Thursday, May 05, 2011

Yes to AV?

In the UK today we get to vote in a referendum on whenther AV should be adopted in place of first past the post in elections for MPs.

I thought of two situations where AV would be useful to me.
  • Where an incumbant MP I like is replaced by their party. If I still like the policies of the party I would wish to say that I'd rather keep the current MP, but if not then I'll go with the person the party now nominates. With AV I can do this.
  • Similar to the above, if I would like to see a person not aligned with a party to be the MP, but if that is not possible then have the party I feel is 'safe'. Again AV lets me do this.
They key is I can submit more information with my single vote using AV.

Some have suggested that AV is a poor compromise and that we should really be aiming to have PR, but I disagree strongly with that. I very much want to retain directly elected MPs who represent specific areas rather than moving to the PR model where I would choose a party and the party would pick the MP(s) who represent me.

As for the information-free mud slinging we have seen by the major parties leading up to this referendum, well, I think we'd be better off just ignoring that.

So, AV seems to let me say more in my single vote while still ending up with a single MP to represent my area in parliament. One person, one vote, one MP. I think I like that.