George Eustice MP joined volunteers from West Cornwall at Land’s End on Saturday morning for the local launch of the No2AV campaign. The event coincided with 50 such events across the country that aimed to highlight the wide-reaching implications of the forthcoming referendum.
The country will go to the polls in just over a month’s time, on the 5th May, in a vote on a Lib Dem backed proposal to change from the current ‘one person, one vote’ voting system to the ‘Alternative Vote’ system – a method only used in four other countries around the world.
Under the ‘Alternative Vote’ system people rank the candidates in order of preference. The voters for the candidate with the least number of votes then have their votes reallocated to their second preference candidate. This happens for as many rounds as are necessary until victory is handed to a candidate who, theoretically, has support from over 50% of the voters.
Under our current system, everyone gets one equal vote, and the candidate with the most votes wins.
George Eustice said, “The principle of one person one vote has been the hallmark of our democracy since the days of the suffragettes and we should defend it now by voting no. Under the system they call AV, some people get more votes than others. Someone who votes for the BNP would get two or three votes counted while someone who votes for a mainstream party would only get their vote counted once. That’s not fair. AV would also lead to more backroom deals, political stitch ups and more broken promises. At a time like this, with all the problems the country has, we should not be undermining our democracy.”