Britain voted yesterday, and the key issue was a referendum on “alternate voting,” a change from the first-past-the-post method of electing members of Parliament. The idea is that you would cast a first-choice vote and then a second-choice vote, with the latter being added to the former if no candidate gets an absolute majority. This would be a major change in Britain’s electoral system, one devoutly wished for by the Liberal Democrats, whose party has been finishing third and winning far fewer seats than either Conservatives or Labour. The Conservatives agreed to hold this referendum in the deal that established the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government after Conservatives fell just short of winning an absolute majority of seats in the House of Commons in the May 2010 election. But Conservatives did not agree to take no stand, and both the Conservative and Labour parties opposed the referendum.