Grab and change it, it's yours

[venta]

Does anyone know what the actual text which is actually going to appear on the actual ballot papers on May 5th is? A bit of googling hasn't turned up any results for me, but the pages I was finding suggest to me that I may have been going about my searching in the wrong way.

I'm kind of assuming that the ballot paper will look broadly like this:

[Poll #1729575]

Now, lots of campaigners would have you believe that this is analogous to:

[Poll #1729576]

And lots of other campaigners would have you believe it's analogous to:

[Poll #1729577]

You'll notice that the second two polls allow the results to be interpreted as pol(l)ar opposites.

So, does anyone know exactly what the question is? More to the point, has the government made any commitment at all about what they're going to do with the results, how they'll be interpreted, or whether Cameron will (in fact) go "oh, that's nice" and carry on regardless with the existing system?

Comments

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

In the Australian system it does require 50%, but you are required to rank all candidates.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes - it makes sense in that context. But without a requirement to express a second preference, you'd end up with (potentially) a lot of elections with no results. Which (up til now) has been my objection to AV - as it's described on the BBC/electoral-reform.org/various other reputable places. Finding out that objection isn't valid because it's based on something that isn't true is rather worrying.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Though, of course, not as worrying as finding out after voting ;)

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Or for the senate where you've got a zillion candidates you've also got the option of just saying "vote how Party X would have liked me to" - though I only do that personally if there's a party whose published voting card matches my own preferences closely enough.