See, a significant change in the voting system might be when working class men get the vote, or women.
Or when people who've never had a vote, get a vote. That's a significant change.
So if Syria's tyrant gave up and let the people have a say - that's significant.
If Egypt's colonels are good to their word - that's significant.
If we could trust an election in Zimbabwe, or the European Commission were elected - that's significant.
But when a referendum is held suggesting the voting system is tweaked, so as to give the option to gerrymander a few votes for one minor party over all the other minor parties, and all the while the major party hopes that it won't happen, but goes along with it to get away with their own minor bit of gerrymandering, which is to correct the minor bit of gerrymandering that the other major party did over the last few years...
Sorry, even I fell asleep during that last sentence. Is the answer John Prescott?
I don't know about that... all else aside, it's not about parties so much as people, and about making people's votes count. AV makes more votes matter. It's that simple.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, compared to extensions of the franchise, a technical change in the voting system to what is really no more than a more inclusive form of FPTP isn't really that big a deal. Curious, isn't it, that given votes to working class men, women, and younger adults, and that abolishing rotten boroughs and plural voting could all happen in Parliament, but that a relatively minor technical change needed to go to the people. You'd almost think somebody didn't want it to happen...