经济学人下载:英国剧变,英国正在宪法剧变的边缘

Other countries, however, use AV without ill effect. By holding primaries in which one candidate has to win over half the vote to avoid a second round, many states in America operate a variant of AV. France also has a two-round system designed to ensure that the ultimate winner has the backing of a majority of the voters.

然而其他的国家采用AV并没有不良影响。为了获胜候选人需要在第一轮选举取得超过半数的选票以避免进行第二轮，美国的很多州也在使用AV的变体进行选举。法国采用两轮制，旨在确保最终的获胜者取得大多数投票人的支持。

Australia, Papua New Guinea and Fiji use AV in parliamentary elections, and Ireland uses it to elect its president. In Australia the voting system is utterly uncontroversial. During the 93 years that AV has been in use (for the lower house, and for state elections; the Senate is elected by proportional representation), it has produced conservative governments for about two-thirds of the time, Labour governments for one-third; hung parliaments, though Australia has one at the moment, are unusual. The system is widely popular.

AV在澳大利亚、巴布亚新几内亚和斐济用于议会选举，在爱尔兰用于总统选举。AV在澳大利亚完全没有引起争议。在采用AV的93年间于（用于下议院和州选举，参议员有PR选举产生），政府三分之二的时间由保守党掌权，三分之一的时间由工党掌权，尽管澳大利亚曾一时出现悬浮议会，但这是很少见的。该体制很受欢迎。

It is not, however, a form of proportional representation, and can sometimes be less proportional than the current system. It does nothing to fix the problem of a divided Britain, in which FPTP leaves the left artificially dominant in Scotland and Wales, and the Conservatives unduly dominant in England.

这并不是PR的一种形式，侧重比例的程度有时还不及现行的体制。这也无法修缮党派分立严重的英国，FPTP使得工党人工主导苏格兰和威尔士，保守党过度主导英格兰。

Most damagingly to supporters of AV—for it undermines their core argument—it would not even stop MPs being elected by a minority of votes cast. The version of AV used in Australian federal elections obliges voters to rank all candidates in order. The version on offer in Britain would allow voters to give their favourite candidate a “1” and stop there, behaviour known to psephologists as “plumping”. Where plumping is allowed (eg, in some Australian state elections), most voters do it, turning AV into a messy version of FPTP. Even where plumping is not allowed, candidates who start with the largest haul of first-preference votes usually win.

最为打击AV支持者的是——这也损坏了他们的核心论点——AV甚至不能阻止国会议员由小部分人选举产生。澳大利亚联邦选举使用的AV版本要求投票人必须对候选人进行排序。而英国提出的版本允许投票人仅做出首选不再排序，选举学家将这种行为称之为“plumping”。如果允许plumping（如在澳大利亚部分的州选举中），很多选民就会采取这种方法，把AV变成FPTP的混乱版。甚至在禁止plumping的情况下，一次获得最多首选的候选人通常获胜。

What AV really meansAV究竟何物

None of this suggests, however, that a move to AV would be without political effects. With left-leaning Lib Dem supporters angry over their party’s decision to join a Conservative-led coalition, it would be perilous to predict how AV might affect future British elections. But most assume it would boost the Lib Dems. A University of Essex study based on polling after the last general election estimates that if AV rules had applied last year, the Conservatives would have gained 283 Commons seats (down 22 from their actual 305), Labour 248 (down 10) and the Liberal Democrats 89 (up 32). (See chart 2.)

这些都不能保证在向AV的转变过程中不会引起政治问题。在左倾的自民党支持者对于自民党加入保守党领导的联合政府很生气的情况下，预言AV对英国未来大选产生的影响可能会是很危险的。但是大多数认为这会有利于自民党的发展。一项艾塞克斯大学基于上轮大选的投票做出的研究显示如果从去年就开始就实行AV保守党就会得到283个下议院席位（比实际获得的305减少22个），工党会获得248个席位（减少10个）而自民党会获得89个席位（增加32个）。（见表2）