'Alternative vote' works for Aussies and Irish, so why not us? ; Letters

"AV is complex, expensive and unfair", says Michael J Clarkson(Chronicle Letters, March 10). I disagree.

On an AV ballot paper, you mark the candidates (as many or as fewas you like) 1, 2, 3 etc. in preference order instead of putting anX by one name.

The Australians and the Irish have been doing this successfullyfor over 90 years - it is not too complex for them.

Is Mr Clarkson implying that the British are too stupid to cope?An AV count in which one candidate gets an absolute majority isidentical to the counts we are used to.

If it is necessary to transfer votes, an AV count will takelonger, and may therefore be a little more expensive, than a first-past-the-post count.

It is not necessary to count AV by machine, nor have any plansbeen made to purchase any.

Any extra cost of AV would be due entirely to the longer count,and would be insignificant compared with the total costs of runningthe election. If, in an AV election, candidate A gets most firstpreferences but B is the winner, then there are more voters whoprefer B to A than there are who prefer A to B.

SIMON GAZELEY London Road West, Bath I'd like to add my voice insupport of a 'yes' vote for the AV referendum on May 5. If we lookat the history of voting improvements in the UK, we can see a steadyevolution from the days of King John (literally one man one vote) tothe present day where all people, male and female, over the age of18 have a vote. It is not so long ago that females were excluded,and not so long after that the voting age came down to the present18.

The voting system is still pretty crude but I see that AVrepresents our first opportunity to move on to the next, moreproportional, stage where the person actually selected to be our MPhas the greatest support in depth of all candidates. This means thatthe people speaking for us in Westminster are more likely to berepresentative of the national view rather than those just fortunateenough to squeeze 'first past the post'.

Since 1979 we have seen the consequences of being locked intogovernments whose claim to represent the national view has beenflimsy at best. And apart from the specific AV element of thereferendum we are also being offered a chance to gain the power toremove sitting MPs who abuse their positions, such as claimingexpenses for duck houses or non-existent mortgages. This representssuch an opportunity to clean up politics that I think we must graspit now, by voting 'Yes' on May 5.

COUNCILLOR IAN GILCHRIST Widcombe Bath