Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

Today I was given notice that I have a vote on the 5th of May 2011 to vote on if a new voting system should be adopted.

I am used to the first past the post system and preference voting (alternative voting), as it has been in use in the Isle of Man for some time but in the Isle of Man there is little party politics, you see your Members of the House of Keys (MP) and Members of the Legislative Council (bit like the House of Lords) in the street, shopping in town, eating chip as they walk down the street with their Families, In fact The Islands President (Prime Minister) can quite often can be found behind the counter in his electrical shop selling bits and pieces.

So can alternative voting, work taking in that most if not all MP's belong to a party.Do people vote for a party or individual, if you vote Tory, would your second choice if you chose to have one be the Monster Raving Loony Party, with third choice being the BNP ect. Doing this would probably push out the other parties.

Do you think it would work or do you think the current system is not broken so why fix it.

I mean no offence with this question but do hope that it creates debate, a better understanding of the referendum and I hope it gets us to cast our vote on something that will effect the History of the UK..

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

I'm not sure if the new alternative voting would work Manxman - it seems complicated to me. I don't know what others do, but I don't vote for a person, I vote for a party. I am not sure if I would be interested in voting for a substitute if my choice of party didn't get enough votes. I think I prefer the system we have. Also, AV would mean that some people would get more than one vote and that doesn't seem quite right to me.

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

I also got my referendum slip. I'm all for leaving things as they are,first past the post. This all stems from liberals in the past, getting plenty of second places, but few winners. A seat should always go to the person who polls the maost votes, whether you like it or not. Lets hope this dopey (and Expensive), waste of time, dies the painful death it should.

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

One person one vote should continue to be the mantra. I, for one, do not want to vote for more than one person, and I don't want my vote hi-jacking to boost someone elses total. Some say that coalitions favour the country, not the party, but to my mind it just gives ultra weak governance and the worst of all worlds. Take the current coalition as an example: both parties have just about broken every pre-election promise that they made, and virtually every policy is watered down until it is non-effective. The only reason that we are having this expensive referendum is because of pre-coalition horse trading, although I must say it's a shame they didn't demand a referendum on the EU instead!

But I digress, the disaster waiting to happen here of course, is that Labour voters will vote for the new system just to spite the conservatives, but if they help to win the vote for AV then I'm sure we will all live to regret it.

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

I don't think AV will make a blind bit of difference to political life in the UK. What does it matter which of the three Tory Parties wins - you can't get a cigarette paper between them anyway. Labour is bleating about the cuts, but they know damn well they would have done exactly the same thing if they had been unfortunate enough to hang on to power. Luckily for them, they were beaten, so now they can pretend to be anti-cut and try to reap the electoral benefits of the Government's unpopularity. A plague on all their houses!!!!

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

I posted this in the debate section so I just copied it and brought it here.


Your vote is needed, or is it!!

People ( Unions mainly ) cry out for ' One man One vote ' ( Sorry, not degrading women ) when it suits them but when they see no hope of getting what they want with the 'one man one vote' system they want to change it.

I can see changing the system creating more problems than the ones that we have now, it could mean that one person could get a lot of votes simply because people put them down as an alternate choice due to their name being on the ballot paper.

Imaging people voting for who is the winner of the olympic gold medal, the person with the least ability could win it because of his personality.

IMO it will lead to more ' Coalition ' governments, which could be a good thing as the country could be put first instead of party lines, but it could mean that one of the reasons why you vote for a party now, ie, lower taxes, could not be forthcoming with the coalition government.

Do we need a new voting system for electing MP's or does the one that we have surfice?

I am in favour of reducing the number of MP's ( one for each county plus one for a deciding vote ) in parliament and removing the 'Party ' status.

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

Yes MickB, a plague on all their houses indeed.

The irony of course for Labour is that AV gave them Ed Milliband instead of a proper leader, that should tell them something, but I doubt that it will..

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

I believe that AV is a fudge to appease the LibDem part of the coalition and for that reason I will vote against AV.
I have looked at the alternatives to FPTP and in my view the option that should be examined and perhaps trialled is STV, although I am not convinced that it would be a great deal better than FPTP.

Most other options would produce coalitions much of the time. But hey, FPTP has just produced one has it not?

Re: Referendum on the voting system for UK Parliamentary elections

In the Election of the London Mayor AV is used...dont see the point.


I think that Austraila uses AV so would be interested what Troppie has to say about it.

Will be voting against.