Britain Alternate Voting Reform Referendum, 2011

A Britain Alternate Voting Reform Referendum was held on May 5, 2011.

Preliminary results show this measure being defeated

• YES 5,807,086
• NO 12,570,539 d

This measure asked citizens if they wanted to implement instant run-off voting (called Alternate Voting) in the House of Commons. The measure got final approval, it was approved by the House of Lords and was thus fully approved by Parliament before their break. This would have also redrawn the electoral map of the UK and would have reduced the number of MP's from 650 to 600.

Supporters of the measure stated the this type of voting would be more fair while opponents noted that stronger governments would be harder to form with not a strong majority able to take control. The House of Lords had delayed the bills passage, though it was approved once the debate over wording had been decided.

No to AV campaign logo

Those opposed to the measure noted that the choice has already been made by the government to implement this new type of voting, it was noted that a poll showed voters would prefer to choose who the alternates would be rather than the government writing them in. The poll also showed voters would have preferred to be given more options, a proportional system rather than the AV system. A report from the NO campaigned showed that by their estimates, it would cost £250million to switch the countries voting system to the new method. Ranking choices would mean there would be more to count manually. If this does get approved, Scottish voters would have five different type of styles of voting, Welsh would have four and British would have three types.

Poll

An April 20- 21, 2011 poll of 2,010 random British adults conducted by Angus Reid showed that those against the switch to AV are slightly ahead.

Date of Poll	Pollster	In favor	Opposed	Undecided	Number polled
April 20 - 21, 2011	Angus Reid	30%	41%	22%	2,010

Scottish Vote

Citizens of Scotland, had three elections on the same day using three different types of electing processes. The Assembly Elections and the local council elections were also held on May 5; Scottish officials had tried to get the date changed for the AV vote in the fear that Scots would get confused with the three different ballot papers. Scotland officials noted that the Parliamentary votes would likely be more delayed now due to the addition of the AV vote. Local authorities stated that the task to county all the votes from the three elections would lead to a Saturday result listing rather than the usual Friday. To help ease confusion, the three different elections were printed on three different colored papers. Also, counting was done by hand as another way to ease confusion and hopefully provide quicker results. The Election Commission stated that informational booklets will be sent to all residents telling about the three different elections and how to fill out each paper.

See also

• No to AV Campaign Website
• Yes to AV Campaign Website

Additional reading

• BBC News, "Inside the Yes and No AV referendum campaigns," April 7, 2011
• The Guardian, "AV referendum: Everything you need to know," April 7, 2011
• Winsford Guardian, "Nothing fair about changing the voting system," April 4, 2011
• The Daily Mail, "Fears move to poll reform 'will give BNP voters more say at ballot box'," March 29, 2011
• The Guardian Blog, "Trying to vote tactically with AV would be a far from simple affair," March 4, 2011
• Politics, "Feature: Drawing the AV referendum battle lines," February 27, 2011