Saturday 12 March 2011

Ignorance and AV

Kirstie Allsopp reckons she is quite clever, which I suppose is good considering that she was a panellist on Friday's Any Questions. However she qualified this statement by saying that she hasn't a clue about the Alternative Vote. It takes a certain amount of bravery to admit that you are this ignorant. So I congratulate Kirstie for this.

We have an election for the Lancaster City Council in May. All council seats are up for election and there are three councillors in my ward. How many votes do you think I have Kirstie? One? Well that's alright. You can actually vote three times, that's three Xs but put down four and you've blown it. You see how complex the system is already. I hope Kirstie doesn't have such a difficult method of voting.

AV is simpler. You put down the candidates in order that you want them to be elected. If you only know one person or only want to vote once then that's fine but if you do want to write down a 2 against someone that's fine too. There you are. It's easier to explain AV than it is our current system. Fortunately almost all the audience knew about AV even though we have not officially been told about it yet.

Change the world

1 comment:

  1. There is more than a good case for England to follow Scotland and go for STV for local elections (national too but that's another battle). The effect has been to destroy most of the one party baronies and even there to strengthen the opposition to the main party (Labour). Looking how voting patterns are distorted to give overwhelming majorities to Tories who then steam roller in the sort of policies which are anathema to the maority of voters, it's in the party's interest to work for the change as we did north.

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