What is the Alternative Vote (AV) Referendum?
This is a referendum being held on the same day as the Scottish Parliament election on 5th May 2011. Click here to see a youtube video explaining the alternative vote and how to vote on it in the coming election.
There are different types of voting systems for different elections. The SCP prefers the Additional Member System used to elect the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the London Assembly rather than the AV system.
The essential aspect of the proposed AV system is that the winning party must obtain more than 50% of the vote in order to win. This sounds good, but in practice it will only benefit the major parties. In essence, it is a method of giving the second or third party an opportunity to overtake the first party by using second preference votes from smaller parties. From this point of view, it does not help smaller parties such as the Christian Party. One may question the morality of helping second and third parties to overtake the first - the counter-argument is that the final winner is more representative of the whole population by appealing to more people.
However neither the “Yes to AV campaign” nor the “No to AV campaign” has explained how this will hold governing Parties to account. None of the major parties has suggested a method - because they do not want to be held to account until the next election many years away. The Scottish Christian Party has suggested a way how to hold governments to account.
Some people think that the Alternative Vote will weaken or even break the power of the Party Whip system in Westminster because politicians will be more accountable to their electorate for their seat rather than to the Party Whip for preferment within the Party.
This is only the second ever UK-wide referendum and the Scottish Christian Party considers it to be folly to have a referendum at such short notice.
If AV should prevail, whatever one’s view of the system, then it will allow Christians more opportunity to proclaim their first preference is for Christ’s Lordship; it will show political analysts the strength (or weakness) of Christian feeling; and it will encourage timid Christians to be bolder in proclaiming the Lordship of Christ.
Addendum:
The proposal to change the voting system was rejected by 13,013,123 votes to 6,152,607.
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This is a referendum being held on the same day as the Scottish Parliament election on 5th May 2011. Click here to see a youtube video explaining the alternative vote and how to vote on it in the coming election.
There are different types of voting systems for different elections. The SCP prefers the Additional Member System used to elect the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales and the London Assembly rather than the AV system.
The essential aspect of the proposed AV system is that the winning party must obtain more than 50% of the vote in order to win. This sounds good, but in practice it will only benefit the major parties. In essence, it is a method of giving the second or third party an opportunity to overtake the first party by using second preference votes from smaller parties. From this point of view, it does not help smaller parties such as the Christian Party. One may question the morality of helping second and third parties to overtake the first - the counter-argument is that the final winner is more representative of the whole population by appealing to more people.
However neither the “Yes to AV campaign” nor the “No to AV campaign” has explained how this will hold governing Parties to account. None of the major parties has suggested a method - because they do not want to be held to account until the next election many years away. The Scottish Christian Party has suggested a way how to hold governments to account.
Some people think that the Alternative Vote will weaken or even break the power of the Party Whip system in Westminster because politicians will be more accountable to their electorate for their seat rather than to the Party Whip for preferment within the Party.
This is only the second ever UK-wide referendum and the Scottish Christian Party considers it to be folly to have a referendum at such short notice.
If AV should prevail, whatever one’s view of the system, then it will allow Christians more opportunity to proclaim their first preference is for Christ’s Lordship; it will show political analysts the strength (or weakness) of Christian feeling; and it will encourage timid Christians to be bolder in proclaiming the Lordship of Christ.
Addendum:
The proposal to change the voting system was rejected by 13,013,123 votes to 6,152,607.
Back to list
