Why I will vote No to AV!

Posted 18 Apr 2011 by Walaa Idris

No to AV

On May the 5th Londoners have a huge responsibility with the rest of the country to go to the polls and cast their vote to either keep our current voting system First Past the Post (FPTP) or change it to the Alternative Vote (AV). Why Londoners in particular? Because unlike the rest of the country we don’t have other elections and there is a chance that some might not bother to turn up and vote. And, since London is the largest city in the country – not voting will largely affect turnout and its balance as both Wales and Scotland are voting on their respective assemblies.

The two voting systems are as different as day and night. The proposed AV system is complicated – voters have to rank candidates in order of preference, their votes are then counted and recounted (some people have more votes counted than others) until one of the candidates reaches 50 percent. It cost more to administer and it’s unfair because it benefits the worthless candidates with the worthless votes more.

Nick Clegg described it as “a miserable little compromise” but I have to disagree with him because AV is a dangerous and huge provocation – it’s impractical, indecisive and unfair. Furthermore, it flies in the face of our basic democratic principles of one person one vote – a principle that has been the backbone of our democracy for centuries and a beacon of fairness copied the world over.

Eighty years ago, Sir Winston Churchill warned the House of Commons that the Alternative Vote was “the stupidest, the least scientific, the most unreal” voting system – he was right. And now, we have a responsibility to this great nation of ours and its future generations to return a No to AV in three weeks time.

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