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Referendum 2011 - A summary of the arguments

The referendum on the introduction of Alternative Vote (AV) for elections to the UK Parliament is taking place on Thursday 5 March. Here is a brief summary of the pros and cons of AV.

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Yes to AV

  1. All MPs would have the support of a majority of their constituents as they would need 50% of the vote to be elected.
  2. There is a clear link between the MP and voters in that constituency. There will be no need to redraw boundaries.
  3. It more accurately reflects public opinion of extremist parties, who are unlikely to gain many second-preference votes.
  4. Coalition governments are no more likely to arise under AV than under First-Past-the-Post.
  5. It eliminated the need for tactical voting. Electors can vote for their first-choice candidate without fear of wasting their vote.
  6. A change to AV could be a step towards the adoption of Single Transferable Vote (STV). Many feel a No vote will make steps to a more proportional system unlikely.
  7. It encourages candidates to chase second, and third, preferences. It lessons the need for negative campaigning (one doesn’t want to slag off a candidate whose second preferences one wants) and rewards broad-church policies.


No to AV

  1. It can be less proportional than First-Past-the-Post. Some commentators believe that if AV was used in 1997, Labour would have increased their majority while the Liberal Democrats may have seen their seats halved.
  2. It does very little to improve the voice of traditionally under-represented groups in parliament, strengthening the dominance of the ‘central’ viewpoint.
  3. There is no transfer of power from party authority to the voters.
  4. It is prone to a certain amount of ‘Donkey voting’, where voters rank candidates randomly, not knowing enough about all of them to make an informed decision.
  5. Under certain circumstances, a shrewd voter can get a better result by lying. If example, it is know that the contest will be fought between two strong candidates, supporters of one might rank third parties above the other even if the other is technically their second choice.,
  6. In a broadly three-way race, where there are two strong parties who actively dislike each other and a third ‘compromise’ candidate sitting in between, the compromise candidate is likely to be defeated in the first round, despite the fact they could well be the most universally acceptable option.
  7. Supporters of minority parties in effect get their vote counted multiple times – meaning that not everyone’s vote is worth the same.