As I have hinted before, I'm strongly inclined to support UKIP for a variety of reasons. One area, however, where I strongly disagree with them is on the issue of voting reform.
UKIP want to bring in an Alternative Vote (AV) system for all national and local elections whereby, rather than just indicating your preferred candidate by a single mark in one box, voters are encouraged to mark several in order of preference.
Not only do I consider this as unnecessary, it is also open to fraud and, most of all, misuse. By asking people to list their preferred candidates rather than just a single X in a single box the potential is there for more mistakes to be made and therefore more ballots to be discarded.
There isn't really anything wrong with the current system - the only real failing it has is in the fact that people have become disillusioned with the political parties that are on offer (they're all the same) and that widening the use of postal voting has increased the potential for fraud. New technology is neither desirable nor necessary (rather than increasing security it is likely to lead to more vote rigging) - voting in Britain has traditionally been simple and easy and should remain so.
The only changes I really want to see are an end to ex-pat voting - if you don't live here, you don't have a vote - and an end to non-British subjects having a vote (if you're not British you shouldn't have a vote in our elections). I wouldn't be adverse to trials of weekend voting, though - the traditional Thursday election day is problematic for many people in this day and age.
Other than that, leave it as it is.
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