The complex London vote on May 3 saw Londoners cast four votes on three ballot papers, each using a different electoral system. IntElect a joint venture between Data Research Services (DRS) and Electoral Reform Services won the contract to do the count. The services company set up by the Electoral Reform Society has been widely criticised for messing up the count taking more than 24 hours to deliver a result. They promised a result within 12 hours…

This is despite the electronic system costing even more to implement than a manual count. The same group messed up the Scotland’s 2007 STV vote. Just imagine how bad it would be if this was done nationally..

I sense a surge for the YES vote but have absolutely no rational grounds for so doing!—
Jon Snow (@jonsnowC4) May 05, 2011

Some surge, “No” got 13,013,123, “Yes” 6,152,607…

Guido is off to the Excel centre to watch the No Campaign votes pour in. The Prime Minister said this morning that “there will be no celebrating, there will be no congratulations.” He also made it clear on Thursday that he wasn’t part of the official No campaign, so Guido’s not sure they will  be acting on that particular memo…

With YouGov polling people who voted yesterday and finding a 62%/38% No win it could be a long night…

Ed Miliband admits Labour didn’t introduce AV because it…

“…had no desire to change a system that had served it so well.”

In the final furlong, ComRes have the “No to AV” Campaign on 66% and the “Yes to AV” Campaign on 34%.

It’s going to be a long day…

And so it came to pass, the Yes campaign are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel of their campaign. Unfortunately it’s an oncoming train. 

Their people, most likely to be spinner Jon Bartley, have already begun briefing against Chris Huhne and his political game playing:

“Nothing Chris Huhne has done in the last few weeks was authorised by us or useful to us. The difficulty from day one was that we didn’t want the referendum to be seen through the prism of the coalition.”

Looks like the number one slot on the Guilty Men list has been filled.

UPDATE: Turns out that it’s everyone hates Chris day, as Osborne’s scathing put down from the Cabinet duff-up has mysteriously found it’s way in to James Forsyth’s ear:

“This is the Cabinet, not some sub-Jeremy Paxman interview.”

Looks like Osborne wouldn’t mind Huhne walking…

Chris Huhne’s posturing at Cabinet has been well reported elsewhere. Apparently he cares so much about the AV campaign that he openly challenged the Prime Minister at Cabinet. He then fully briefed hacks within minutes that he’d done so.

He certainly seems wound up, and there is even speculation that he could walk on Friday when the LibDems are decimated locally and in all likelihood the “Yes to AV” Campaign is defeated. This anger feels fake to Guido though. Perhaps Huhne’s mistress, Carina Trimingham. who is on the “Yes to AV” campaign, has him on a Lysistrata-like no-win-no-lay policy. 

There wouldn’t be much love lost if the manoeuvring Huhne did walk. It would solve the where to put David Laws problem in one. Though Huhne could stir from the backbenches, he should remember that Helseltine was actually popular and liked before he wielded his knife. And he had better hair too…

Christmas came early for those who enjoy a good John Humphrys cock-up, as this morning three came at once. He went to pieces in his discussion about AV.  ‘As opposed to First Past The Post, which is used by no other major democracy…’ Wrong.

‘It simply isn’t true that you count votes more than once’  he went on the batter Cameron with. Wrong.

The whole point of AV is that you count the votes more than once until someone gets 50%. Not only couldn’t he get his head round the system, but the campaign is clearly a bit of a struggle for the ageing presenter too: “There’s broadly two campaigns, Tories against Lib Dems/Labour and some Labour are on the other side as well’. Wrong.

More than half of Labour MPs, more than 80% of Labour councillors, plus two thirds of Labour peers and the major unions are all backing the “Labour NO to AV” campaign. If one of the most politically engaged people in the country can’t get their head round AV, what’s your average punter meant to be thinking? Either that or old Humphrys is back to his spinning tricks…

Steve Hilton’s cipher-wonk Phillip Blond is often a good gauge of what is going on at the no shoes, blue skies end of the Downing Street operation.  There was the briefest point back in 2010 when it looked like some of the more “progressive” bunch might back “Yes to AV” and Phillip, in his position as pope of the Tory wets, set out the reasons that “Conservatives should not fear AV“ 

“AV or not the Tories will still be able to win that game gain a majority and govern from a position of strength” he declared, after furiously attacking First Past the Post.

But with the winds of change, a new haircut, and a surge in the polls for the “No to AV” campaign, Phillip has spent the morning furiously backtracking and fighting AV all over Twitter. Guido didn’t see any “No I believe 1st preferences count more than 2nd or 3rd – and I fear government by 3rd preference” in the old report. The new haircut must have bought new sense.

As polling day approaches, the No campaign have deployed their most devastating attack on AV yet.

Signed, sealed, delivered.