AV is really an instant run-off election. It is just a compressed version of a run-off election. The long version works like this ....
1) Everyone votes (if they want to)
2) If no-one gets 50% then the lowest placed candidate is removed.
3) Everyone votes again with the process repeating until someone gets 50% of the vote.
This is fair because it means everyone has a say in who is elected. FPTP fails to do this. (more in later posts), it is fair fairer because of this,
Such a set-up would be very expensive and time consuming, so AV condenses this down into one visit to the election booth. Now the 'yes to the existing system 'campaign peddle an inaccuracy (lie) which says that some people will get more votes than others because if their first preference doesn’t count they get another vote. This is not true, If you look at the long form again when everyone returns to the poll for the second time those who didn’t vote for the lowest candidate put their votes in one box and those that did put them in another where their value is reduced. This makes no sense. On the second visit, everyone should have the same weighted vote as on the first on each individual ballot
AV is just a compressed version of this and should therefore use the same rules. No one gets more votes than anyone else. In the long form within the second round everyone still has one vote. As I ‘ve explained AV just compresses this process and does this by assuming that voters will vote for the same person they did to start with if that person is still in the race (logical).
The people who don’t want AV will not tell you this, they say some people have more votes than others. As I’ve shown, this is just untrue so please don’t believe them. In fact realise they are lying and then realise they are depriving you of this information for their own purposes.. At every round, everyone has one vote, it’s just that some people vote for the same person as they did last round and some vote for someone else because the person they have just voted for has been removed. At the end of the day everyone has voted and the voting continues until everyone’s vote makes (or would make) a difference. FPTP doesn't do this. It usually means most people have said they don't want their elected MP who is then forced upon them. It makes the MP happy but leaves the people disempowered.
