Have you voted?

[imamartian]

i didn't... i think AV is wrong, and i think first past the post is wrong, so the referendum is worthless....for me anyway.

Surely a referendum should offer all options?

I personally want to be able to vote for my local MP separately, and then to have PR on a vote for the government..... it's so simple, yet there's no mention of it ?!!!

 

[thatbloke]

We were supposed to vote?

 

[imamartian]

We were supposed to vote?

if this was Oz, it'd be against the law not to !!!

 

[EngStudent]

I didn't bother voting. Either way we end up with a group of people who are out of touch with 90% of the population.

 

[thatbloke]

We were supposed to vote?

if this was Oz, it'd be against the law not to !!!

Really? But there is only one wizard , he's got that wrapped up pretty well then eh?

 

[imamartian]

I didn't bother voting. Either way we end up with a group of people who are out of touch with 90% of the population.

exactly, and will do anything to stay in power, even if it's a bunch of nosense !!

 

[nickso]

nope, went to the pub instead.

 

[kirkgas]

i am 50 this year and have never voted, one mob is just as bad as the other

 

[htgeng]

voted for AV. You can still get FPTP if you only choose one candidate
on the news they are already doing a postmortem on losing AV, yet the results haven't been counted yet lol

 

[joinerjohn]

Been discussed on many forums recently. Some complaining that FPTP is unfair as someone can get in with a small percentage of votes, simply because people can't be bothered to get off their backsides and vote. An example.
Lets say Midlandshire has only 100 voters. In a general election, 40 people bother to vote. Candidate A gets 20 votes, Candidate B gets 15 and candidate C gets 5. Candidate A has clearly won on the amount of votes cast. But,,, next day in the media, Candidate B is up in arms. He complains that A only got 20% of the electorates vote. (forgetting that he only got 15%)
SO what,, How would candidate B (or anyone for that matter) know how the remaining 60 people would have voted had they been bothered?
Whatever way the AV vote goes, someone is going to complain about the result.
The only reasonable way forward is to follow Australia's example and make voting compulsory. If you still don't like any of the candidates, you can always spoil your ballot paper.
People who don't vote, have absolutely no right to complain about any Councillor,MP or Political Party. Votes can make a difference, if only people realised it.

 

[snico]

People who don't vote, have absolutely no right to complain about any Councillor,MP or Political Party. Votes can make a difference, if only people realised it.

Thats the key....if you dont vote, dont complain about any political issues.

 

[Mickymoody]

People who don't vote, have absolutely no right to complain about any Councillor,MP or Political Party. Votes can make a difference, if only people realised it.

Thats the key....if you dont vote, dont complain about any political issues.

But only in marginal seats...in other areas, it's white collar workers doing the voting, in any other area, blue collar workers don't bother voting, as they know, whoever is in power, won't make any change that is beneficial.

 

[plugwash]

While I agree that neither system is perfect (i'm not sure any voting system can be perfect) I think AV is a fairer system than first past the post.

In particular with FPTP you have to make a choice between specifying which of the two major contenders for your seat you hate the least or "throwing your vote away" by voting for a candidate with "no chance of winning". With AV you can specify who you would really like to win while still specifying your preference as to

The "NO" campaign seem to think that only someones "first choice" has a valid part to play in voting and based on that presumption claim that AV is unfair but they don't seem to give any indication as to why someones first choice should be the only valid part of specifying their preferences.

 

[Inky Pete]

I voted in favour of AV.

Not because I like AV as a system, I don't. I think the only truely fair system would be to do away with the current parliamentary constituency system and go to a fully PR based one.

What does which part of the country a voter lives in have to do with their choices for the government of the country as a whole anyway????

In 2010, FPTP resulted in Conservative getting 307 of the 650 total seats in parliament on the back of 36% of the vote and Labour getting 258 from 29%. LibDem weren't far behind on votes - 23% - but only won 57 seats because much of their support is spread across the country as a whole rather than concentrated in traditional heartlands.

The Democratic Unionists won 8 seats from only 168,000 votes (0.6%), and Sinn Fein did something similar - 5 seats from 172,000 votes.

But the only mainstream party who want us out of europe, UKIP, pulled in almost a million votes (3.1%) and got absolutely nothing.

A million people used their one and only vote to say "Above all else, I want this EU nonsense brought under control" and they get no representation whatsoever.

So I voted yes to AV. Not because I like it. But because when the No campaign wins (as I think they now will), Labour and the Tories will both say that this shows the people want FPTP, are perfectly happy with FPTP, no appetite for change, nothing wrong with it at all, etc. etc.

It'll be at least another 20 years before anyone in politics dares mention giving us a fair system where every individual vote has the same value.

And by then we'll be just one more "administrative region" of the EUSSR.

 

[thatbloke]

People who don't vote, have absolutely no right to complain about any Councillor,MP or Political Party. Votes can make a difference, if only people realised it.

Thats the key....if you dont vote, dont complain about any political issues.

Rubbish , us communists will always complain about your so called democracy.