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

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure about my answers to the second two questions (it needs reform, and AV is non-ideal). I'm just not sure about my answer to the first question...

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that AV losing was almost a given, but the increasingly desperate and transparently misleading lines taken by its opponents recently make me wonder.

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

The question is do we want AV or FPTP.

For that question the answer is a clear 'AV', but it's the wrong question and only being asked because there was no way that Clegg could get a genuinely good system past the Tories.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

The official question is covered here. As far as I know, it has now been changed to the simpler second version proposed by the Electoral Commission.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

AFAIK the current proposed wording of the question is:

"At present, the UK uses the 'first past the post' system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the 'alternative vote' system be used instead?"

which is not too far from your first notion.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia has a lot of info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011

It gives the same wording that people have said, with http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldbills/026/2011026.pdf as the reference.

Part of me wonders whether it's a good thing that it's framed as a Yes/No question - it makes it all about AV, rather than AV versus FPTP. The No2AV campaign have exploited this by focusing on criticisms of AV, even though many of them apply to FPTP. Anecdotally, I see people saying things like "I want PR instead of AV, so I'm voting No" - even though that ought to mean they're voting Yes to FPTP in this referendum.

[alien8.livejournal.com]

ref AV : http://neilharding.blogspot.com/p/10-facts-about-alternative-vote-av.html

kinda needed to counter the garnage being put out atm.. - the no campaign is so full of BS that I'd vote yes to AV just to annoy them.

No, AV isn't perfect - not by any stretch. But it's a change in the right direction. Changing to AV+ at least, or PR from it will be less of a hurdle.. IMHO etc.

[alien8.livejournal.com]

oh and let's not forget that the Political parties use AV for electing their own leaders!

If first past the post had been used for the Conservatives, David Davies would be the leader now...

good enough for them but not good enough for us? PAH!

NL

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

Btw, in the Netherlands we have 'AV', sort of. That's why I think our voting system here is fine as it is ;-)

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

Mathmos say FPTP is the worst system but consider Arrow's Theorem of Impossibility (Kenneth Arrow 1951 and he got the Nobel Prize for it), proving mathematically that perfect democracy is impossible. FPTP adherents can still buck AV by voting for only one candidate.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

One random thought I had - is there any reason why a country has to use the same system in every constituency? I mean, if we the people of Cambridge decide we want to use say Borda Count to elect our representative to the House of Commons, is it the business of anyone else in the country?

I mean yes, in practice it's easier and less confusing to use the same system everywhere, but the thought did cross my mind. It would be interesting to see how much variation there is in the vote (if that information is available).

(Cambridge University used to elect two members, which were chosen via STV. Not that I like the idea of giving extra votes just for going to a particular University, but it does seem in the past we managed with using a different method for some constituencies.)