Against the Political and Constitutional Reform Bill
Robert McIlveen 6:06pm
MPs are back today from their long summer recess, and the Political and Constitutional Reform Bill is right at the top of the agenda. This is likely to dominate politics for the immediate future, since it might have profound effects on how politics in this country operates.
The Bill combines two different reforms in one package – the referendum on changing the electoral system to the Alternative Vote (AV) and reducing and equalising constituencies. These two issues address what Nick Clegg has called the “deep unfairness” in the electoral system. This unfairness is exemplified by the last two elections: Labour won a majority of 66 with a vote share of 35.3 percent and a lead of just 3 percent in 2005; in 2010 the Conservatives gained more votes (36.1 percent) with a much bigger lead (7.1 percent) but were 19 seats short of a majority in the House.
Plenty of ink has been spilled on the unfairness of it all – and not unreasonably. But it is worth taking a cool, calm look at what is really driving this unfairness before considering what to do about it. Academic analysis demonstrates that most of the apparent bias to Labour in the electoral system is due to turnout (Labour’s safe seats tend to have very low turnout – only one in four of the bottom 50 seats by turnout are not Labour-held while only 2 of the top 50 are held by Labour) and, until 2010, their extremely effective vote distribution, aided by their well-targeted campaigning. According to one study, 26 seats in 2005 were due to uneven constituency sizes out of a total bias of 111, so while it is not an insubstantial problem, it is not the whole story.
Reforming the boundary review process is important for several good reasons – the last one took 7 years while Australia and New Zealand can do it in 6 months; the time lag means that even ‘new’ seats are 10 years out of date; and it has become very politicised as the parties try to gerrymander through the local inquiry stage. Reform is worthwhile, but it’s not going to make election results significantly more proportional.
If proportionality is what motivates you, AV is not the answer either – it can be much more unbalanced than First Past the Post. Again, the academic evidence points in a different direction than many widespread assumptions in the debate. The “unfair” outcome of the 2005 election – a 66 seat majority on 35.3 percent of the vote – would have been made much worse: it would have resulted in a 108 seat majority according to a British Academy study. Indeed, had we had AV over recent decades we would probably now be debating replacing it for something less extreme.
AV only really solves one problem – that MPs can be elected on less than 50 percent of the vote. But this is a problem no-one cared about before the choice of systems for the referendum was introduced. And AV’s solution – recycling votes until someone does get 50 percent acquiescence – treats third preferences (I dislike him slightly less than her) the same as first preferences (I really want this person to be my MP). Great, huh?
Robert McIlveen is a Research Fellow in Policy Exchange’s Government and Philosophy Unit.
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Philip Walker
September 6th, 2010 7:01pm Report this commentI do wish people wouldn't repeat this 'you get multiple votes' canard, because it misses the other half of the story.
The person who only gets their first preference counted gets it counted at each stage of the process: so they have one vote counted multiple times. The person who gets down to their fifth preference has had multiple votes, but counted perhaps only once. The total number of times your ballot counts is the same either way, unless it gets exhausted.
Osred
September 6th, 2010 7:08pm Report this commentIt matters little what the voting system is while all 3 parties are so damn similar.
denis cooper
September 6th, 2010 7:09pm Report this commentThere's no Political and Constitutional Reform Bill under consideration by Parliament.
I take it you mean the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill:
http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/parliamentaryvotingsystemandconstituencies.html
denis cooper
September 6th, 2010 7:13pm Report this commentFor reference - total votes cast for each party's candidates at the last general election, divided by the number of Commons seats won by that party:
Labour 33,370
Tories 34,940
LibDems 119,944
The Tories whinge endlessly about the "unfairness" of the present constituencies - a small degree of "unfairness", which means that they need to get about 5% more votes than Labour to get the same number of seats - and in an attempt to remove that "unfairness" they're willing to order a rushed redrawing of every constituency in the country, at unspecified extra cost to the taxpayer; but when it comes to the gross "unfairness" with which the current system treats third parties such as the LibDems they're all in favour of perpetuating that and preventing even a small step towards correcting it.
F
September 6th, 2010 7:50pm Report this commentSay there are eight candidates. Are you still able to simply vote for one candidate, if he or she is your choice and you can't face voting for any of the others, even on a less/least favourite basis.
What I'd like to know is, what effect would it have if most people simply thought "stuff this" and voted for the one candidate they wanted to vote for, and left the rest of the form blank?
Sorry if this is a completely stupid question, it's been making my head hurt for a while. Any advice gratefully received.
denis cooper
September 6th, 2010 8:30pm Report this commentF - under the Bill you could rank as many candidates as you chose, from just one up to all of them.
frosty the polar bear
September 6th, 2010 8:59pm Report this commentIf voting actually changed anything.
It'd be outlawed.
Fiona
September 6th, 2010 9:14pm Report this commentDon't know what happened to the rest of my name last time...
Anyway, thanks Denis.
So my next question is, what if most people simply voted for one candidate, and none of the candidates achieved 50% of the vote?
Then what?
