My eye! Sweet Jesus, Ouch!

[FireKnife]

At least we haven't got the AV system yet (i hope that we don't).

 

Seriously it is the stupidest system ever invented. The party with the most votes is the one that wins simple. However under AV it could be the party with the least actually first counted votes that wins.

 

However i know one thing, when i go to the polling booth on May 5th i will vote Labour for general and someone had better damn well impress me by then to be voted for by me.

 

'FireKnife'

[ED-SKaR]

Don't vote, you'll only encourage them.

[scorch]

Don't vote, you'll only encourage them.

 

 

Billy Connelly joke there.

 

Always good to credit quotes.

[FireKnife]

Always good to credit quotes.

 

Mine never get acreditied

 

Ah well i have to vote, otherwise i can't say why Scotlands political system is hairy donkey danglees.

 

'FireKnife'

[Hedganian]

Seriously it is the stupidest system ever invented. The party with the most votes is the one that wins simple. However under AV it could be the party with the least actually first counted votes that wins.

 

That's utter ######. Did you actually bother to learn anything about the proposal?

 

Under the proposed system, every voter ranks the candidates in order of preference. All the number 1 votes for each candidate are counted, and if any candidate gets more than 50% of the total votes, they win.

 

If not, then the votes for the candidate with the least number 1 votes are redistributed according to their next preference - number 2 - eliminating the least popular candidate. These number 2 votes are added to the number 1 votes the remaining candidates, and if any now has more than 50% of the votes, they win.

 

If not, the next least popular candidate is eliminated, and their votes are redistributed according to their number 3 preferences. And so on until one candidate has more than 50% of the vote.

 

In short, the proposed system would provide a mechanism whereby the least popular candidate can never win, but a candidate that more people would pick as second or third choice could win over one with more number 1 votes. Why would this be a "problem" as you put it? People still voted for this person or party, they just didn't pick them as their first choice. If you can't have your first choice, wouldn't you rather have your second choice than someone else?

 

It doesn't seem to be less or more fair than the current system, it's just different and more complicated for the simple-minded to grasp, and therefore probably less able to work correctly since the vast majority of the voting public are morons who won't take the time to understand how to do it properly.

 

On the other hand, it would ensure that no candidate would win with less than 50% of the votes cast.

 

Of course, the fact that people don't bother to vote is an issue not addressed by the proposed system, nor is the fact that party-politics is a flawed system that was never intended to operate with the way the British electoral system works. Or even the fact that democracy as a whole doesn't work in a large society where the majority of people are enfranchised.

 

 

Whoa, that ended up longer than I expected...

 

However i know one thing, when i go to the polling booth on May 5th i will vote Labour for general and someone had better damn well impress me by then to be voted for by me.

 

Yes, vote Labour, the government who brought us the VCRA...

[scorch]

I'm such a comic geek that if there's a "Norsefire" box I may not be able to stop myself putting a cross in it.

 

 

 

 

EDIT: I don't actually support the Norsefire policies though. Just geek related lols.

[FireKnife]

Yes, vote Labour, the government who brought us the VCRA..

 

That was Tony Blair's New Labour, to be honest more Conservative than Cameron can be.

 

If you can't have your first choice, wouldn't you rather have your second choice than someone else?

 

No and the amount they are putting into this is what worries me, as much as i don't believe the propaganda posters that have been rushed around to get rid of the AV idea i think a new voting system is LAST on the list of ideas that the country needs to look at right now.

 

Why do we have this 'must get 50% or more'? The basis of a democratic election is that the party that recieves the most votes is the winner. Why does it have to be 50% or more, if you have ten parties in the running and one gets 11%, the rest bar one 10% and the last one 9% the one with 11% has the most and thus has won. 50% just leads to the bloody fiasco we have at the moment, giving the Lib Dems false hope that they have power and showing just how much of a two-faced idiot Clegg is.

 

'FireKnife'

[Hedganian]

I never said I agreed with the idea. I'm just trying to explain it.

 

Also, I hate the scaremongering from the anti-AV campaign.

 

Basically put, fringe parties such as the BNP could have votes counted twice where as main stream parties such as Conservatives, Labour, and Lib Dems would only have theirs counted once.

 

That's **badger*s*!

 

Don't bring the BNP into this. Don't try to imply that this new system is the gateway to Fascism and a new rise of Nazism...

[Xaccers]

Ok the 2nd to last first choice can end up winning.

