{"id":4670,"date":"2011-02-11T10:39:37","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T09:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=4670"},"modified":"2011-04-18T09:07:01","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T08:07:01","slug":"av-or-not-av-that-is-the-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=4670","title":{"rendered":"AV or not AV? That is the question"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the British House of Commons, there are 650 members elected by the &#8216;first past the post&#8217; system. How many do you think obtain more than 50% of the votes cast? Well, the answer is only 270.<\/p>\n<p>If we change the voting system to the alternative vote (AV), <em>every<\/em> Member of Parliament will need at least 50% of the votes cast and <em>every<\/em> candidate will have an interest in appealling to <em>every<\/em> elector.<\/p>\n<p>The referendum on possible introduction of AV will &#8211; subject to the passage of the necessary legislation in the next few days &#8211; take place on 5 May. Today the &#8220;Guardian&#8221; has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/politics\/2011\/feb\/10\/voting-reform-referendum?intcmp=239\">an article <\/a>reviewing the current state of the campaigns for and against change.<\/p>\n<p>As I did in the only other UK referendum in which I&#8217;ve voted &#8211; membership of the European Union in 1975 &#8211; I&#8217;ll be voting &#8216;Yes&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>For info on the Yes campaign, go <a href=\"http:\/\/labouryes.org.uk\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For info on the No campaign, go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.no2av.org\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the British House of Commons, there are 650 members elected by the &#8216;first past the post&#8217; system. How many do you think obtain more than 50% of the votes cast? Well, the answer is only 270. If we change the voting system to the alternative vote (AV), every Member of Parliament will need at [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4670"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5453,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4670\/revisions\/5453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}