WHEN a correspondent confidently identifies the Liberal Party’s preferred voting system as the alternative vote (Letters, April 24 ), it’s a fair indication that the party is “not getting its message across”.

I expect they’re too busy worrying about how to ditch their leader without looking like a bunch of heartless Tories.

Liberal Democrats supported the referendum on the AV merely to release the logjam caused by our inequitable first past the post system. AV was to be a preliminary to single transferable vote, the preferred Liberal Democrat system. Consequently, it was thought expedient not to support AV too enthusiastically in case the electorate preferred that instead.

Nick Clegg complacently assumed that voters would be eager to be rid of something so undemocratic as first past the post. He reckoned without the power of ridicule.

Had he insisted on a truly alternative vote, there have been no problem. The third choice wrecked all. This choice, it was alleged, could result in the least favoured candidate being elected. Voters laughed all the way to the polling booth; if they went at all.

We still need a democratic voting method, though I fear that AV is tainted by an absurd multiple-choice image. A run off, perhaps?

William Dixon Smith, Welland Rise, Acomb, York.