Between blotch and blok

For years, standing in the booth at the polling station, I have faced a simple choice. Vote for the candidate I truly wanted to win and have my vote count for nothing or... lie.

Many times, I have ducked the issue, drawn a frowny face on my ballot paper, folded it up, and stuffed it--pointlessly--into the box.

I have always turned out. It's both my right and my duty. But I have not really participated. Except as a protesting spoiler of ballot papers. (And the numbers of these, I believe, are no longer announced, so even that small avenue of dissent has been blocked.)

Other times, I have--unwillingly, grudgingly--voted not for my preferred candidate, but for the candidate most likely to defeat the candidate whose victory I feared the most. I lied. Or, as we'd generally put it, I voted tactically. This tactical voting was, in effect, a hidden excercise in AV. I had my number one candidate against whose name I would ideally have put a cross and then I had a number two (or three or four... ) contender who actually got my vote.

Why not stick with that?

For one, because I am not the only one. Many tactical voters presumably have their own hidden first preferences. Every Labour supporter, for instance, who votes LibDem in the hope of keeping a Tory out had presumably a preference for someone other than the candidate they voted for.

Second, because the entire electoral system is distorted by this. How much larger would the vote for some smaller parties be if we could put our preferences in order and say yes I really support Party X, but I wouldn't mind Party Y, or Party Z. I don't believe that the actual results would change often as compared to FPTP, but we would all have more of an idea of how folk really felt.

Mostly, though, because I want to be honest and still have my choice count. AV means I could vote honestly for the Monster Raving Loony Party, if I believed all the other parties were corrupt, and still have my second (or third or fourth...) vote count for the least corrupt of the pack.

And now the sun's come out. I'm off to vote honestly for a small, but honest change.

Yes to AV.