Thoughts on politics and life from a liberal perspective

Friday 1 April 2011

FPTP is *more* complicated than AV in reality

Excellent post here from Anthony Smith highlighting how under First Past the Post, the tortuous decision process you have to go through in order to make your vote actually count makes it more complicated than it would be under Alternative Vote.

Here is his flowchart that explains it all:


1 comment:

Hugh said...

The end of tactical voting came up during Eddie Izzard vs Jane Kennedy on FiveLive this morning.  The Yes campaign need to be clear that tactical voting would be reduced (rather than eradicated) by AV.  This flow chart I'm not sure is helpful in this regard. 

Kennedy was, I thought, very effective at exploring the minutae of AV, such as this 'eradication' and was allowed to by Izzard, who, bless him, tried to respond honestly to her queries, rather than seeing them as tactics to divert from the key issue: two-thirds of MPs are elected despite more people voting against them than for them.

'Yes' need to avoid over-reliance on celebs. Even the obviously bright, like Izzard, do not have decades of professional debating under their belts.  The No camp argue that AV is a politicians fix, but that won't stop them wheeling politicians out to decry it.