What Is Alternative Voting?

Evolution NOW with Deborah Grayson (Centre) 

Evolution NOW met with Deborah Grayson (pictured), a local event organiser for the YES! to fairer votes campaign, to find out how to AV will create a TRUE DEMOCRACY.

Democracy means the ability to vote for your leader – but what about the way we vote?

The current voting system in place is a system called First-Past-The-Post (FPTP). This system is based on say three candidates, and you having to vote for one of them. Once these votes are collated, the winner is determined by the first to achieve a measly 30% of the votes.

Not only is this a poor representation of the turnout of those who voted, but as an individual, maybe the person you voted for isn’t exactly your first choice. Suppose for example, you like only one or two of that party’s manifesto pledges but can appreciate the views of the other parties on the same issue?

Much like the attitudes and views of some of our elected politicians at present, FPTP is obsolete, tired and not representative of what we all think.

Alternative Voting (AV) is a system that seems foreign to many, when in actual fact it is being used all around us:

• The recent Labour leadership race used it.
• Mayor of London Elections uses it.
• Presidential Elections in Universities use it.
• Australia’s Prime Minister was elected using this very system.

AV is simply a multiple choice ballot. Instead of an “x”, you get to chose who your favourite is out of say five candidates. Then listing from 1 to 5 (1 being the highest, 5 the lowest) you select who you would like to win. The percentage needed to be declared the winner on such a type of ballot is 50%.

This means the voting would embrace a wider audience, encompass more of the community if you will and reduce the margin of winning via tactical voting dramatically. It makes your vote a more valuable commodity to the person trying to obtain it, as literally every vote would count towards reaching the 50% target.

But naturally, there are ministers in parliament who are opposed to this voting system and are already banding together to make sure that the political system remains in the dark ages with archaic ideologies and an equally archaic voting system.

With the margin of victory so high, if there is no outright winner, the person with the lowest amount of votes is removed and the ballot is sent out again for you to vote for the remaining participants until somebody achieves the 50% needed to be declared the victor.

Think like how you vote off participants on the x-factor but on a much quicker scale. As a matter of fact...

...Even when voting for the X-factor, you’re using the Alternative Vote system.

To find out how you can say YES to fairer votes, attend one of the road-shows in your local area or be an ambassador and set up one of your very own.