A variant of the Alternative Vote (AV) is AV+. This voting system was recommended for UK general elections as far back as 1998 by the Jenkins Commission.
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AV+ uses part of the Additional Member System (AMS) and part of the AV system.
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In AV+ the first vote elects a constituency representative using AV as opposed to the FPTP system used in AMS.
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In the second part of the vote, the List system is used to vote for the party of your choice.
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The whole idea of AV+ was dropped after the 1997 election but is currently the first choice of the Labour Party should electoral reform go ahead.
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Advantages: supporters claim that AV+ in action is far more democratic than FPTP and ensures that any government is far more representative. It is also claimed that AV+ gives smaller political parties an opportunity to compete more fairly against the traditional ‘big’ parties and gives them a better chance of winning some seats in an assembly/government etc.
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Disadvantages: The time it would take to collate the results could leave the UK in a political vacuum, which could, it is argued, lead to problems.
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