Yes to AV as it's slightly less shit, and *could* see smaller parties win more seats (but probably wont)

It really doesn't. If you class Lib Dems as being smaller then maybe, but there is no chance anyone beneath the big 3 will get seats except in very few constituencies.

The only way smaller parties will have a good chance of winning seats is with a proper PR system.

No it doesn't. The balance may shift a little between the major parties is all that will happen.

You three have all just said slightly different things. :S

PLEASE GET YOUR STORIES STRAIGHT!

(and then explain to me why it will/wont help)

I can't be bothered to explain it all fully but the smaller parties would still need an overall 50% of the vote, either by 1st choice of choices after that, the big 3 will (nearly) always get far more 1st choice votes and if they don't they will easily make up the difference to 50% from 2nd/3rd/4th choice. With AV there is more chance of people voting for a smaller party as 1st choice because they know their backup can be a big party.

 

I've probably explained this very poorly, but thankfully someone else will step in and explain it better.

What ant said basically, but it depends on people using their vote fullly.

 

It removes the idea that voting for (x) is a wasted vote, and in theory you could see some crazy changes.in.voting behaviour. But people are boring and will pobably still vote the same as before.

Thanks, you've both made me depressed now. :(

Is there any point in going to vote at all? :'S

Now you understand (hugleft)

Depends where you live.

 

I live in a safe Labour seat. At the last election it was a new Labour candidate and she increased Labour's majority by a thousand, to 7,000-odd.

 

This is why I didn't vote. What is the fucking point.

I meant on the AV bit.

Although it's a similar position - Conservatives have more than Labour and LibDems combined for both the last elections, and there's only two others - UKIP ( :& ) and Green.

Unless enough Tories were upset by the forest sell-off to all vote green, there's no hope of anything changing here.

But if it might make things better elsewhere I'd still pop over and vote. Currently sems like that'd be wasted effort though. :(

I think I'm going to vote yes on account of it being 'least bad' and the No campaign was/is pretty goddamn abhorrent. I'm not especially happy about it but I'm not convinced by this not-voting tactic either.

Are we supposed to get ballot papers or something for this? I only ask because I haven't. I didn't get Census forms until I asked for them, either.

It makes me wonder whether it'd be best if people had to vote on policies without being allowed to know which party was proposing that policy. Maybe then people would vote for the best policy, rather than for the party they've always voted for out of some sense of 'tradition'.

It's a nice idea except that policies often make a coherent whole. Your way, we'd end up with low taxes, high public spending and the country would be bankrupt in about a month.

You should have received a Poll card, but you don't need it to vote - just turn up at the polling station with suitable ID.

Of course, it's the poll card that tells you where your polling station is, so if you don't know where it is you'll need to ask someone.

Isn't the country already bankrupt? :S

Anyway, there shouldn't be a "tax policy", that would be a by-product of how many things people vote to spend money on - so high public spending results in higher taxes.

Still not sure it would work, but it'd be interesting if it could be experimented with somehow.

True, plus most people don't have a clue and would just vote for what seems to offer the most short-term gain.

 

In my ideal world there would be a benevolent dictator who truly had the best interests of the nation/world at heart, and people would know and accept this :C

 

Then I wake up :(

No.

And no (hug)

To expand on that a bit, people would still vote for lots of public services.

I mean, "would you like well-maintained roads or shitty ones?", "would you like a good health system or a shit one?", "would you like good schools or shit ones?".

And tax isn't just a pot to dip into to pay for what we spend. I mean, there are different taxes and they hit people differently. Sales taxes hit the poor hardest, road tax hits... those who own cars (or run them as part of a business), income tax hits everyone (above a certain threshold) but there are different bands - how do you decide where they go?

So, ok, you could offer package - pairings of tax policies with spending plans, that could work.

But then... would you really want the public to vote on foreign policy? We'd have to make intelligence information available to everyone voting (but no one else, obviously). Would you trust the public to make good decisions? And, probably more important, coherent ones?

Even if it worked, it would be more extremely mob rule-ish than the current system.

No, but I don't trust power-hungry politicians either.

Idiocy and ineptitude both result in bad choices, but (in theory) you can educate idiots - I'm less sure you can fix politicians.