Comments | mister_vodka: The Great Alternative Vote Debate

mister_vodka

The Great Alternative Vote Debate

Apr 12, 2011 22:48

I see a lot of heat, but very little light.

Let's start with a disclaimer. I'm an anarchist. As such, the mechanism by which the parties divvie up power is primarily of academic interest to me. That said, I'll launch into the debate of "what colour do you think the wheel should be?" and ignore the shape. Why not ( Read more... )

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sorry for swears! gillywoo April 13 2011, 20:11:59 UTC

At this current moment in time I'm more concerned about how much it is going to cost to a) hold the referendum and b) make the changes. The Government bangs on about how much money we haven't got, severs the limbs of the public sector, buggers up benefits and fucks public sector workers up the arse with a big giant cock and wants to hold a referendum on something which approx .5% of the country care about ( ... )

Re: sorry for swears! mister_vodka April 13 2011, 20:16:38 UTC

Get off the fucking fence.

Re: sorry for swears! gillywoo April 13 2011, 20:22:19 UTC

I'll say Bugger AV then.

Re: sorry for swears! mister_vodka April 13 2011, 20:21:13 UTC

And, frankly, I agree with much of that.

As to why it's happening now ... the price of coalition, natch. From which we may all draw our own conclusions.

Re: sorry for swears! gillywoo April 13 2011, 20:24:12 UTC

"As to why it's happening now ... the price of coalition, natch. From which we may all draw our own conclusions"

Absolutely!

Re: sorry for swears! _pyromancer_ April 14 2011, 12:20:57 UTC

I always vote for the candidate/party I believe in. I don't see my vote as wasted even if I've spoiled a ballot because I am exercising my democratic right to vote. I don't bleat about my vote not counting because I'm safe in the knowledge that I've voted for who I want.

To me, a vote that has no effect on the outcome is a wasted vote. I've always voted for parties I supported, but my vote has only been counted once in 25, and that was an EU (PR) election.

Which goes to show how different people will have very different views of the whole system.

I must admit I'm somewhat less sure of the benefits of full PR than I was 20 years ago, I guess as you get older you realise that fairness really isn't the over-arching vital factor it was when young. Systems that return majority governments do have a lot to commend them. But I also admire a lot of what the coalition are doing, so perhaps PR would work after all. And it'd let the Greens get elected without actually having to get a huge number of their supporters to move to Brighton! :-

Re: sorry for swears! gillywoo April 14 2011, 13:40:13 UTC

"To me, a vote that has no effect on the outcome is a wasted vote". FPTP votes have a massive effect on outcome. No vote is a wasted vote even a spolit vote. The very act of going to the polling booth and taking your ballot is important and one of the fundamental aspects of democracy ( ... )

NOFX? mister_vodka April 14 2011, 17:14:18 UTC

"To me, a vote that has no effect on the outcome is a wasted vote"

"No effect on the outcome" can only be interpreted two, maybe three ways, so far as I can see:
1) All votes have an effect on the outcome, as they all affect the numbers declared at the end.
2) Only votes for the victorious candidate have an effect on the outcome.
3) (The controversial one) No votes have an effect on the outcome, because you'll still end up being ruled from Westminster by the political establishment.

Which do you mean?

Re: NOFX? gillywoo April 14 2011, 18:13:13 UTC

I admit I was a bit confused by this - Pyro do you mean that a non-winning vote is a wasted vote?

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