Tomorrow, the UK votes for multiple things. One of them is AV - alternative vote - versus FPTP - first past the post. Under FPTP, people cast a vote for one candidate and whoever gets the largest amount of votes gets the seat. Standard. Under AV, people cast ballots in which they rank the candidates by order of preference (they don't have to rank everyone). Whoever gets over 50% of the votes gets the seat. If no one does, then whoever got the fewest votes gets eliminated, and the people who voted for them see their second preference counted, and so on until someone gets 50%.
AV's advantage is only obvious when two similar candidates run, and get for instance 30% of the votes each (assuming their second preference is the other one), whereas a third candidate gets 40%. Under FPTP, this would mean that the candidate voted against by 60% of the population would get the seat, whereas under AV it would be one of the other two.
Question: what happens, in the above case, if both get exactly 30%? (It's very unlikely but kinda funny to think about, really... the same situation does happen if there's a tie at the top under FPTP)
FPTP defenders bring out many arguments (see below), most of which are easily debunked. The main, valid argument, is that it stands to reason (given the Lab/Con strong divide), that in a Lib-Lab-Con headlock, Labourites and Conservatives would both pick LibDems as their second preference. At the constituency level, that's fine - and LibDems getting elected then is democratic. However, giving LibDems the role of Kingmaker more often is NOT so.



Asking around, it looks like most people aren't too bothered with this decision. They think it won't make too much of a difference (they may be right) and, in a typical British attitude, don't get too inflamed about these things. There are exceptions, of course, but apathy seems to reign over this - because it's not PR (note: I'm against PR, but for AV!), or because the campaigns have been, frankly, a bit crap.
Still, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have a say in the way people are elected, and that's EXCITING.

Another election in ENGLAND (who cares about the Celtic periphery eh?) is that for councillors. Very funnily, the LibDems have not even managed to find candidates for every ward... And it's one I can vote in, but that people are even less enthusiastic about :(
What matters, however, is that you VOTE tomorrow!