The Electoral Reform Society regards AV as the best voting system when a single position is being elected. However, as AV is not a proportional system, the Society does not regard it as suitable for the election of a representative body, e.g. a parliament, council, committees, etc
This is taken from the original version of the ERS website, a website which now claims that:
The Society has long argued that AV is the best system when you're out to elect a single winner.
It has also stripped out the arguments against AV which were present on the original page, a full breakdown of the changes to the ERS website is available on the
AV2011 website which is itself well worth a read.
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4 comments:
AV will do fine for a constituency based system. It is not proportional, but not single member constituency could be properly proportional.
The next step will be a list system for the majority of the Upper House. This would be far less controversial and would normally be the first reform to consider. But the only democratic parliamentary system is such a mess it needs reform now.
Once we have AV nobody will want to return to FPTP, just like the Conservatives have yet to announce the abolition of the Scottish parliament (for all its faults). Why do Conservatives spend so much time defending the current system, whatever it is at the time?
Jimmy,
The ERS have specifically said that AV is not appropriate for election to bodies like parliament.
They have been calling for electoral change for years and even they don't think AV is really the right answer.
They have previously rejected AV because it is not a fully proportional system which they believe is the best for parliament.
However, their site now also make it clear regarding AV that:
As a membership organisation, we've asked our members whether we should offer our full support to winning the referendum on AV. The result was an emphatic YES!
It would be inappropriate therefore for them to have an official policy opposing this decision of their members.
I think it all depends on how the referendum is framed. If we're asked "do you want to change to AVS or stick with FPTP?" then I'm sure their position would be "Vote YES"
However, if the question has 3 options:
Stick with FPTP
Adopt AVS
Change from FPTP but /not/ AVS
Then they may well advocate the 3rd option?
However - unless the referendum were done on an AVS, that might split the anti-FPTP vote...oh, the irony then :)
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