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On 05/05/11 09:06, Henry Bremridge wrote: > > :) if you have AV and just vote for your preferred party then there is no > change over the current system. You see AV is so brilliant those people who don't like AV can express one choice only, and when their candidate is eliminated any further opinions they hold on who should represent them will be disregarded as it was before. So the "No" side can carry on as normal without even bothering to vote in the referendum. > I would also hope that people actually vote for parties they want to > run the place: the mind shudders if there is a close race and a lot of > people have "the fringe" as their alternates. It is irrelevant, as the fringes are eliminated first, otherwise they wouldn't be the fringe. > I like Government ruling from the Centre. Presumably you mean you like a government that has a majority even if it is not the first choice of the majority of the electorate. A reasonable view but not terribly democratic. For what it is worth the National Socialists became the largest party in 1933 under PR, so I'm guessing you can still get decisive leadership under voting systems other than FPTP ;) > Best argument I have heard is I think it was rather bad argument. It argues that AV is not a genuinely more proportional system than FPTP, and so concludes "why change". Which is a fine argument if AV is not more proportional. Proportionality of voting systems is a mathematically decidable question although quite a difficult one, and everything I've seen suggests AV is an improvement on the matter of proportionality (voting systems have many characteristics of which proportionality is only one but I think quite an important one). So presumably when the Economists check with their statisticians they'll come back next week and say "oops sorry - our bad" we meant we would vote "yes" because it is an improvement in proportionality even if not as much as we would like. As regards sapping the appetite for reform, we'll be told we can't have another referendum after a "No Vote" because we clearly didn't want a more proportional system when it was offered in May 2011. Prof John M also wrote an article in the E&E, which assessed the merits of the system on the basis of the last result in the Exeter parliamentary election. Whilst it is interesting the Ben Bradshaw is well supported to get elected under either system, it is kind of irrelevant to the choice, because most voting systems that are even vaguely democratic will produce mostly similar results most of the time. I like also that AV means standing as a candidate doesn't so dramatically undermine the candidate with opinions closest to your own. So the UKIP candidate may not undermine the Tory vote, and the Communist won't undermine the Socialist Democrat, who won't undermine the Labour candidate, who won't undermine the Liberal (who would have been the only candidate to stand a chance against the Tory if he hadn't promised no tuitions fees and then voted for them). Simon -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq