AV Alternative Vote

This is not a particularly easy topic to get enthusiastic about.

Just look at the title, how to get people excited by something called an 'Alternative Vote'? An alternative to a vote is not voting, and we don't want that.

Which is presumably why people are calling it 'yes to AV' or 'no to AV'.

So the LD are for it (which makes it harder to like it, the LD are ever more associated with some horrible Government policies). Labour are in two minds. The Tories are against.

But what is the Alternative Vote?

The Alternative Vote (AV) is very much like First-Past-the-Post (FPTP). Like FPTP, it is used to elect representatives for single-member constituencies, except that rather than simply marking one solitary 'X' on the ballot paper, the voter has the chance to rank the candidates on offer. So just slightly better than the current system.

So the Greens are sort of for it, and I will be voting yes, as its a slight improvement on FPTP, but I don't expect anyone to get very excited by it.

What a shame we have such a poor choice, the LD should have stuck to their principles and got us a referendum on PR. Proportional representation is a far better system, and it was LD policy.

Green Party Leader and MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas has tabled an amendment to the Referendum Bill to give the choice of various electoral systems, or stick with First Past the Post. Sadly, the big parties who have a vested interest in the current system, have killed off that idea.

More from Peter Cranie here