Islington No to AV launched their campaign for a “No” in the May 5th referendum on the Alternative Vote at the N1 Centre this Monday.

Emily Thornberry MP said:

“Our current system has the advantage that the person with the most votes wins! If we change it we could end up with endless coalitions .”

AV is costly – The change to AV will cost up to an additional £250 million. Local councils would have to waste money on costly electronic vote counting machines and expensive voter education campaigns. With ordinary families facing tough times we can’t afford to spend a quarter of a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money bringing in a new voting system.

AV is complex and unfair – The winner should be the candidate that comes first, but under AV the candidate who comes second or third can actually be elected. That’s why it is used by just three countries in the world -; Fiji, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Voters should decide who the best candidate is, not the voting system. We can’t afford to let the politicians off the hook by introducing a loser’s charter.

AV is a politician’s fix – AV leads to more hung parliaments where Nick Clegg would be perpetual king maker. It leads to more backroom deals and broken promises like the Lib Dem tuition fees U-turn. Under AV, the only vote that really counts is Nick Clegg’s. We can’t afford to let Lib Dems decide who runs our country.