Councils prepare for 'super Thursday'

摘要

As if councils do not already have enough on their plate, the Government, as part of the pact between the two parries, late last month, confirmed that the first referen-dum in 35 years would indeed go ahead as expected on 5 May.The passing of the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act on 17 February, after weeks of wran-gling between the Lords and the Commons, allows not only the holding of a referendum into voting systems but also a reduction in the number of parliamentary seats from the current 650 to 600.For the former, it means asking the electorate whether it wishes to stick to the current, first-past-the-post system, or opt for the additional voting (AV) system using top-up votes. The latter will involve redrawing the boundaries of most constituencies in time for an election in 2015.