AV Referendum Questionnaire & Consultation

Hi all

I am currently undertaking a six week project and important research for the Electoral Reform Society looking at the Alternative Vote Referendum Campaign – and the actual vote which took place on 5 May.

I would really value your help in obtaining feedback; to this extent if you would kindly participate in the survey questions below that would be really great.

If you would like any more information about the future work the Electoral Reform Society will be setting out, please get in touch.

I’ll be back with the local newsletter next week.

Many thanks for your time and assistance in this matter.

best regards

Richard

Richard Robinson
Labour Borough Cllr for Kimberley & Cossall
Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Arts, Culture & Leisure
7 Scargill Avenue
Newthorpe, Nottm  NG16 2DZ
Tel: 01773 531315 (h)
      0775 1970 640 (m)

  • Richflem

    Is that it? No questions on what kind of voting system change should have been the subject of the referendum? The first referendum of any kind since we voted on EU membership. (Can we have a referendum on EU membership please?)

  • D Webb11

    The campaign was not successful in presenting the truth. The highly financed Tory campaign full of lies, backed by the Tory financial régime, backed up by Cmaron’s high level intervention, the poison campaign against Clegg, and the split Labour Party was hardly conducive to success. In any case, it was a half measure proposal.

  • D Webb11

    The campaign was not successful in presenting the truth. The highly financed Tory campaign full of lies, backed by the Tory financial régime, backed up by Cmaron’s high level intervention, the poison campaign against Clegg, and the split Labour Party was hardly conducive to success. In any case, it was a half measure proposal.

  • D Webb11

    The campaign was not successful in presenting the truth. The highly financed Tory campaign full of lies, backed by the Tory financial régime, backed up by Cmaron’s high level intervention, the poison campaign against Clegg, and the split Labour Party was hardly conducive to success. In any case, it was a half measure proposal.

  • http://www.facebook.com/david.patrick.yes David Patrick

    People have difficulty in engaging with politics as it is without the system being made more complicated. Simplicity is best!

  • Samanatta

    The case for AV was poorly presented and argued. Nor were excellent examples presented from other countries such as Australia where the system works well, nor was the case argued and explained in supporting evidence for change. The broadcast advertising was simplistic, repetitive and unimaginative

  • David Furness

    AV is not the answer, more should be done to find out why people are not turning out on polling day.All Parties say one thing at election time,but this is often not what the people want.

  • Chris Stockdale

    when I vote for a person he/she is my choice, my only choice. why would I give a second, third or even fourth vote to a person standing for a different party?

  • grumpy pensioner

    Only the Lib Dems wanted this as it will be the only way they will ever get seats in Parliament again. Legover Cleg is a busted flush as is Liar Hulme and a “legend” in his own mind Cable. All that is going on in the country, and this is all they can come up with. All 3 parties said they would give us a referendum on membership of the EU. THEY ARE ALL LIARS, but it will never happen, as once in power they never listen to what the people of England want. All they are interested in is their own agenda, looking after themselves. All the old people who helped put the GREAT in Great Britain are now suffering through shortage of money, and care, yet we can start another war with Libya to Protect their civillians ( costing us billions) but cannot help a woman with disable child who, eventually through lack of help committed suicide. Or a little girl shot by Black gun gangs down London.Why don’t we attack Syria? to protect their civillians? oh forgot they haven’t any oil. Why didn’t we go into Rawanda? And why are we borrowing billions of £sss at huge interest rates, to give to other countries in aid? could go on and on, rant rant rant

  • Ronaldlynn

    why would you vote for 2nd or 3rd best, the idea is ridiculous.

  • Angler42

    if is not broke, don’t fix it

  • Peter

    With more than 800 years of one person one vote in this country, it is unlikely that the mind set of a sufficient volume of the population will be changed to accept such a radical and complicated change in the voting system at any time in the near future. A great deal more explaining needs to be done and examples shown of where and how it works at the moment in other countries.

  • Peter

    With more than 800 years of one person one vote in this country, it is unlikely that the mind set of a sufficient volume of the population will be changed to accept such a radical and complicated change in the voting system at any time in the near future. A great deal more explaining needs to be done and examples shown of where and how it works at the moment in other countries.

  • D D Winner1

    David Cameron allowed the vote to go ahead on the promise that he would get constituency boundary changes that would benefit the Tories then he interfered to make sure that the vote would be a NO – note that until he put his nose in, the yes vote was in front. He gained doubly from this by retaining the first past the post and getting the boundaries changed.

