For all these reasons, I think AV is actually a very good voting system and I would put the referendum result down to several things — an ineffective Yes
campaign (if you
typed AV into Google, they didn't even come up on the first page
of results), lies and
smears spread by the No
campaign, the association with Nick Clegg, the split in Labour over AV and finally, and not insignificantly, the fact that the Electoral Commission sent leaflets to every household containing an overly complex explanation that made AV look more complex than the insides
of a nuclear reactor.