today i have received my voting card for the voting referendum.
trouble is,i know nowt about what they are hoping to achieve,does anyone know as it hasn't been mentioned on the news etc?

basically you've got a choice......

1) stay as we are, person with the most votes wins

2) alternative vote. You vote for who you want to win (as before) BUT you can add second, third and forth etc votes for other candidates. For example,

If your voting card had conservative, liberal, labour, random bloke, bnp and you REALLY hated the idea of the bnp getting in you could vote

a) conservative
b) liberal 1st, labour 2nd, random 3rd
c) conservative, liberal, labour, random, bnp

Its up to you who you vote for and how many votes you cast. When it comes to counting I'm not 100% sure how it works out so someone else will have to explain that. The key bit is you only cast as many votes as you want to. If you want to vote for no one you can still abstain (booo hisss grrrr) or deface your voting card to exercise your right to vote and also show you don't want to vote for any of the muppets on offer (hooray, well done, I applaude you).

Good luck in making your choice.

Im with conrod, as when it dropped on my mat, i thought wtf ?

Some info here link

thanks for that link,it explains it a bit better

Would help if they had someone competent to vote for

So we have to vote for how we vote?

But the most important choice is still missing

1) Joe Bloggs V1

2) Joe Bloggs V2

3) Joe Bloggs V3

4) Joe Bloggs V4

5) Joe Bloggs V5

6) Joe Bloggs V6

7) NONE OF THE ABOVE

8) . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

Spoil your ballot if you don't want to vote for any of the candidates, that way your opion is recorded.

It's a total waste of time and money though, the referendum, not spoiling your ballot.

here here on spoiling your ballot.

AV allows you to put candidates in order of preference. It lets you vote for who you really want and then put who you'd rather win if your first choice doesn't. It reduces the need for tactical voting. You don't have to second guess who might win and then vote only for your second choice tactically. I've spoken to people who say "I'd really like to vote Green, but if I do, the Tory might win, so I'm going to vote Labour to keep them out." With AV, you can put Green first then Labour second, if that's your choice, Or UKIP first and Conservative second, or Lib Dem first, SNP second, Labour third, Independent 4th... You get more of a say with AV.

In order to win with AV, you have to get at least 50% of the votes. Currently, an unpopular candidate can win with less than 30% of the vote. People like the BNP like this because they're in with a chance in some places. With AV, getting 30% of first choices isn't enough. You have to pick up some second and third places to win so you have to have broader appeal. People like my MP, Gisela Stuart (Labour), who even some local tories describe as "a good egg" will do well.

A few myths. AV doesn't lead to more hung parliaments. Studies show that there wouldn't have been any more in the last 10 general election. AV doesn't give some people more votes. Your vote is counted once in each round no matter if your first preference candidate wins or your 6th. AV is not PR. You still get 1 MP for each constituency and its the one who wins the local vote who is elected.

[Edited on 30-3-2011 by smart51]

quote:

---

Originally posted by morcusSpoil your ballot if you don't want to vote for any of the candidates, that way your opion is recorded.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by smart51
Spoiled ballot papers are ignored. No-one cares. I was at the count in Birmingham last year. Someone wrote an essay on their paper. No-one read it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Benzine

quote:

---

Originally posted by smart51
Spoiled ballot papers are ignored. No-one cares. I was at the count in Birmingham last year. Someone wrote an essay on their paper. No-one read it.

---

you can't ignore a crudely drawn penis, though. ^___^

---

I don't know anything more about it and I run a polling station!
We have 2 elections and the referendum at ours this time so 3 papers, 3 boxes, 3 counts!

T'other year when we trialed all postal, I pulled an MOT & Insurance Certificate out of an envelope!

The thing about 'won't lead to more hung parliaments' depends how you analyse the data and is certainly only valid if people vote in the same way with AV as they have with FPTP, which is extremely unlikely.

AV is likely to result in more coalition government, and with smaller parties having the balance of power.

I would view this as a bad thing, and as the 'tail wagging the dog' - hence I will vote for FPTP, my guess is that AV will win though...

Chris