Tuesday, April 19

The lies in the No Alternative Vote campaign

Just had the 'No AV' campaign leaflet put through my letter box and noticed some really bad presentation of statistics and an even worse appraisal of the alternative vote system.
Lets have a look at some of the flaws in the leaflet:

1. They say that the money that would be spent on implementing AV would pay for 2,503 doctors and 6,297 teachers and 8,107 nurses etc. Or does it mean that?
And this is where the leaflet deliberately misleads, it is not clear how long a period £250million or so  would keep these people employed and it is also unclear if one should place 'and' or 'or' between the numbers. So without some context the numbers are open to interpretation, which of course is what these clowns want. It's the same type of game played to confuse people about climate change and here we see 'green' Camereon playing silly school boy games which apparently impresses some people.

2. The AV system intended for the parliamentary elections does not require anyone to put a mark against every candidate, you only have to vote for one person, in fact in Scotland where a similar system is used, about 40% of  people still only vote for their favourite candidate and don't mark any others. Not only that, but the vast majority vote for a max of 3 candidates. If there is a racist candidate or some other party you do not like, you don't have to include them in your decision.

If there is a good reason for changing the system, then the No AV campaign makes a good case for changing it.


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