AndyLeeds
September 6th, 2010 9:19pm Report this commentReform of constituency sizes is long overdue. Labour are opposing this much needed reform because they wish to keep their rotten boroughs. If you look at some details you will find there is not one seat in Scotland with 80000 electors; in Wales the situation is just as bad. In England the seats tend to be larger. For example there are seats in Scotland as small as 24000, in Wales 43000 while in England one seat is 103000. Lets make every seat 100000 in size. Labour can hardly object. After all it is 'fair'.
denis cooper
September 7th, 2010 12:20am Report this commentFiona -
The bottom candidate would be eliminated and the ballot papers in his pile would be redistributed. The ballot papers of those who had expressed a further preference would be transferred accordingly, and the ballot papers of those who had expressed no further preference would be discarded. That would continue through successive rounds until one candidate had more than 50% of the remaining effective ballot papers, ie the original valid ballot papers minus those discarded for want of any further expressed preference, and he would be declared the winner. If none of the voters had gone beyond marking a first preference, then in each round the bottom candidate would be eliminated and all the ballot papers in his pile would be put on the pile of discards, with none being transferred to the piles of other candidates, and once again eventually the leading candidate would have more than 50% of the remaining effective ballot papers and he would be the winner.
Here's an actual example of how it works, an Irish by-election last year:
http://electionsireland.org/counts.cfm?election=2007B&cons=85&ref
The winner out of nine candidates ended up with 57% of the ballot papers which were still effective at the end of all eight counting rounds, but only 48% of the total valid ballot papers put in by electors. By that stage 16% of the ballot papers had been discarded for want of any further expressed preference.
As percentages of the total valid ballot papers the final three piles were 48% for the winner, 36% for the runner up and 16% discarded as no longer transferable for want of further expressed preferences.
If the election had been decided just on the first preference votes as cast, the final outcome would have been the same but the pile of ballot papers for the winner would have comprised 27% of the total valid ballot papers, while that for the runner up would have had 23%.
Rhoda Klapp
September 7th, 2010 8:05am Report this commentDenis Cooper, you raise an interesting question, which I hope you can answer. How often is the candidate winning the most first prefs not the eventual winner?
denis cooper
September 7th, 2010 10:00am Report this commentRhoda -
It's impossible to give a single percentage figure for the frequency with which AV would give a different final outcome from FPTP in a constituency, because it depends on so many factors.
Obviously it won't happen in a safe seat where the leading candidate has more than 50% of the first preference votes, and it's very unlikely to happen even if he has less than 50% but still has a large margin over the runner up.
It's less likely to happen anywhere if two parties totally dominate the political system and get almost all the first preference votes, leaving little room for the initial order in any constituency to be reversed through lower preference votes.
But it's more likely to happen if there are three prominent parties of which two are generally seen as having rather similar policies or at least political philosophies, so that a voter may feel comfortable saying in effect "I would prefer A, but failing him I would much prefer to get B rather than C".
Clearly it won't happen if all the voters treat the AV election as a FPTP election and only cast first preference votes, either because they haven't yet got accustomed to exercising their new freedom to rank more candidates, or they can't be bothered to do so, or they're so tribal in their party attachments that they refuse to contemplate ever voting for any party other than their own.
So I think the best answer would probably be "It can happen, but it won't happen very often".
Fiona
September 7th, 2010 10:22am Report this commentDenis, thank you very much for your responses on this thread - very illuminating.
Cuffleyburgers
September 7th, 2010 1:24pm Report this commentThis ridiculous bill does nothing to address the "real unfairness" of the electoral system; which is that every five years you have a chance to vote for an MP, in only about 20% of constituencies does your vote count for something, the MPs elected thereby go to parliament and allow themselves to help themselves to over half your money and mortgage your children's and grandchildren's future to the hilt to spend on trying to buy votes, even then they only enact 20% of the legislation you are subject to since in their "wisdom" they have handed over sovereignty to another body run by our historical enemies who help themselves to the rest... in five years time you will be asked to vote again, but don't imagine it can ever get any better without some serious violence first...
That is the true unfairness of our electoral system.
And nothing Cameron can or will do can imporve matters until there is a political seachange to take us out of the EU and to fix central government taxation at no more then 20% of income.
Rhoda Klapp
September 7th, 2010 7:10pm Report this commentDenis, so the answer to my question is it doesn't make much difference. The next question is, does it elect minority parties in greater numbers than FPTP? Evidence will be hard to come by because international comparisons are difficult to make fairly (which does not stop people from using any foreign example to prove their prejudice).
But if the answer is as I expect, that it doesn't make much difference, would that not mean this is no reform at all, merely a sop, a counterfeit reform to disarm valid complaints?
There is a serious democratic deficiency in the UK, and there is an establishment who are determined to defend it.
denis cooper
September 7th, 2010 11:24pm Report this commentI believe that compared to FPTP, which is the only relevant comparison at the moment as only AV is on offer as an alternative, the AV variant proposed for the UK could be of slight but significant assistance to a small party like UKIP, helping it to make more progress. It certainly wouldn't do it any harm, as some seem to have convinced themselves.
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