Yes or no

[altariel]

OK, f'listers, let rip. In 100 words or less, and without reference to the other case, tell me why I should vote either 'yes' or 'no' to the following question:

"Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the 'alternative vote' system instead of the current 'first past the post' system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?"

Non-UK perspectives welcome.

Comments

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

One chap who might give you an insight into the Australian experience of AV, especially with an eye to our own upcoming referendum, is Antony Green. He's the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's election commentator, and has made several blog posts now about the debate surrounding our referendum from an Australian perspective.

Really, though, the bottom line for me with AV is that it isn't likely to make a massive difference to our election results on a national level, or how proportional they are (as you've obviously been discovering). But I feel pretty strongly that it will deliver better representation on a local level. I would definitely rather have a local MP that a majority of people in my constituency had actively consented to be represented by than a local MP elected by a minority with no recourse to the views of the remaining majority.

Ultimately, I would like to move to a more fully proportional system, which delivers fairer results nationwide as well. But that's largely irrelevant in the current case, because (as I've said above) I am sure that AV is fairer than FPTP, so I'm eager for us to take that step at least. And I'm also much more optimistic about the prospects for future change towards a more proportional system if May's referendum results in a Yes vote than if it results in a No.

With reference to your discussions further down about that latter point, one referendum on electoral form has recently led on to another in New Zealand, where they moved from FPTP to a mixed-member proportional system in 1996, and are now about to have another referendum on whether they want to change it again. In fairness, one possible outcome in this particular case could be a return to FPTP. But that seems unlikely to me given that they already chose to move away from it, and besides the point still stands that the debate was certainly not declared closed after the first referendum.