The Other Sarah

Tag: Alternative Vote

  • Leafleting for the Yes campaign

    Today’s polling day! And I’ve been busy most of the day helping the Yes campaign leaflet parts of Leeds for the final push. Mostly the university, but with some leafleting taking part in the city centre, especially near the train station.

    The response I got was surprisingly positive. Discounting the people who shrugged me off — it’s Leeds, they probably thought I was advertising for a new bar — there was a lot of interest and support in a Yes vote. Only a handful of people said they had already voted no. I did work on the currents of “yes to democracy”, “yes to people power”, “make your MPs work harder”, and “if it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for us!”. This was quite effective in swaying floating voters. (more…)

  • Why I am voting Yes today

    Because AV is fairer, more democratic, and ends tactical voting.

    It’s fairer because never again will the most unpopular candidate win, as they do in council elections all the time, and even in a few general elections (take a look at Scottish elections from 1970, where the anti-Tory vote still eclipsed the Tory vote). If there is truly a “progressive majority”, as last year’s elections apparently stated, then representation in the Commons will reflect that. The same applies for a “conservative majority.” (more…)

  • What would Parliament under STV look like?

    This image shows what an STV-elected House of Commons would look like.

    As I said in my first posts, I am a believer in the Single Transferable Vote: it devolves power to the people, is preferential, and is proportional. I’m voting for AV as it does the first two, but I really want the third as well. But we can’t win them all. Indeed, as recent polls show, the No campaign — which has been running mostly on the “you’re too thick to count to three” message — may scupper the chances for even AV.

    The Electoral Reform Society did some research into this, but I found the results somewhat… strange. In Brighton, which has a strong Green Party presence, no Green candidate was elected under the ERS’s calculations. So I decided for myself, in my free time, to do a simulation for myself. (more…)

  • The No2AV leaflet

    The AV campaign is in full swing but strangely, I’ve only received campaign literature from the No campaign so far. As a Yes supporter, I find this amusing but disheartening: with only a week to go, where is the Yes literature? It is really squeaky-bum time now.

    In any case, they’re going full frontal on the Nick Clegg attack angle, after seeing no joy in the BNP argument. As the new Private Eye so eruditely summarises: Yes to AV’s arguments are about cleaner or fairer politics. The No campaign’s argument is a picture of Nick Clegg. And they list so many discredited arguments. (more…)

  • AV or not AV: an addendum

    There’s a strange logic to No2AV’s arguments; they’re trying to push both the “AV will lead to more coalitions” and “AV will lead to less coalitions” on different pages on their Why Vote No? In a sense, they’re kind of right; if AV was adopted for 1997, then possibly, yes, the Tories would’ve been disadvantaged because there was a huge anti-Tory sentiment. But if it was adopted for 1992, it would’ve led to a hung parliament; Major barely hung on then. In a way, AV makes more decisive elections slightly more decisive, and muddled elections more muddled.

    This exposes one of the supposed advantages of FPTP: according to them, only FPTP allows voters to “kick the rascals out”, like in 1997, and implies voting systems such as AV, STV, AMS, do not. Why don’t you ask the Irish? (more…)