Why switching to an AV system gets my vote

I REFER to the recent article by Simon Reevell MP (Yorkshire Post, January 24) in which he attempts to put the case for retaining First Past The Post (FPTP) in preference to the proposed new Alternative Vote (AV) system.

Mr Reevell uses the result of the Labour Party leadership election in an attempt to illustrate what is wrong with AV. He points out that David Miliband received more first preference votes than any of the other candidates and that it was only after the other three candidates had been eliminated from the contest that Ed managed to secure more support than David. I agree. That’s the whole point.

The AV election process showed that if it had been a two-horse race between the Milliband brothers then Ed would have received more support than David. A majority of those voting also preferred Ed to each of the other three candidates. Therefore Ed was clearly the candidate with the most support from the voters as a whole, that is indisputable.

If the election had been decided on first preferences alone then David would have won. So the facts about the Labour leadership election are very simple. AV resulted in the best candidate being elected. Under FPTP the second best candidate would have been elected. AV got it right. FPTP would have got it wrong. What exactly is it about these very simple facts that that Mr Reevell and his colleagues in the “No to AV” campaign have difficulty in understanding?

Parliamentary elections are very different from party leadership contests but the advantages of AV over FPTP are identical. AV will almost always see the candidate with the most support elected.

Under FPTP, the candidate with the most support will sometimes be elected, sometimes not, depending on a number of factors which will vary from constituency to constituency.

Under AV it would no longer be necessary for electors to have to guess how everyone else is likely to vote before they can decide the most effective way to cast their own vote, no longer necessary for them to vote tactically in order for their vote to have any impact on the result.

AV will allow every elector to indicate clearly who their preferred candidate is and also indicate which other candidates (if any) they would find acceptable should their first choice candidate be unsuccessful. What on earth is so wrong with that?