Lessons from the midterms for the AV referendum

Verity

Was the accompanying photo taken by Shameron's vanity photographer, who is on the public payroll along with his vanity video cameraman?

DavidDP

Yet other countries in the world manage with more complex PR systems.

I'm not pro-AV, but I think the "D'uh, it's too complicated for us" argument is the worst one you could go for.

Andy Leeds

Yes well its the political elite, in the form of the LibDems and some loud mouths outside Parliament, who are busy foisting this stupid system on the rest of us. If they are so bothered that an elected member has 50%+ of the vote why not have run-off elections as in the French Presidential system ? The reason is simple: they think AV will disadvantage the Conservative Party which they all hate with a passion. I hope our people throw out this stupid system.

Vulture

More power to your elbow, Matthew. WE are looking forward to Clegg getting a good drubbing at the people's hands over AV - and his mate Dave - ( who secretly desires PR and a permanant Liberal coalition but can't say so) - getting throughly thwacked by proxy.

Cogito Ergosum

Democracy is lost when clarity and simplicity are lost.

David Ossitt

If it’s not broken leave well alone.

It would be far better to reduce the number of MPs and also the numbers of ministers by the same ratio.

But most important is to remove the postal voting system (except for the house bound) for it is open to all and every form of corruption.

Ben Donnelly

First Past The Post is a system that works perfectly for 2 parties, where a vote for one and a vote for "not the other" are the same thing. But it breaks down when you have more than two parties. The USA's 2-party system is suited to First Past The Post. In reality, with just two candidates, AV and FPTP work identically anyway.

But FPTP breaks down spectacularly badly when you have more than two candidates. Especially when you have a tight balance between 3 candidates amid a number of additional less popular candidates.

When you have 3 candidates in a close contest, a vote for one party is NOT the same as a vote for "neither of the other two", and since FPTP doesn't have a 50% criterion, you can end up with a winner with say 34% of the votes, with whom many of the remaiing 66% might be particularly unhappy. With hindsight they might say they'd have preferred either of the 2 runner up candidates to the one who actually won. Or with foresight they might vote tactically choosing someone other than their favourite just to ensure that the disliked candidate doesn't win.

This is why we need AV. AV eliminates this pressure for negative voting thanks to the 50% cutoff. As long as you put the candidate you don't like last, regardless of in which order you rank all the other candidates between your favourite and your least favourite, you will be denying the disliked candidate your contribution towards the 50% mark that they need to win. If they win, they will have done so fairly, by getting 50% between other voters' various choices, and not because you voted for the wrong tactical second or third options. This is what makes AV so much fairer a voting system than FPTP. AV guarantees that any winner will be seen in at least some sort of positive light by at least 50% of the voters. This is so much better than a situation where a candidate can win with only 30% support.

FPTP is right for America for as long as their politics are dominated by the two main parties. In the UK that hasn't been the case for decades and AV is far more suitable. If a Candidate in America has 30% support, the chances are the other candidate has 70% because the vote doesn't get split between 3 rival parties.

Vote Yes to fairer votes on the 5th May!

Paul Perrin

Ok so an Aspen had a problem with AV so Matthew Elliot calls for 'No to AV'.

Well in 2000 California had a problem with FPTP (remember hanging chads?) so presumably Matthew Elliot calls for 'No to FPTP' too?

Well done Matthew... you have ruled out both of the options on the ballot!

Victor Southern

One can hardly cite Fiji as proof of anything related to democracy since power has changed hands there by army coup twice in the last decade.

Ruby Duck

The Aspen experience is an argument for not letting computers anywhere near ballot papers.

And as David Ossit said - "most important is to remove the postal voting system ..."

Walsingham's Ghost

And there was me thinking that novel 'The Aachen Memorandum' by Andrew Roberts was just a bit of harmless fiction. Looks like the EU will not even have to bother trying to engineer his scenario - AV will do the job for them...

HFC

#David O.

'But most important is to remove the postal voting system (except for the house bound) for it is open to all and every form of corruption.'

Hear, hear!

JB

Looking more deeply into Aspen, it's a small community (some 2,000 voters) with a fractious politics. Seems like AV got caught up in that. It also is clear that the concern was not focused on AV per se, but on: 1) how they did the count (not an issue in the UK); 2) the variation of AV used for the two at-large seats on the city council.

The mayor's race was the one straight AV election, and it had a straightforward result -- non-majority leader in first round, majority leader in final round, apparently not a single voter error that affected the result. It was the system for the two-seat race that drew attention.

ollie

AV was shown in all its gory detail in Labour's leadership election - the clear favourite, and the man who should have won, was usurped by a system where second best can come first.

They are now stuck with that huge strategic mistake.

At least the Tories stick by FPTP - even though it is often their biggest enemy. Brown's disgraceful electioneering to bring in AV - without even a referendum - sums up Labour's principles - power at ANY cost.

libertarian

@Ben D

Yes but under what laughingly passes for democracy in this country we are NOT voting for a party, a government or a PM all we are asked to do is choose someone to represent us in Parliament.

All this faux indignation about voting systems would be more palatable if anyone was arguing to change things so that we can actually elect a government

cuffleyburgers

FPTP combined with open primaries will do very nicely thank you.

Mike

The idea that people can't understand preference voting is just simply a rubbish argument.

You put a 1 next to your favourite, a 2 next to your second favourite etc.... what's hard about that?

The No campaign simply doesn't exist outside the unfashionable old thatcherite wing of the conservative party and a few selfish Labour MPs scared of losing their seat.

Having AV in the mayoral election in London didn't stop the Tory from winning. Stop telling us we're too stupid to put numbers in boxes, Matthew, and get a real job.

