Yesterday, purely because I would have been lost in a place I didn't know without him, I went canvassing with my housemate Ross. Ross is a conservative and in fact, is an active member of the party (or youth party at any rate). This has always been fun for me and the rest of my housemates, not because I have strong opposing political views, but because politics makes Ross quite angry at times which can be pretty funny. So with a clipboard in hand I went around one of the local council estates, helping to canvas students in the area with pretty mixed results.
It didn't start well with the majority of people not actually being in when we came to annoy them with leaflets, (it was a lovely day after all), but even the people that Ross did try to canvass/convince seemed quite apathetic. The general consensus seemed to be, "I'm not here for long, local politics doesn't really have much effect on me." And that's fair enough really. People complain about voter apathy and in particular the apathy of student voters but when it comes to students at university, the time they spend at university only adds up to about a year and half there and a year and a half at home. Hardly likely to be too bothered about the local politics when it's really such a short time of your life, we don't even have to pay council tax for some reason so what impact do the council have on students? And then people wonder why we (in general) aren't voting. The best but possibly worst reactions we received were a door to the face by someone who turned out not to be a student and a long conversation with a Liberal Democrat supporter who Ross tells me they have to try and speak to because the support isn't so strong for them at the moment.
I really hope that a lot of students turn out on Thursday for the local elections but more importantly really is the election on the alternative vote (AV). Now I've got my own opinions on AV and since your voting preference should be kept private that's what I intend to do. I hope though to explain to you what AV is and also whether it is right for us at this time to change to a system which is only half heartedly backed by the Liberal Democrats who admit it is a miserable compromise and generally, aside from Ed Miliband and a few of his best friends in the Labour party, most other MPs appear to be against it (looks like I've failed already to keep my opinion out of it). Anyway, what is AV? Well it's a bit complicated really, but as I understand it, AV is much like the current first-past-the-post system, but with numbers as well. You can just put a 1 by your first preference and be done with it, but you can also put a 2nd preference or a 3rd or however many candidates there are in that election. To win under first-past-the-post you need to have received the most votes out of any party, there isn't actually a specific 'post' to pass. This is seen by some as unfair because you can gain a majority with only about 36% of the votes, as Labour did in the 2005 general election whilst 64% of the population didn't vote for Labour and presumably didn't want them in power. Under AV you need 50% of the votes to get into power which at first glance seems much fairer but the chances of someone getting 50% are low and so after the first vote is counted, the 2nd preferences of the people who voted for the losing party are added to the pile. So in an example where there are five parties in an election, the second preferences of the losing parties voters could be as important as peoples first preferences, if not more important. Under this system there will also be an increased chance, (not an absolutely certainty as some MPs have tried to paint it), of ending up with coalition governments. Coalition governments are often weaker because they have to compromise with each other and so they are less powerful.
I hope I've helped explain AV and why it will be one of the most important votes you may ever have. In the interest of fairness, here is a link to some of the No to AV campaign posters which I believe actually hinder a legitimate campaign issue in their ridiculousness. First poster, secondly an article from the New Statesman.
P.S. It's quite ironic that you will have to vote for AV on a first-past-the-post system.
No comments:
Post a Comment