Almost everyone I know well and who had a vote voted Yes to AV. Nevertheless it was defeated by a fairly wide margin. Most of the people I know who voted No are hard-core Socialists who are unwilling to give up the prospect of a big parliamentary majority for “their side”. (I don’t know many hard-core Tories well, partly as I no longer work in an office, and partly because most hard-core Tories wouldn’t want to be seen dead with a social pariah like me.)

In contrast what little I have seen of pro-No commentary elsewhere has been either from people who have swallowed the scare stories being put out by the No campaign (most of my friends, of course, have used AV, and are therefore less gullible), or it has been from people who don’t want to lose the raw “us against them” contest that 2-party FPTP elections produce. I have seen some fairly feral comments suggesting that AV is preferred by people who like to confuse with words rather than people who will fight for what is right.

The data has produced a fairly interesting map. The only pro-Yes regions of the country are those with large populations of what might might call “intellectuals”: Oxford, Cambridge, and the centers of big cities. It reminds me a lot of the way in which the Columbus, Ohio World Fantasy committee sneered at “coastal elites” who wanted to be able to buy memberships online. It is an interesting divide.