Imagine 5 candidates:

 

1. Tory

2. LibDem

3. Labour

4. Bingo Bongo Wibble Splee

5. UKIP

 

People in the area want their candidate to win, they disagree with all the others, it turns out most UKIP voters put BBWS as their second vote, Labour voters put BBWS as their third choice (LibDem being their second), and LibDem voters BBWS as their fourth choice (after Labour and Tory).

The votes are in:

 

Tory comes first, but doesn't get more than 50%, followed by LibDem, Labour, BBWS and UKIP.

So, UKIP are out, their 2nd choices are redistributed, moving BBWS infront of Labour.

Labour are then out, their 3rd choices are redistributed, moving BBWS in front of LibDems.

LibDems are out, their 4th choices are redistributed moving BBWS into first place.

 

Well done. You now have a joke candidate for an MP. Very few people wanted the BBWS candidate as their MP, as demonstrated by the first vote count, but they've won anyway.

 

I know who I want to be my MP, it also happens to coincide with which party I think has the best track record for running the country, why on earth would i want to vote for someone I don't want to be my MP?

 

With FPTP the public can easily vote out governments and in the one they want, or at least their MP, as happened at the last general election (despite Labour trying to rig things in MK for their benefit). With AV that becomes practically impossible. Fringe groups like the LibDems are attracted to it as it gives them more of a chance to win via the back door. Of course they'd prefer proportional representation which is even worse (look at Israel) and gives disproportionate power to tiny political parties due to it causing coalitions rather than single party governments.

[FireKnife]

Don't bring the BNP into this. Don't try to imply that this new system is the gateway to Fascism and a new rise of Nazism...

 

See that is the thing that annoys me, as much as the BNP are *fruitcage* nuts don't use them every single time as the evil party we must all be afraid of, we know they exist, we just ignore them as they can never get the most votes as while we have idiots in this country even they aren't that stupid.

 

Having sat and read both sides of the argument i think it is a pointless system that is an excessive waste of money and time but it just leads to scaremongering on both sides and leaves a bunch of people with no clue what to do or whether to vote or not. That and it feels to me like it has been brought up just so the Tories can say 'hey look we are letting the Lib Dems have a say on what they want' so we don't think of them as total *bramston pickle* s (like that is going to happen).

 

'FireKnife'

[amateurstuntman]

Yeah, that is pretty retarded.

 

As it stands now Britain is one of the only countries in the world still using the utterly retarded "first past the post" system.

It is useless and undemocratic.

 

AV is ###### but it is a damn sight better than we have now.

 

What we really need is proportional representation, as used in all but a few democracies in the world.

 

We don't even have that choice.

 

Vote for AV because the alternative is bloody horrible...

[Xaccers]

Yeah, that is pretty retarded.

 

As it stands now Britain is one of the only countries in the world still using the utterly retarded "first past the post" system.

It is useless and undemocratic.

 

AV is ###### but it is a damn sight better than we have now.

 

What we really need is proportional representation, as used in all but a few democracies in the world.

 

We don't even have that choice.

 

Vote for AV because the alternative is bloody horrible...

 

You do have a cracking sense of humour

[Hedganian]

You're being sarcastic, right?

 

Seems to me that FPTP is the more common system.

 

But there's a big table here with all the actual facts. Well, possible facts.

 

But at the end of the day, whatever system is used, you're still only allowed to vote for the scumbags who put themselves forward - and as Frank Herbert said "We should entrust power over our affairs only to those who hold such power with reluctance, and only then under circumstances that serve to increase that reluctance."

 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Democracy doesn't work.

[Xaccers]

It just doesn't work as badly as the alternatives

[FireKnife]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Democracy doesn't work.

 

Would you like a little Communism, or perhaps some good old Facist enforcement?

 

As much as democracy is a pain in the backside it is a damn site better than the alternative systems. At least with centre politics and democracy you get a choice, rather than just 'i have the biggest amount of cash / guns and army / loudest voice so i am in power'.

 

But either way after centuries of corrupt politicans, tax dodgers and idiots that think that everyone desevres the right to the same life whether they are a saint or a rapist it really is not going to change. And the natural British mentality of 'oh well someone else will come up with something better' means that nothing better will happen, we will keep voting for the same empty promises then shout at the TV while having our breakfast as another politician stops spinning his lies and starts cutting our country in half.

 

As much as i am an enternal optomist some things in life are not going to change and i say make the best of it, because i bet you there is something much worse around the corner.

 

'FireKnife'

[Arghoslent93]

Don't you have bouncers in your bar ?

Yes of course, but generally we don't have a need for them on a Tuesday afternoon

[Hedganian]

Would you like a little Communism, or perhaps some good old Facist enforcement?