  • D D Winner1

    David Cameron allowed the vote to go ahead on the promise that he would get constituency boundary changes that would benefit the Tories then he interfered to make sure that the vote would be a NO – note that until he put his nose in, the yes vote was in front. He gained doubly from this by retaining the first past the post and getting the boundaries changed.

  • D D Winner1

    I agree totally. The no campaign made a big deal of how many countries had AV but noticeably did not say which countries had PR or a version thereof or even how many countries still have first past the post

  • D D Winner1

    I agree totally. The no campaign made a big deal of how many countries had AV but noticeably did not say which countries had PR or a version thereof or even how many countries still have first past the post

  • Roger Jefferies

    The proposal was (as Clegg’s original assessment labelled it) too much of a compromise. The LibDem support for AV was, essentially, dishonest and, as a reform proposal, it was insufficiently radical.

  • John

    The AV proposal came about by compromise and not through the ground swell of public opinion,so it was doomed from the start.

  • Mrs M

    Why change we all understand this system.

  • Anthony Swaby

    If people vote for a party and come last they shpould not give your vote to another party candidate

  • James

    There is no confidence in the political system at the present time. Capitalism has persistently failed and society is moving toward a Victorian poverty not seen since the mainly Christian reformers of the late 18th and 19th century started to agitate on behalf of the poor and enslaved here and throughout what was the British Empire. The unions, mainly Christian in origin, worked with the Welsh Chapels to reform the political system, and Wesley and Wilberforce with others to reform society. Napoleon with his atheistic ideals, who deposed even Catholicism from its home in Italy, was defeated allowing Europe to flourish. We now see wages and living standards falling, the gap between rich and poor growing, lawlessness increasing, and greed and self interest among the great and the good presented in a shameless and gut grinding way, with corruption evident at the highest levels – MP’s members of the Lords and Bankers being the most blatent example. The wishes of the population is consistently ignored and minority interests are encouraged to the detriment of everyone else. Most people see no point in voting for an interchangeabe elite with no morality in their personal or professional lives. Like Pontius Pilate they wash their hands in public and say “What is truth?”

    It is the fault of bankers, greedy and ambitious politicians, corrupt business leaders whose activities have not bought them punishment, but increased pay, privileges and a bonus and a sickening reward culture. In contrast the cost has been passed on to the innocent, their children and their children’s children.

    What difference will a change in the voting system make to all this?

  • Colin Epton

    Most people seem to have no understanding of how our political system works, and very little interest in it. Even those who vote regularly don’t seem to understand what they are voting for. They were easy prey for the No campaign with its simple message and overwhelming newspaper support.
    AV was the wrong system to go for, it complicates the voting system for very little gain.
    The referendum came too early in the new government. Most people are more concerned about jobs and mortgages, Cameron is still in his “honeymoon” period, Clegg is carrying the can for everything that goes wrong, Milliband is still an unknown quantity.
    The referendum campaign was too short, with very little time to get the issues across and the Yes campaign was very weak. I wouldn’t even have had a leaflet from them if I hadn’t delivered it myself! In contrast I had two leaflets from the No camp.

    In short the Lib-dems have waited for this opportunity for decades and when it came, they muffed it!

  • Colin Epton

    You wouldn’t have to. There would have been no requirement to use all your votes.

  • Philip Currie

    I voted Yes although the ideal was a more Proportional system. Some Nos were ‘if it works why fix it’ without any thought about what ‘works’ means. Some were ‘why change’, these presumably would not have allowed women to vote in the last century. Some Nos never ‘got’ the idea that an MP could be elected with say 35% of a turn-out of 30% of the local people and have no incentive to represent more than their Party followers. Some Nos didn’t like the idea that the looney vote, the more daft the better, were first to have a second chance to influence the outcome. A form of PR works for many elections in this Country, MEPs, Scotland, Mayors etc but the Libdems let the Conservatives (sic) off the hook with this apology for real propotional representation.

  • Philip Currie

    I agree. Remember visions of black dissected lungs in the 70s, threats of imminent death of fag packets, Roy castle dying of secondary smoke in Clubs etc and still we smoked until there was a turn in public opinion and a change in the law which rode on its back. The same with Jimmy Saville and Clunk-click on every trip, which failed but a law worked which was introduced when public opinion had turned but not directly from campaigning. AV or better PR will come when eventually the public ‘get’ that swinging between 2 alternatives does not solve the problems we have. They ‘got it’ after WW2 when Labour were elected in front of a seeming National Hero, Churchill as the public wanted to win the peace.

