First choose a party . . then decide which way to vote

How the results would have been affected

If the Government has its way, voters going to the polls on May 5 will be asked not just to elect members to the Scottish Parliament, but also whether they want to change the voting system for Westminster general elections.

The proposal is to replace the traditional "First Past The Post" system with the "Alternative Vote". But it's an issue which divides opinion, even inside the UK coalition.

Most Conservatives, including David Cameron, are against the change, arguing the current system is tried and tested and usually delivers clear results.

Liberal Democrats prefer the Single Transferable Vote, which would give a much closer match between the number of seats and the proportion of votes parties won, but Nick Clegg is prepared to back AV as an improvement on what exists at the moment.

Labour is also divided, with Ed Miliband backing change, but the No campaign claiming the support of more than 100 Labour MPs.

Under AV, instead of putting an "X" on the ballot paper, voters would rank candidates 1, 2, 3, etc, in order of preference. Then, if no candidate gets more than 50 per cent of first preferences, the bottom candidate is eliminated and his votes redistributed. The process is repeated until someone gets more than 50 per cent.

So what difference would it make?

According to one analysis, if AV had been used at last year's Westminster election, the Tories would have been down 26 seats, Labour up four and the Lib Dems up 22 - perhaps not all that dramatic in a House of Commons of 650 MPs, but enough to have made a potential Labour-Lib Dem coalition a viable option, as well as a Conservative-Lib Dem partnership.

In Scotland, if the model is correct, AV would have made a difference of only one seat - the Lib Dems would be up one and the SNP down one.

FOR

ANDREW BURNS

IT'S time the people had their say on the voting system – the rules by which their employees in parliament are hired and fired. It's time because First Past the Post is a broken system.

First Past the Post is broken because MPs can get elected on fewer than three out of ten votes. It's broken because a few thousand swing voters in marginal seats really can decide the results of general elections.

And it's broken because most of us are represented by people we didn't vote for but actually voted against.

When an MP can get elected with less than a third of the votes it can encourage politicians to do "just enough" to win. They tend to focus on their core supporters and ignore everyone else. A number of MPs thus, effectively, have seats for life – and that can lead to complacency and poor service.

As the Institute for Public Policy Research reported at the beginning of this year, the May 2010 General Election was decided by barely 460,000 people – or 1.6 per cent of the electorate.

No wonder, then, that many of us feel there is little point in voting. The result can appear a foregone conclusion unless you live in one of the few communities where there's a close contest.

With the Alternative Vote (AV) system, MPs would have to aim to get more than 50 per cent of the vote. They would have to work harder, reach out to more of the communities they seek to represent and try to address more of their constituents' interests. They would be less able to take people for granted.

MPs who do "just enough" would have to do an awful lot more. Fewer politicians would have jobs for life because there will be far fewer safe seats.

And AV keeps what is best about our current system – the link between a single MP and their local constituency – but strengthens it by making MPs work harder to get elected and giving voters more of a say.

AV eliminates the need for tactical voting by allowing voters to put who they really want first and then rank the others in order of preference.

If voters want to express just a single preference they still can. But by ranking the candidates they can better express their views. They can say who would be their first choice and who would be their other preferences.

Put simply, the Alternative Vote is a small change that will make a big difference.

Andrew Burns is a Labour city councillor and chair of the Electoral Reform Society

AGAINST

GEORGE FOULKES

THE Bill which the Tory led-coalition is now trying to bulldoze through the House of Lords without full scrutiny would bring in a referendum to change the voting system for the House of Commons and also cut the number of MPs to a fixed and totally arbitrary figure of 600.

MPs and Peers from all parties have criticised the Government for putting two totally different and major constitutional changes in one Bill.

The Scottish Parliament has, by a large majority, asked the UK Government not to have a referendum on changing the voting system on the same day as the Scottish Parliament election on May 5. The UK Government has refused to agree, in spite of the chaos in the dual elections of 2007.

We are being forced to have a referendum to ask us to change our system of election to one which is not the first choice of any party.

The Liberal Democrat leader, who is leading the pressure for change, described the AV system as a "miserable little compromise". However, he also sees it as the thin end of the wedge – a staging post for a further change to the Single Transferable Vote.

The majority in the Tory Party do not want change but are going along with the referendum plan to keep the coalition together. Most of us in the Labour Party also want to stick to First Past the Post. We believe this is the best system for electing a government with a clear majority, resulting in stable government. The current hung parliament is the exception in FPTP elections.

Our current system also means there is a direct link between the MP and his or her constituency and constituents, which makes them more accountable.

The advocates of AV say that it will ensure every MP has the support of 50 per cent of electors but this is not true with the version of AV they are proposing, where the voter does not have to give a full list of preferences.

It is also crazy to change the system of elections to the Commons when we are moving towards an elected Second Chamber and have not yet decided how it will be elected. Since the Commons provides the government it should be elected on a system which is most likely to provide stable government, that is FPTP. This would then allow a revising second chamber to be elected by a system of proportional representation, the form of which we could consider carefully and all agree upon.

We should reject the current plan, which is trying to force through without proper discussion a plan which favours the current coalition.

George Foulkes is a MSP for the Lothians and a member of the House of Lords