On procedure and politics

Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined

Artificial preferences

There continues to be interest among many Canadians in the Alternative Vote (AV). Most recently the Liberal Party of Canada adopted a resolution calling for the implementation of a preferential ballot for national elections. This blog attempted to redo the May 2011 election using AV, and other bloggers have produced similar posts. This blog continues to [...]

Nicked – the musical (revisited)

Back in February, I wrote about a musical being produced in the UK based on the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition. Entitled Nicked, it was staged in Suffolk on 30 April, as part of the HighTide Festival. You can read a review of it here. And even better, you can see a performance of one of the [...]

How the AV referendum killed the republican movement

In an earlier post, I wrote that referendums aren’t very useful means of deciding key policy issues and that the entire referendum campaign on the Alternative Vote has been rather disgraceful. This view has only been reinforced following news today that the No side admits it used completely made-up figures when it claimed adopting AV [...]

The May 2011 Canadian election under AV

(Note: If you are looking for statistical data re: the 2 May 2011 Canadian federal election, please visit Elections Canada or the Pundits’ Guide to Canadian Federal Elections [which uses Elections Canada data].) I came across a couple of blog posts written by people in the UK looking at what transpired in Monday’s general election [...]

The 2011 Canadian Federal election – initial thoughts

(Please see this post for an update – the May 2 election redone using AV.) I will write a more detailed post at some point in the future once final statistics are available. What follows are simply a few quick observations, mostly aimed at UK readers pondering how to vote in the AV referendum. Canada’s [...]

How are votes counted under AV?

Quite a few people seem to be looking for a clear explanation of how AV voting will work in the UK if the referendum comes to pass on May 5. I’ve posted this before, but here is a quick video that provides a very simple explanation, delivered in an amusing way: For those who want [...]

Fisking David Cameron

Fisking: A point-by-point refutation of a blog entry or (especially) news story. A really stylish fisking is witty, logical, sarcastic and ruthlessly factual; flaming or handwaving is considered poor form. The following is my attempt at fisking this essay by Prime Minister David Cameron on why people should vote No to AV. I don’t know [...]

Most common AV-related questions

(Updated: 4 May 2011) (Do you have a specific question regarding how to vote under AV or how the vote is counted? Click here.) The aim of this post is to offer short, to the point answers to the most common issues readers from the UK seem to be looking into, based on the keyword [...]

AV in Canada

(You may also be interested in this post for a summary of the most common questions being asked about AV, or this post, which looks at how elections in Western Canada actually worked using AV and the problem of “plumping”.) This blog has been getting quite a few hits from people searching for information about [...]

Will AV cost £250-mn?

(You may also be interested in this post for a summary of the most common questions being asked about AV.) UPDATE: The No side admits it used made-up figures. One of the main arguments the No2AV side has advanced is that the UK simply cannot afford to switch to AV, citing costs of £240-250 million. [...]

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