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Commentators weigh up the pros and cons of the alternative vote (AV) ahead of the referendum in May.

, following success in German elections, that a "Yes" to AV could make the Green Party a force to reckon with:

"More than anything, the British Greens need to attach themselves to a set of issues which they and the electorate both care about enough to be an effective protest party. Is nuclear power that issue, as it was at the German state elections? It certainly cannot be ignored as a focus. But the HS2 rail project through the Chilterns and the Vale of Aylesbury could be a better campaigning bet in parts of southern England and the Midlands. The Greens may be a radical party, but they have to look for conservative appeal...
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"Vote for AV and the Greens could eventually be Britain's fourth party. Vote against it and they will remain firmly rooted in the margins of the margins."

This increased influence of minority parties worries that AV may bring more power for the BNP:

"Research out today from the No to AV campaign suggests that in the region of 35 constituencies could have their outcomes determined by the second preferences of BNP voters. This is the unwelcome empowerment that the AV system brings to democracy.
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"There is nothing new about the idea of an Alternative Voting system. When the idea was last mooted in 1931, Winston Churchill spoke up against it. [He said] 'Imagine making the representation of great constituencies dependent on the second preferences of the hindmost candidates. The hindmost candidate would become a personage of considerable importance, and the old phrase, 'Devil take the hindmost' will acquire a new significance.'"

The AV is worse than the first-past-the-post system and expresses concern that voters may not be aware:

"[M]ost members of the electorate are not intending to vote in the referendum, and have not even reached the point of yawning. They are instead blissfully unaware of the approaching referendum on the voting system and, if asked, can only guess at the meaning of the alternative vote.
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"And this is very dangerous. Britons could wake up on May 6 to discover that the country has a new voting system, one selected by the small number of enthusiasts promoting the scheme. It will be too late for others - noticing only at the next election, the change that has been wrought - to protest that they had not appreciated what was going on because they did not regard the whole thing as interesting enough to leave the house and cast a ballot."

The that AV is over-complicated:

"The official guide to the May 5 referendum, being sent to every home in Britain, sums up our present voting system in just seven words: 'The candidate with the most votes wins.'
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"So how revealing that it needs more than three pages to explain the basics of the Alternative Vote, which the Yes campaign wants us to adopt instead. Isn't there something very suspect about a system so hard to describe?"

Research fellow in astronomy at the University of Sussex that the AV system is actually simpler than the first-past-the-post system. He's made a flow chart to prove his argument. The flow chart shows six stages between the vote and the outcome for first-past-the-post compared to one stage for the AV system.

that, for him, the arguments are subtler than the "No" campaigners are making out:

"[I]s it really a good argument to say that AV ends 'one man, one vote' for which we have all fought? I put aside my out-of-date nostalgia for the old university seats, which gave some people two votes and wonderful MPs such as A. P. Herbert. The Tory party actually fought to retain them and is still technically committed, by a pledge made in 1951, to their reintroduction. I am willing to give up that fight.
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"But it seems odd to me to say that under AV we end 'one man, one vote'. No one compels you to give a second preference. But if you do give a second preference, is it not legitimate to say: 'I want to use my vote first for him and then if that doesn't work, secondly for her?' I think it is a dubious argument to say that doing so means I have two, or one and a half votes. I am just using my vote on two separate occasions."