Will common sense prevail?

[CanisMajor]

http://news.sky.com/s...Lead_Over_No_Campaign
Looks like the "NO" campaign are winning the argument. Have the public finally seen through this crackpot idea?

[DTCwordfan]

and in one of those countries, Australia, they had to pass legislation to ensure (i) compulsory voting and (ii) that all boxes are ranked whether you like them or not - and that I fine abhorrent. I do not want to vote at all for BNP, the Communists, Social Workers, Labour or the Dipstick/Weirdo party.

Fiji is the country looking to get out of AV.

[New Judge]

It’s certainly not rubbish to suggest the third placed candidate could win, Eddie. It is a distinct possibility where the three main parties are all quite close and this may be more common if, as proposed, the number of constituencies is reduced (and so each becomes larger).

Certainly the second placed candidate (from round one) has every chance of winning. It comes as no surprise that Ed Miliband is supporting the change to AV because that is precisely how he was elected leader of the Labour Party. His brother David was ahead throughout the contest (having polled 37.78% of first preference votes against 34.33% for Ed). He was still ahead after second preferences had been counted and still in front after third preferences had been taken into account (42.72% to 41.26%). Only when the election had been reduced to the final two candidates and fourth preference votes had been counted did he take the lead (50.65% to 49.35%). So the election to the post of leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition was determined by voters’ fourth choice votes. They had preferred three other candidates before rating Mr Ed, but their fourth choice votes were sufficient to override the votes of those who had ranked David first second or third. “Fair”? I think David Miliband may think otherwise.

There seems to be an attitude among many people that they would sooner see a candidate succeed whom fewest people dislike, or who people like a bit, but not quite as much as somebody else. In elections you often end up with what you don’t want and the more candidates there are the greater will be the number of people likely to be disappointed. It’s an unfortunate side effect of democracy. Fiddling around with the voting system (for that is all that AV is – a fiddle) will not alter that and people need to accept it.

[birdie1971]

Mike11111 -

“I thought that your anti-religious posts usually transcended the acceptable boundaries of self-righteous arrogance and intolerance, but this one takes the biscuit!”


I assume that this comment was aimed at me?

I was trying to be funny but having re-read my post, I agree that it doesn't come across in quite the way I intended it to. The point I was trying to make was that the 'No' campaigners have consistently stressed that AV is complicated when it simply isn't.

I shall employ the use of 'smilies' in future to imply irony!

[birdie1971]

Mike -

I've been thinking about your above comment. Don't you think it's a case of the 'pot calling the kettle black' to accuse me being self-righteous and arrogant?

In light of your statement to that effect, I would counter that argument by pointing out that, as an Anglican, you are pro-religious and by definition and by inference, self-righteous and arrogant in so far that you believe that your God created everything and that your method of worship is the 'correct' one.

I always find it amusing when religious people accuse the non-religious of arrogance and/or self-righteousness whilst simultaneously displaying the very same. The difference being, the non-religious and/or scientists have voluminous amounts of observable, verifiable and testable proofs on their side that suggests that God is unlikely or unnecessary; whilst the religious fraternity have nothing more than an old book, written hundreds, if not thousands of years ago, that proves absolutely nothing whatsoever.

My complete lack of belief in deities is not born out of arrogance nor self righteousness. It is derived from logic.

[flip_flop]

Quite, Birdie