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No to AV calculate that AV will cost the country up to £250 million

www.no2av.org

28 February 2011


NO to AV – the non-partisan, cross-party campaign against the Alternative Vote – calculate that AV will cost the country up to £250 million

Today NO to AV have released the first calculation of the total cost of the Alternative Vote on British taxpayers’ with the following key findings (click here to read the full report):

•The total cost of the referendum will be up to £250 million. The spending breaks down as: the referendum itself costs £82 million with the cost of voter education ahead of the referendum at £9 million. Should AV pass, the cost of electronic vote counting necessitated by AV will be £130 million and the cost of voter education with AV will be £26 million.
•And this is a conservative estimate because there will likely be additional costs – more polling stations because AV ballots take longer to complete, additional election staff training, and customized machine-readable ballot papers.
•This is an entirely unacceptable expense on an issue few people care about at a time of economic crisis – we’re all paying for Clegg’s ‘miserable little compromise’.
•£250 million could instead pay for 2,053 doctors, 5,719 police officers, 6,297 teachers, 8,107 nurses, 36,000 hip replacements or 60,000 school places.
Commenting, Matthew Elliott, Campaign Director of NO to AV said:

“The British people will be staggered to learn that our politicians are considering squandering £250 million of taxpayers’ money on a new voting system at a time when they are being told to tighten their belts. Who really thinks the national priority should be the introduction of the alternative vote rather than more nurses, more teachers and more police officers. The simple fact is our country can’t afford AV.”