Unite Against AV

I apologise for the lack of blogging, but I have been preoccupied by assignments for the past couple of weeks and a bout of deadly man-flu had me bed bound this weekend.

In my daily reading last week I noticed the BBC posted an interesting piece about the union's positions on the Alternative Vote referendum and since I haven't weighed in my opinion on this topic yet now seemed like a good time.

I have always seen democratic voting as slavery by paper; if 50.1% says so the other 49.9% must comply or else face retribution from the law makers.  Maybe in some "fairer" system you may require a 60% or 70% majority, but it eventually boils down to some group enforcing their will on another percentage of the population.

So regardless of AVs proposal whereby a party much reach "50%" of the vote to win, compared the 40%ish you probably require currently, it does not address the problem of compulsory obedience to the majority.

The only positive I have ever associated with the current system is that every participant has an equal vote, we could never find ourselves in an unfortunate position whereby some majority shareholder could run the country (although on reflection this is probably quite close to the truth).  Yet the AV system is set to eradicate this positive, by allowing people to place multiple votes.  Whilst voting in preference doesn't seem particularly damaging to this principle at first glace, essentially citizens voting for minor parties can have their vote changed and counted again if their candidate doesn't win.

For example, if I am a Labour voter and put them as my top candidate my vote will most likely only be counted once.  However someone who prefers the BNP, but wouldn't mind a Conservative MP either, can vote BNP first and Tory second.  If the BNP candidate is eliminated then the voters ballot is transferred to the Conservatives, giving them another vote they would not receive under the current system.

I perhaps wouldn't have a problem with a system which offered me 10 points to distribute amongst the candidates, as I could place my 10 points squarely in the lap of one candidate, or if I liked two parties offer them half of my vote each.  This way you would not see votes transferred (i.e. giving people multiple votes) but would still allow voters to state their preference for multiple ideologies.