On 5 May UK voters went to the polls for a landmark referendum that asked whether they would like to change the way their leaders are elected. The UK currently uses a system called ’first past the post’, whereby the candidate that receives the highest number of votes is elected, even if he/she does not receive the majority of votes cast. In contrast, the ’alternative vote’ (AV) system would give candidates the opportunity to rank the candidates in their preferred order and if no candidate has a clear majority after the first count, then the second choices are taken into account. For example, under the current system, if Candidate A receives 37% of the votes, Candidate B receives 36%, Candidate C receives 20% and Candidate D receives 7%, Candidate A would win the election even if those people who voted for Candidates C and D would prefer Candidate B in the chance that their candidates didn’t win. Under the AV system, these preferences would be taken into account to ensure that the leaders of the day genuinely have the support of the majority of the voters.

Both sides of the AV campaign fought hard for either the ’Yes’ or ’No’ vote on switch to AV. Political parties and leaders were divided, with Prime Minister David Cameron supporting ’No’ and his Deputy Nick Clegg supporting ’Yes’. Labour leader Ed Miliband was also in the ’Yes’ camp but other members of his party disagreed. The diverging views led to some unique alliances across political parties and heated arguments and accusations between politicians.

The turnout for the referendum was higher than expected at 41% and there was no ambiguity as to the result. 67.9% of the voters voted ’No’ to the switch to AV, in what has been described as a ’bitter blow’ to Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband’s hopes for political reform. It has been suggested that Nick Clegg’s association with the ’Yes’ campaign may have been detrimental ; the overwhelming rejection of the switch came on the same day as the Liberal Democrats sufffered huge losses in the local elections.

Both David Cameron and Nick Clegg have said that they accept the result and that now it is time to ’move on’. However, the political infighting and inevitable bitterness surrounding the referendum will undoubtedly have left its mark on all parties involved and it remains to be seen what lasting impact this will have on the coalition government and the UK’s political future.

photo:Flickr,LiberalDemocrats