Some MPs are trying to change the referendum date from 5 May 2011 because, they say, holding it on the same day as English local and Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly elections would artifically increase the turnout. What would be artificial about that?

British electors are notorious for not wanting to vote frequently, so it makes sense to hold the referendum on the same day as scheduled elections.

It looks as though the MPs who object to this arrangement fear a good turnout; they recognize that most people would vote "Yes", so they hope to win on a low turnout. This gives me great hope that commonsense will prevail and the people will vote "Yes". It is deperate tactics by these MPs to try to stop a "Yes" victory.

Don't MPs and commentators complain about low turnouts, so doesn't it make sense to encourage people to vote in this important referendum?

If holding two ballots on the same day "artifically" boosts turnout and in some way invalidates the vote, how valid was the election of MPs and Councillors on 6 May 2010?

The Commons used STV to elect its Deputy Speakers and Chairs of Committees. (I expect it was the AV version for the Chairs.)Speaker Bercow announced the results yesterday. So it's the best way for MPs to elect their representatives. Why don't they admit it would be the best way for the rest of us to elect them?

What should we do now that the coalition Government has promised a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) for elections to the House of Commons?

We welcome it. Although it falls far short of STV, it is a small but significant step in the right direction because it introduces preferential voting (voting 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc) for the first time. It would also give all MPs the legitimacy of being elected by at least half the constituency voters. AV would be easy to introduce with, unlike most other systems, no boundary changes needed. A subsequent change to STV would be as easy. The public would already be used to voting by numbers and clusters of existing single-member constituencies could simply be grouped together to form multi-member ones for STV.

I believe both coalition partners will do their best to honour their joint programme, including passing legislation for a referendum, but we need to remind them and encourage them to get it on the Statute Book without delay.

Thereafter, we shall have a very hard campaign for a “Yes” vote. Although the Conservative Party is committed to whipping its MPs to vote for holding a referendum, the Party is free to campaign in the referendum for a “No” vote. We should do our best in the meantime to encourage the Conservative Party and its individual members to support a “Yes” vote.

Also, although the Labour Party promised in its manifest to hold a referendum on AV, there is no guarantee that it will support the coalition’s legislation and, if it does, it may still campaign for “No”. So we should also do our best now to encourage Labour both to honour its manifesto commitment by supporting the legislation and then to campaign for “Yes” in the referendum.

We can’t afford to wait for the referendum; we must start building support and engaging the public now – recruiting supporters and members for pro-reform organizations, especially STV Action and the Electoral Reform Society, which both want preferential voting.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties have agreed to whip their parliamentarians into supporting legislation for a referendum on the Alternative Vote (AV) for parliamentary elections, so the Bill will probably be passed and Conservative MPs and peers should have no qualms about this. It will let the people decide.

But I wonder what Labour’s attitude will be. We all know that many of its backbenchers are diehard opponents of reform and we may suspect that its leaders espoused reform only as a last ditch attempt to keep the Tories out of power. However, this legislation was in the Labour manifesto. Ironic though it is that a Conservative-led coalition will introduce legislation that was in the Labour manifesto, will Labour support it or will they have the effrontery to oppose it?

If the Conservatives honour their agreement with the Liberal Democrats and Labour honour their own manifesto unlike 1997, the Bill should be passed almost unanimously.

Nevertheless, reformers should aim to maximize support for the Bill.

Individually, we can write to our own MPs. We can remind Labour MPs that they were elected on a manifesto that promised this legislation and, in suitable cases, we can also remind them that they owe their election to Lib Dem supporters who voted tactically. We can remind Conservative MPs of their party’s agreement with the Liberal Democrats without which they might be on the Opposition benches. Some of them, too, owe their election to Liberal Democrat supporters who voted tactically. We can also tell them that, even if Labour wanted AV to keep the Conservatives out of power, it could just as easily keep Labour out if the coalition works well and voters like it.

We welcome the new Government’s commitment to hold a referendum on using the Alternative Vote (AV) for parliamentary elections. In effect, AV is STV in single member constituencies; i.e. without a choice of candidates from the same party and without proportionality. It is a small step in the right direction towards STV in multi-member constituencies.

We congratulate the Liberal Democrats on achieving this historic advance and the Conservatives for their statesmanlike concession.

We also welcome the agreement to fixed term parliaments, which will make it more difficult for either party to renege on the coalition agreement.

We shall watch closely for progress on these two issues.

The BBC’s summary of all the proposed political reforms was blogged on this site a little earlier today.

• Referendum on the Alternative Vote system for general elections
• Fixed-term Parliaments - next election in May 2015
• 55% of MPs required to bring government down in confidence vote
• Committee to look at fully PR-elected House of Lords
• Cut in number of MPs and equal size constituencies
• Right of the public to "recall" corrupt MPs
• Statutory register for lobbyists
• Scottish Parliament to get more powers under Calman proposals
• Referendum of devolution of further powers to Welsh assembly
• Review of Scottish MPs voting on England-only legislation
• Ban on "non-doms" sitting in Parliament
• Reform of political donations and party funding