REFERENDUM on 5th May 2001: Some facts for Fareham Folk

The UK-wide referendum will be taking place tomorrow, Thursday 5th May. Here are some facts on the referendum for Fareham folk.

The alternative vote referendum is a public vote on whether or not to change the system for electing the House of Commons - the lower house of the national Parliament at Westminster. Currently members are elected under the 'first-past-the-post' or 'plurality' system - i.e. the candidate with the most votes is elected. The question in the UK referendum will be whether or not to replace this with the alternative vote (AV) electoral system. This new system means you would be able to vote for as many or as few candidates as you like. If you only want to support one candidate you can simply mark an ‘X’ on your ballot paper as you did before. However under the AV system if you wished to, you could 'rank' your choice of candidate by placing a '1' by your first-choice candidate, a '2' by your second-choice candidate, and so on. The candidate elected then would be the one that receives the majority of first-preference votes. If no candidate gains a majority on first preferences, the last placed candidate drops out and their voters’ second choices are counted. This continues until one candidate has majority support.

What do you think?

Under the 'First Past the Post' system you get just one choice. For the millions of people forced into tactical voting just to keep out a candidate they don’t like does AV offers the chance of an honest vote? In the past how many MPs have got to parliament with less than half of voters on their side? However the current system sticks to the principle of 'one person, one vote.' With the AV system it is possible that supporters of fringe parties can end up having their vote counted several times, while mainstream voters only get one say. Parties such as the BNP have never been able to get enough support in a single constituency to have one of their candidates elected as an MP. Under AV, however, the far-right One Nation Party won 11 seats in the Queensland state legislature, whereas they would have only won 8 under First Past the Post.

Our current system is used by 2.4 billion people worldwide, more than any other system. AV on the other hand is only used by Fiji, Australia and Papua New Guinea.

If you still haven't decided how you will be voting have a look at these websites:

Vote YES to AV

Vote NO to AV

If it helps here are the Political Parties' Positions (from Wikipedia):

In favour of AV are the following:

Liberal Democrats

Scottish National Party

Sinn Féin

Plaid Cymru

SDLP

Green Party of England and Wales

Alliance Party of Northern Ireland

UKIP

English Democrats

Against AV are the following:

Conservative Party

BNP

Ulster Unionist Party

Irish Green Party (Northern Ireland region)

Democratic Unionist Party

Scottish Green

Polling stations will be open from 7am – 10pm.

The next election scheduled to be held in Fareham is for the election of Borough Councillors in 2012.