Ian Walker

So if the format of the system isn't well conveyed to the voters, it's a bad system? Nice logic, that.

I'll be voting for AV, because I want to eventually get multi-member STV, and AV destroys a couple of the specious arguments put up in favour of FPTP - one of them being that the public are too stupid to use a ranked system.

If the Irish, Scots, and Australians can manage it, then I'm fairly sure we can.

ndm

I like the way Matthew Elliott uses Aspen, CO (pop 5,804) and Burlington, VT (pop 39,000)to justify his case against instant runoff. The city I live in which is more than 100 times larger than Aspen has used instant runoff for several years with absolutely no problem whatsoever. I think more honesty is needed from the likes of Matthew Elliott.

Indeed, what Matthew Elliott really needs to explain is why he thinks it democratically legitimate that a party gaining the support of less than 1/4 of the electorate can form a radical government.

Robert Eve

Matthew - you are pushing against an open door.

Fergus Pickering

AV is the sort of thing that wonks like. The Lib Dems have a high proportion of wonks. FPTP will win easily and nothing will happen. The wonks will go away and invent another damn fool system. Meanwhile we wll go on with the only sensible system that exists.

John David Barnett

I'm glad the PM has appointed a photographer.

Nicholas Hallam

Ben Donnelly (above) puts the case well for AV, but I am not persuaded.

I do not think it fairer that an elector can have the same voting force with his second or third vote as he has with his first.

It is not fairer that having expressed a first preference a voter can influence the outcome with equal strength with his subsequent preferences.

It is not fairer that the winner is the candidate which the least people want least, rather than the one that most people want most (as under FPTP).

Far from eliminating the need for negative voting, the AV system encourages it by providing circumstances in which the anybody-but-X vote counts as much as much as a simple first choice preference for X.

Neither can it be claimed that AV is fairer on the grounds of greater proportionality. Transferable voting is no more proportional than FPTP unless tied to multi-member constituencies as in STV, or combined with the dreaded party lists system as in AV+.

A better case could be made for STV, though this has well-known practical difficulties, but since this is not up for debate we should leave well alone.

David Ossitt

Mike
November 4th, 2010 5:15pm

“The idea that people can't understand preference voting is just simply a rubbish argument.

You put a 1 next to your favourite, a 2 next to your second favourite etc.... what's hard about that?”

No Mike it is not rubbish, like all who want to see a change to the voting system you have shown your lack of understanding of those of us who do not.

It is evidenced for all to see in your second line above e.g.

(You put a 1 next to your favourite, a 2 next to your second favourite etc…. what’s hard about that)

I like millions of others only have my first choice to vote for, in my case Conservative, for me to vote Conservative and then to place 2,3,4,5 etc against the names of candidates who stand for political parties that I hold in contempt, is just silly.

ndm

A crucial feature of the American voting system that Matthew Elliott also conveniently omits is ballot complexity.

In the most recent election I was asked to make 59 separate choices. I had no clue what the role served by several elective offices was yet I was expected to make a rational decision about who would best serve the office. The three alternative voting choices I used were by far the easiest and most informed choices I made on the entire ballot.

This raises an additional reason to move to alternative voting. If you are too stupid to understand how it works you are probably too stupid to vote.

Ian Walker

David Ossitt, you can just leave them blank. Nobody's proposing that you have to rank all candidates. In fact, if you just want to vote for one candidate, you can vote with an X as well.

So, for instance, I could protest at Tory European policy with a 1 next to UKIP, then a 2 next to the Tory to make sure they get my vote if UKIP don't get enough support.

yank

Nonsense. I'm able to read every ballot here... and this year I had WAY more than "59 separate choices".

If you have no clue as to what you're voting on, then you shouldn't be voting. It's not the "ballot complexity", it's that you're uninformed, and uninformed voters have no business casting ballots.

If you're not prepared to vote, that's your problem, not the ballot's.

Dual Citizen

@Paul Perrin,
It was Florida that had problems with hanging chads. Stupid boy.

Fergus Pickering

What on earth have American ballot sheets, or whatever they are called, got to do with it. AV is something cooked up by wonks, as I said. FPTP is simple, it is old, it provides a clear winner. It is the only choice for sensible men and women. And so it will prove at the referendum.

John Moss

Why this fascination with 50% of the vote?

There will still be a group of people who did not vote for you who you still have to represent. Whether that is 65% of the electorate ot 45% of the electorate is irrelevant.

Second preference voting confuses voters - just look at the number of spoilt ballots in the London Mayoral elections - it institutionalises tactical voting and it removes the one thing most electors want, the ability to kick the bastards out when they are fed up of a governemnt.

David Ossitt

Ian Walker

Thank you for your clear explanation.

However I do hope that the majority who vote, vote for the status quo.

Ross Stalker

@John Moss

Spoiled 1st pref ballots in the London Mayoral election was 1.6% in 2008. Spoiled ballots in the General Election 2010 was 1%. Not really a significant difference.

AV doesn't institutionalise tactical voting, it allows voters to express their true preferences, the antithesis of tactical voting. I'm not sure tactical voting means what you think it means.

Under FPTP most voters don't get the chance to kick out the Government, as only marginal seats matter. AV potentially gives more voters the chance to kick out an unpopular Government; if kicking out the Government is their reason for voting, they can preference all of the opposition parties and be confident that they haven't wasted their vote on the one opposition party that wouldn't win in their seat under FPTP. Also, your argument is not borne out by electoral history, as landslides that sweep out unpopular governments are actually pretty rare, and there are several cases of governments managing to hold on despite their unpopularity.

Alex Macfie

@Andy Leeds: "why not have run-off elections as in the French Presidential system ?"
Because two separate ballots would be cost twice as much to run as a single ballot.