Not expressing a preference
I CAUSED a bit of a twitter on… er, Twitter last night with this Tweet:
My reasoning is simple and logical: no-one seriously predicts that my preferred candidate, David Miliband, is in danger of coming third in the first or subsequent ballots, which is the only circumstance in which David’s second preferences would be redistributed. If he comes second at any point in the balloting, he’s lost anyway, and still his second preferences wouldn’t be redistrbuted.
It was the same in 2007 when I was supporting Alan Johnson for the deputy’s job. A number of people asked me to support alternative candidates and when I stuck with AJ, they (naturally enough) asked for my second preference. But I didn’t indicate any second or third (or subsequent) preferences then either, since I knew that AJ would be in the final two, however many ballots there were.
So my stance is nothing to do with objecting to the Alternative Vote; for those who wish to support one of the less well-placed candidates, their second preferences could make a real difference in later rounds once their preferred candidate has been eliminated.