Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

In light of your earlier comments, Mr Gale, I hope that it is okay for me to stray into a debate about whether the schedule be agreed to. The schedule makes a number of other very important amendments to the law that pertains to the election, and they, along with the other measures that we discussed in clause 7, will come into force when the Minister tables the order that follows a yes vote in the referendum. Some of the provisions are pretty straightforward. For instance, the notice that is normally exhibited on the ballot paper under the existing system says, ““Vote for one candidate only””. Obviously, that would be thoroughly misleading if we were to adopt the alternative vote system, because it would point out precisely what the voters had not to do. One relatively interesting point is that the guidance will make it clear:"““Do not use the same number more than once.'””" I presume that if a voter did use the same number more than once, that would invalidate a vote. I presume that if somebody voted 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, that would invalidate the vote at the point that one reached the second preference, because one would not be able to determine the second preference, even if there had been some other strange means of adding to it.