Monday, 10 May 2010

STV or AV?

The Electoral Reform Society have published a news release titled “STV & the parliament that might have been”. The release shows three tables which illustrate how the results of last week’s poll would have been had we been using either the single transferable vote, STV, or the alternative vote, AV, systems. The tables are as follows:





It looks like we would have been stuck with a hung parliament whichever system had been used. The question is would STV or AV always result in a hung parliament as many suspect? A quote from Dr Ken Ritchie, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, would seem to support that when he says “The parliament that might have been would also have brought a hung parliament. But with STV, coalitions, cooperation and debate aren’t aberrations, they are the rule.” Do we want to have a coalition after each election?

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