Brits, will you vote for the AV system ?

No they aren't, due to the fact that FPTP discourages extremist voting and fractured party systems.
Absolutist monarchy discourages extremist voting and fractured party systems, too. If you're going to take the position that people can't be trusted to vote sensibly, then you're essentially taking the position that people have no innate right to self-government.
 
No they aren't, due to the fact that FPTP discourages...fractured party systems.

I'm hoping that AV will at least partially change this without causing the fractured systems ascociated with STV.

This is not actually true. Where STV is in use today we actually see rather stable two or three party government. Australia is dominated by two parties, Malta and New Zealand likewise. Ireland is currently governed by a two party coalition, but the biggest three parties picked up around 90% of seats (and the vote).

In contrast, we share FPTP mainly with North America and India. It's hard to find evidence that suggests FPTP encourages unity here. America, being a presidential system, is hard to use as comparison. But it's interesting to note the extraordinary disunity of the two political parties. India is of course no testament to the stability engendered by FPTP; It's two largest parties make up less than 60% of the Lok Sabha (equivalent chamber to the Commons). It's third largest party makes up 5%. In Canada we see four major parties, notably a large Quebecois contingency. Prior to 2005, there were five major parties. The past six or so years have seen minority government.

Now we shouldn't blame FPTP for the Quebec problem or Indian disunity,but we can't meaningfully say it is the only electoral system (in usage) which is amenable to a limited number of parties. Nor can we say STV encourages a 'fractured party system'. The evidence simply isn't there.

Not that I would say a fractured party system is something our electoral system should be designed to combat, as a first-order priority. It seems quite reasonable to suggest that a two-party system which shoe horn voters into voting for platforms they don't really support, as a 'lesser of two evils' thing, isn't really democratic at all. That if there a a large number of parties in a representative chamber that means there are a large number of views to represent. It is not a failure of the system, but a success. Forcing the large majority of the voting public into repressing their views by creating a rigid two party system is not an improvement.

Nor is there evidence that multi-party governance leads to particularly unstable government. Let's consider Germany first; since 1961 it has experienced unbroken coalition government. Notably, before this (with the same mixed-member electoral system) it experienced a decade of single-party government lead by a rather extraordinary man named Adenauer, who oversaw the transformation of a shattered impoverished Germany ruined by the second world war, to a prosperous economic powerhouse and respected member of the international community. Of course, coalition government was hardly antithetical to this trend post-1963. More relevant to the point, in the fifty years period from the independence of the Federal Republic (1959) Germany saw only six chancellors, all powerful world statesmen. No German government lasted fewer than three years. Over the same period, the UK saw eleven prime ministers and three governments which did not even survive two years.

Italy provides a better poster-child for electoral instability; in the 1946-1993 period (at which point they changed electoral systems) there were 29 switches of Prime Minister (although only 18 different PMs). But anyone who knows anything about Italian politics at the time will know that this was not the fault of it's (albeit rather poor) electoral system. The problem was both the gaping lack of integration between the prosperous north and the rather poorer (and crime-ridden) south, as well as the enduring popularity of the Communist Party. This latter problem made governance very difficulty. The Communist party of Italy was, because of its relative moderation, strong enough to block the formation of an alternative opposition and make governing a perilous affair. But it was also extremist enough to make coalition with the (Catholic) Christian Democrats impossible, and certainly unacceptable to the United States (and perhaps some E.C nations). The result was a fundamental instability of personnel, but one unconnected to the electoral system.

And it's worth emphasizing that the instability was only an instability of personnel, not of policy. The insecurity of political position made the political classes rather irrelevant; civil servants stepped in to fill the vacuum. And luckily enough, did rather well. The result was very stable Italian policy. Certainly in economic policy Italy did not see the vast changes the UK saw over the letter part of the 20th century (E.g the differences between those of Thatcher and Callaghan).

So all in all, we can't say proportional representation of the type proposes in Britain (e.g STV or AV) discourages strong government or encourages party splits, anymore than FPTP. And even if we could, it is not at all clear that this is a bad thing. It is not at all clear that it leads to poorer policy or more distant government.

It is clear that it is much more democratic. That it allows the views of millions more voters to be registered and registered effectively. And with all that weighed up, I fail to see how the case for electoral reform is anything but overwhelming.
 
(Australia only has STV in the Senate)
 
STV FTW @ CFC!!!!
No 'secede from the fascist regime' option?
 
Yes to AV. No more wasted votes, no more tactical voting. A step in the right direction, and if it fails, the backlash will ensure we'll never make any progress along this path.

Absolutist monarchy discourages extremist voting and fractured party systems, too. If you're going to take the position that people can't be trusted to vote sensibly, then you're essentially taking the position that people have no innate right to self-government.

Heh, I've used that argument before. Voters can't be trusted? Let's just give the Queen back all the power.
 
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