Green Party MP for Brighton and Hove says 'yes!'

The Brighton branch of the national ‘Yes to Fairer Votes’ campaign is being bolstered by volunteers helping to gauge local residents’ opinions on AV ahead of the referendum.

Caroline Lucas, on visiting the volunteers, said: “I think with AV people get more of a chance to vote for what they actually believe in rather than voting tactically to keep a party out.

“Safe seats are bad for the political system because people believe they can’t make a difference and feel disenfranchised as a result.”

Alternative Voting would potentially give voters five preferences of candidate at elections. Campaigners for AV argue this would produce fairer, more representative election results.

However, critics argue that no one understands AV, that it will over-complicate the voting system in Britain and allow people with minority party preferences extra votes.

Charlotte Vere, Conservative candidate for Brighton Pavilion in the 2010 General Election and Finance Director of the official No to AV campaign, argues against AV via her Twitter account. She argues it opens the door of influence to extremists and agrees echoes David Cameron's sentiment that it is too complicated.

One of the coordinators of the yes campaign, Sam Power, described the response to the campaign: “The trend seems to be that younger people are more in favour of reform and the older generation seem to be angry with the over-arching political culture, which the proposed AV system would challenge.”

Caroline Lucas argued it was ironic that political apathy makes it difficult to get people involved in AV, a system designed to give people more say, given that this same apathetic attitude was in part caused by the current first-past-the-post system, where so many votes are ‘lost’.

Brightoners will be given the chance to voice their opinions on AV on May 5 in the UK’s first national referendum since 1975.