we get a referendum on PR what will they say then?

That's really surprising that the BNP's opposed to AV. But thinking about it it does makes sense.

I'm telling you, runoffs. None of this nonsense about voting for multiple people for the same office, no guaranteed coalition governments (which makes accountability harder), and an ironclad legitimacy since the winner always has a majority. Sure it would be more expensive since quite a lot of constituencies would have them, but if there's one thing a democratic society should be prepared to spend money on it's elections.

Any small party which thinks that a different electoral system will allow it to stop being small is deluded. Even a PR with very low electoral threshold (Israel's elections for Knesset) doesn't make small parties big. It allows small parties to gain few seats, become indispensable as a part of a ruling coalition and use this leverage to blackmail coalition leader into bribing small party with posts in government or changes in national policies and legislature that are completely unproportional to the support the small party has among the electorate. That is of course great for the small parties but bad for everyone else, especially since small parties have usually small manpower pool from which their elites can be chosen. This results in obscure figures appointed to important government posts. Bigger parties have plenty of their dilettantes too, but those are usually worn out faces with significant influence in the structures of the party, dilettantes that are in it for the money and don't try to actually do stuff in their work. Having a lazy idiot as a minister is still much better than having a hyperactive idiot as a minister.

Maniac, you have to consider that the Libdems can't just 'tell' their supporters which party to put second, it doesn't work like that (this is assuming Brits have the ability to think for themselves, something I contend that Americans lack - but that's a different debate). Sure, they can indicate who they'd rather their supporters vote for, but your second preference vote is in no way linked to your first.

And in regards to Putin's situation a loooong way up:
"I don't think it's fairer. People who vote for unpopular candidates' votes count more than those who vote for more popular ones. How is it democratic if Candidate A gets 45% of the first preference votes while candidates B & C get 30 & 25% respectively, and all of Cs 2nd place votes go to candidate B so B wins? Supporters of candidate A don't get to have their 2nd place votes count because their first place votes go to the person with the most votes. Maybe supporters of candidate A all despise candidate B? Too bad for them."
If this were the case, and *all* supporters of candidate C preferred cadidate B to candidate A, then you have 55% of the voting population who prefer candidate B over candidate A. Sure, 45% didn't get what they wanted, but in a FPTP system cadidate A would be elected, leaving 55% of the population unhappy and therefore failing to uphold democracy - that is, representation of the people by *majority*.

So a more accurate respresentation based on Neocommunist's chocolate bar scenario: We're buying a 12-pack of chocolate bars to share between us. You and four others want Mars bars. Neocommunist and his three buddies want Snickers bars. Me and two friends wanted Dairy Milk, but knowing that Dairy Milk wouldn't be chosen we would prefer Snickers over Mars. Which chocolate bar would please more people?

To all Algebraists reading this: vote λv ;)

Gigantor - do you mind if I use your 'better chocolate scenario' - I feel like converting some FPTPers out there

I think the disconnect is that AV supporters treat 1st and 2nd place votes as if they're equivalent - that's the only way you come up with the idea that a candidate is getting majority support. When in actuality the most liked choice among those candy bars is Mars, not snickers.

To me it's like saying Manchester United is less popular than Wigan, because while Manchester United gets more fans to support them and show up to their games by a large margin, lots and lots of people hate them so they'd probably list Wigan above them on a list of preferred teams. So you conclude from that that Wigan "pleases more people" and therefore is more popular, which isn't true.

@Gigantor: Good explanation.
@figlesquide: Eh?