On Thursday it is vital that voters are aware of the issues that the Alternative Vote will bring to the system if the referendum allows it to pass.

First Past The Post is a tried and tested system in this Country and has been our way of voting for centuries and is both clear and easy. Under First Past The Post each voter has one vote and therefore the party with the most votes wins.

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However under AV each voter must rank candidates in an order of preference through numbers, they are then re-allocated if no candidate gets 50% in the first round. This is confusing and will cause so many more hung parliaments due to the way the votes will be split.

This, is not the main issue, however, to change the voting system to AV it will cost this country £250 million, and in this current economic climate it is not worth such a large amount of money for new electronic machines and education campaigns that local councils will have to buy in order to calculate the votes. This money can be spent on improving schools and hospitals instead.

Also it is in fact unfair, those voted second and third could actually get elected, clearly if a candidate is voted for in first position they should be the ones elected. This leads to more backroom deals, the politicians would hold the power rather than the voter and therefore even more lies, just like Nick Clegg and the tuition fees.

It is really important that voters understand the importance to vote No to AV on Thursday, don’t waste your vote on a system that will not work, and don’t decide not to vote.

Keep our Country a democracy and Vote No To AV.

Kirsty is a second-year journalism student at The University of Central Lancashire and has lived in Preston all her life.

Want to read the opposing view? Check out John Potter’s post on why you should vote Yes2AV, here.