The alternative vote - should we have it?

On the 5 May the country will vote in its second ever referendum, and it would seem the majority of people may not even bother to vote.  Despite that, a referendum we will have, and it will decide whether the UK should get rid of it's current election system of first past the post (FPTP) for parliamentary elections, and adopt the alternative vote (AV) system.

Does it matter?  Diehard vote no-ers will argue that FPTP has done us well in the past, there's no reason for change, it produces strong government and so on.  However, FPTP has actually been chipped away as the number one system, and has been replaced by many others, perhaps without much thought from the public.

All directly elected mayors, such as the Mayor of London, are voted in using the supplimantary vote.  During the Mayoral elections, we also vote for the London Assembly, but we don't use the supplimentary vote, nor are we tradtional and use FPTP, or the brightly shining AV system.  No, we use the additonal member system, which is a combination of FPTP and closed list proportional representation.

During the Euro elections, we use the closed list propertional representation.  Except if you live in Northern Ireland, where you would use the single transferable vote system.

Of course, in local council elections, we're still tradional and use first past the post.  Except in Northern Ireland again, where single transferable vote (STV) is used (in fact, in ALL elections for whatever election, STV is used), oh, STV is also used in local elections in Scotland, but not in Wales, where FPTP is still used.

The Scottish parliament and Welsh national assembly elections uses additional member system, the same as London Assembly elections.

In fact feel sorry for our Scottish cousins on the 5 May, for they will have the referendum operated as FPTP, council elections under STV, and Scottish Parliamentry elections under the additonal member system.  Three elections, three different electoral systems.  Good job the Euro elections weren't taking place as well!  I'd be keen to see whether there would be any academic work done to see whether there was any confusion over the different systems, and how many spoilt papers, if any, were produced. 

So in the UK, there are as many as five different electoral systems in use, and if AV is selected in the referendum, that will go up to six.  Do they cause confusion?  I haven't seen any evidence one way or the other, but that's not to say there isn't any.  Certainly anecdotally they do, as a number of people I know have had great confusion when they came to voting in different elections in the past.

Therefore, if there are so many systems already in place, does it matter if we change to AV?  I would argue that it does matter.  Although we have all these different electoral systems, I don't necessarily think they are the best systems.  The fact that we had a BNP London assembly member was down to the electoral system.  Under FPTP he wouldn't have been there.  If we get AV, it won't end there.  This referendum, if successful, will be a means to an end, not the end itself.  Full proportional representation, whatever kind of system that maybe, will be next on the cards, and this country should not go down that road. 

For me, I will be voting no.  Many supporters of the yes to AV see this as a stepping stone to full proportional representation.  I see that as a stepping to stone to weak and changable government, where a party we support or vote for will be a shadow of themselves in government due to coalitions having to be formed.  I'd much rather a party that I don't support get in but will be able to govern with strength compared to a coaltion of many parties where deals are done, often behind closed doors and where manifestos are thrown aside.