 

 

Um... Yes.

 

The only system of government that works is monarchy/dictatorship. But only if the right person is at the top. Which is extremely hard to assure.

 

The reason it works is because they have no need to "court" public opinion and therefore are free to do what would actually be the best thing, rather than what all the uneducated morons think they want.

 

The problem is that if their idea of what the right thing is isn't *actually* the right thing, there's sod all you can do about it.

 

I never said I had a solution. Sorry.

[mattmanic]

What we really need is a dictator. People will never agree with each other as to what is right, so you may as well just have one guy with his idea of what to do. So long as they're not actually bad, like, let's be honest, all other dictators, it'll be fine...

 

[FireKnife]

What we really need is a dictator. People will never agree with each other as to what is right, so you may as well just have one guy with his idea of what to do. So long as they're not actually bad, like, let's be honest, all other dictators, it'll be fine...

 

I think centuries of dictators have proved that giving one person power over a country just doesn't work as it will always go to their head and it is the power hungry that will always try to be top of the political tower.

 

Though saying that if we combined elements of Communism (such as pay being a bit more equal than a lawyer or footballer earning more than a doctor or nurse) and that open harmony towards others along with free elections and private as well as public property ownership it would work better than what we have now.

 

Plus make prison a punishment, not an extended holiday for those that offend, not to the extreme of some 'pack 50 in a room prisons' but better than the 'pontins with bars in the windows' we have now.

 

'FireKnife'

[Hedganian]

Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.

 

Governments, if they endure, always tend increasingly toward aristocratic forms. No government in history has been known to evade this pattern. And as the aristocracy develops, government tends more and more to act exclusively in the interests of the ruling class -- whether that class be hereditary royalty, oligarchs of financial empires, or entrenched bureaucracy.

 

This guy had a lot to say on the subject of power and governments and things. Seems to me that he's got it pegged pretty well.

[amateurstuntman]

Yeah, that list has Zimbabwe down as FPTP.

 

I got my info from a guy doing politics at uni. I trust him, when I got a load of balls about AV causing birth defects and global warming through the post I asked him about the issues and got a very detailed, informative and interesting essay on the matter.

 

The biggest problem with democracy is that there are no true democracies in the world and no accountability either. Even if there were true democracies that would suck too because the vote of a slathering idiot would count the same as mine.

 

At the end of the day though it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

I'm OK and I will continue to be OK, no matter which particular set of bastards are in charge.

 

If I stop being OK I will either join the rebellion or bug out to another country.

 

Easy.

[Hedganian]

You know of the Rebellion against the Empire?

[mattmanic]

I found this: http://imgur.com/a/hgmbQ

 

But I still don't know enough to make an informed decision between the two. There seem to be strong arguments against both and I am not educated on the subject so I don't think I should vote.

 

I'd guess most people who are voting don't have a clue what is best, their vote will depend mainly on the propaganda they've been fed and what they choose to believe. If we had a dictator we could hold a debate between highly educated and experienced people to decide. They wouldn't be swayed by their being in a political party so there would be no unjustified bias, they just decide what they truly believe is best. However! The fact that we would have a dictator would negate the entire problem in the first place So it's all good. Just relax... Although that system would work for any problem which needed to be decided on.

[Hedganian]

I found this: http://imgur.com/a/hgmbQ

 

But I still don't know enough to make an informed decision between the two. There seem to be strong arguments against both and I am not educated on the subject so I don't think I should vote.

 

 

Wrong. You should vote. Everyone should vote. People fought and died to allow others the freedom to have that vote, not using it is essentially the same as spitting on their sacrifices.

 

You should do some research first, though, to inform your vote.

 

Edit: It's a nice anti-propaganda website, though. I've been trying to make some of the same points myself, regardless of whether or not I agree that AV should be adopted, I prefer people to base their opinions on facts rather than lies.

[FireKnife]

Personally i would vote against it, wether or not it is a good system we have an economy still pulling out of a recession, conflicts with Africa and the Middle East, a badly thought out coalition government and a high rise on fuel and other taxy duty. I think spending money on a system that is going to change the way we vote is at the moment a bit of a waste, however if the economy was stable and we weren't in said conflicts and we didn't have high fuel prices and a failing government then i would still not vote as it seems like a system dreamt up by the Lib Dems to swing the votes in there favour as they know that they are often falling to the second or third party that would be voted in.

 

That is based on my opinion and having read both propaganda leaflets thoroughly i can say my opinion is based on personal views and not the propaganda itself, some of which is pathetic in its attempts to sway voters.

 

'FireKnife'