Electoral Reform... First Past The Post OR The Alternative Vote...?

First Past The Post (FPTP) or the Alternative Vote (AV) system?

That is the question that was answered by voters last night and the outcome of which will dictate the way future governments are elected.

Both systems elect one MP for each constituency, the difference is that in AV instead of marking an X on the ballot paper for the candidate you wish to represent you as you do in the current FPTP system you would rank the candidates 1, 2, 3, etc.  When it comes to the count, if no one candidate has more than 50% of the vote the 2nd choices are then tallied and added to the vote.  This continues until one candidate has a majority vote.  That is essentially the difference between the two systems.

Now which do I think is better?

The FPTP system has its advantages.  It is easy and cheap to administer, it is a system that the public are familiar with and it honours the one vote per person policy.  Advantages for the AV system on the other hand; all MPs would have the majority of their voters (in the 2010 elections 2/3s of MPs lacked majority support), it penalises extremist parties who would be unlikely to gain many second preferences, people can vote for whoever they choose with their first vote without fear of it being wasted, and it would also encourage parties to chase 2nd and 3rd votes and hopefully decrease the need for negative campaigning.

I think the ideal voting system would incorporate proportional representation (PR) in some way - the party that were voted in would in fact have the most votes overall rather than the most 'seats'.  This I believe is the fairest way of electing a government but the problem would be in deciding where MPs would be placed - a party may receive a certain percentage of the vote but that percentage may not be represented in seats gained which is of course crucial to getting legislation passed amongst other things.

Those in favour of FPTP argue that with AV we may end up with a candidate who did not receive the majority of the (1st) vote.  This is true, however the whole point of AV is that no one candidate will be voted in UNTIL they receive a majority, whether that includes 2nd, 3rd, or 4th votes too is determined by how we vote - in life we can't always have our first choice and have to be prepared to give alternative options.  The AV system was used in elections at my University, Loughborough, as it is in many other student unions, and in fact the Labour and Lib Dem party leader elections - and has to my knowledge always worked well.

Other arguments against AV include the high price that it will cost us to change the system - this is a fair argument but considering the amounts of money we spend on other significantly less important issues I think it is something we would just have to accept and deal with.  Some might also suggest that people might vote tactically with their 'lesser' votes (i.e. 2nd, 3rd, etc.), not voting for rival parties regardless - a Labour supporter voting for the conservatives only with their last vote to intentionally sabotage their chances for example.  On this issue I believe that the majority of voters would see sense and actually vote for the parties they believed would run the country most effectively - surely even the most ardent Labour supporter would accept that the Tories are better suited to govern that say the Green party.

I don't proclaim to be a political expert and I admit that my knowledge is not in any way extensive - however from what I have heard, read, and experienced I believe that AV is the fairest system currently available and hopefully other voters will have agreed when the results are revealed later today.

What do you think?

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