  • Philip Currie

    I agree. Remember visions of black dissected lungs in the 70s, threats of imminent death of fag packets, Roy castle dying of secondary smoke in Clubs etc and still we smoked until there was a turn in public opinion and a change in the law which rode on its back. The same with Jimmy Saville and Clunk-click on every trip, which failed but a law worked which was introduced when public opinion had turned but not directly from campaigning. AV or better PR will come when eventually the public ‘get’ that swinging between 2 alternatives does not solve the problems we have. They ‘got it’ after WW2 when Labour were elected in front of a seeming National Hero, Churchill as the public wanted to win the peace.

  • Philip Currie

    I agree. Remember visions of black dissected lungs in the 70s, threats of imminent death of fag packets, Roy castle dying of secondary smoke in Clubs etc and still we smoked until there was a turn in public opinion and a change in the law which rode on its back. The same with Jimmy Saville and Clunk-click on every trip, which failed but a law worked which was introduced when public opinion had turned but not directly from campaigning. AV or better PR will come when eventually the public ‘get’ that swinging between 2 alternatives does not solve the problems we have. They ‘got it’ after WW2 when Labour were elected in front of a seeming National Hero, Churchill as the public wanted to win the peace.

  • Philip Currie

    If your first choice is unlikely to win in your constituency then you get no direct representation. You must vote for what you want to show overall what people in the Country want but locally it may not be effective. In this case you can choose a second candidate nearest to what you want who does have a chance of getting in and giving you some representation.

  • Philip Currie

    If your first choice is unlikely to win in your constituency then you get no direct representation. You must vote for what you want to show overall what people in the Country want but locally it may not be effective. In this case you can choose a second candidate nearest to what you want who does have a chance of getting in and giving you some representation.

  • Philip Currie

    If your first choice is unlikely to win in your constituency then you get no direct representation. You must vote for what you want to show overall what people in the Country want but locally it may not be effective. In this case you can choose a second candidate nearest to what you want who does have a chance of getting in and giving you some representation.

  • Roger Bacon

    It’s amazing how much resentment is stirred up when both the two big parties who have made all the rules for the last 90 years are challenged. When we get down to a 20% turnout at elections someone may suggest a fairer electoral system that the British public can understand.

  • Roger Bacon

    It’s amazing how much resentment is stirred up when both the two big parties who have made all the rules for the last 90 years are challenged. When we get down to a 20% turnout at elections someone may suggest a fairer electoral system that the British public can understand.

  • Roger Bacon

    It’s amazing how much resentment is stirred up when both the two big parties who have made all the rules for the last 90 years are challenged. When we get down to a 20% turnout at elections someone may suggest a fairer electoral system that the British public can understand.

  • Philip Currie

    An EU referendum is as likely as a ‘bring back hanging’ referendum. It is clear that both would be ‘lost’ as far as any Government are concerned. Who we vote for in Parliament would never allow hanging or exit from Europe despite it being the ‘will of the people’. Why? Because that’s why we elect them to make such decisions in an accountable fashion. Where would it stop if we elected a parliament but wanted to vote separately on every issue that we thought important. The best we can do is bring in a voting system that forces the candidates to think of more than their party followers – AV would have been a start, PR much better.

  • John Patrick

    If we had been offered the option of [unspecified] change, that might well have been supported, giving the option to use for example the Scottish hybrid system of FPTP plus party lists.

  • Gaz

    We all know that Margaret Thatcher & Tony Blair were elected without the majority of the country voting for them. So there must be something wrong with the system. I hardly saw or heard any arguments in the press or on TV in support of AV, yet we were inundated with “NO” vote propaganda.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Paul-Gill/100000963806122 Paul Gill

    New system isnt’t difficult to operate and would be more democratic but the Tory party -which may have been disadavantaged had no incentive to recommend change. Labour support was half hearted. I have lived the last 30 years in a safe constituency where my vote has no influence on the MP. Over 400 MPs receive the support of less than half of their voters. I’d like to live in a democracy.

  • Denise

    The change to voting system was ill thought out and a kneejerk reaction to an alternative to what we are left with now. I voted yes in the slight hope that this had got be better than what we have been doing for centries! Evidently,it was’t really sold that well and it was all too rushed for me so a good opportunity was missed!

  • James Haddon

    Keep someting BRITISH. Everything appears to be ruled by the French & Germans

  • Twitter

  • Facebook

Go to Top