Comments on: Crawling from the wreckage

By: James Graham

James Graham — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:37:43 +0000

The last “AV-like” election (using preferential, number voting) was the Scottish local elections. Not a single voting machine was used across the whole country.

Still peddling myths I see. Why break the habit of a lifetime?

By: George Pender

George Pender — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 15:30:31 +0000

Given that we actually got voting machines in london for the last “AV like” mayoral election (something which will hopefully be canned) I think it’s you who has been proved wrong.

I never suggested that the £250 million figure was well researched. Personally I suspect it would have been more than £6 per person which seems very little to me.

By: Lee

Lee — Sun, 22 May 2011 12:29:13 +0000

The main problem with AV was that no one on the “Yes” side seemed in favour of it. The best argument people could come up with is that was a step in the right direction, whatever that meant.

With the benefit a year was too short an amount of time to win.

We could have won if the Labour Party and the trade union movement had come out in favour.

By: James Graham

James Graham — Sat, 21 May 2011 20:39:10 +0000

@MichaelC I haven't forgotten that Michael, I just think it is a lamentable system. Ed Miliband won the most votes; the fact that the ridiculous college system forced him to win a supermajority is another matter. Scrap the system or stop pretending you value the union-Labour link. Simples.

By: MichaelC

MichaelC — Sat, 21 May 2011 11:44:46 +0000

@James Graham Not quite James, you're forgetting Labour's electoral college rules. Sure if you've just added up the votes across the three parts of the college, Ed Miliband got more votes (though not necessarily more supporters, what with Hattie Harman having something like seven votes to play with etc... but that's another issue). However, each part of the college is worth a third, so in terms of the vote share once this has been applied, Ed was in second place to David until the very last votes were re-distributed.

By: Another Yes insider view on the campaign « whywelostav

Another Yes insider view on the campaign « whywelostav — Fri, 20 May 2011 08:33:41 +0000

[...] http://www.theliberati.net/quaequamblog/2011/05/07/crawling-from-the-wreckage/ [...]

By: Gareth Hartwell

Gareth Hartwell — Wed, 11 May 2011 09:09:13 +0000

Maybe we should have done a pilot for AV. e.g. in a Westminster by-election.

I suggest this because most of the arguments which swung the referendum seem to be concerning things which could be established one way or the other. e.g. is it practical to run an AV count without voting machines and how much would it cost?, would people be confused by the process or would they like it better once they had used it, would it produce perverse results?

I think it would have been much harder for the No campaign if there had already been some elections under AV within the UK and the views of people who had taken part in them were a major part of the debate.

Trouble is the referendum result was so one-sided I’m not sure we could propose this now.

By: James King

James King — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:17:46 +0000

Moreover, when the Treasury, the Cabinet Office and the Electoral Commission all confirmed that counting machines wouldn’t be needed, the claim wasn’t withdrawn.

By: AV Post-Mortems « Decline of the Logos

AV Post-Mortems « Decline of the Logos — Mon, 09 May 2011 12:31:20 +0000

[...] James Graham’s ‘Crawling from the Wreckage’ [...]

By: Dave B

Dave B — Mon, 09 May 2011 00:54:33 +0000

Angela Harbutt has written a piece on the referendum for Liberal Vision:

“The scale of incompetence by the YES campaign simply cannot be overstated. It is so vast and so staggering that it won’t merely fill column inches for days, if not weeks to come, it will be the subject of PhD theses for decades to come. It is unlikely that a wilful infiltration of the YES campaign by the NO side – at the most senior levels – could have resulted in a more calamitous result. The enormity of this professional political campaigning disaster is without parallel in modern British history.”

http://www.liberal-vision.org/2011/05/08/the-humiliation-of-the-yes-campaign/