A question for Chris Huhne

Occasional Ostrich

Law courts, Chris?

Bring it on!

John Steed

Of course it will cost more to administer, although certainly not the 100s of millions thar have been claimed. Of course the ERS stands to benefit. But if (a big if) AV is a genuinely better electoral system, so what?

Phil Chuds

Court action ? Surely parliamentary privilege comes into play here should it be deemed necessary ? Or can this only be claimed for remarks used within the HoC ?

Nicholas

Huhne is a slippery weasel. An opportunist.

Glenn Haldane

I know ERSL organises many private electiosn, such as those in unions, but does it have any role at all in elections for central or local government?

AJK

But Ed, you and Osborne are talking rubbish, and you know it. An AV election is not difficult to count. Australia does it overnight in very large constituencies.

Woodbine

Because all the money that Govt spends is investment not cost - you should know this by now.

Jannie Geldenhuys

Why not actually ask a lawyer what hope Mr Huhne has?

Tell you what, I'll save you the trouble: zippo, nothing, Le Grand Zero.

How Huhne has the nerve to push this point given his own "family values electoral puff whilst having an affair on the side" issues is beyond me. Has the man no shame?

John Mc

BREAKING NEWS: ELECTORAL REFORM SOCIETY SUPPORT ELECTORAL REFORM

J Alan Jones

Of course it will not cost more! All lies are the truth, all truth is lies. Duck! here comes a flying pig! The moon is made of cheese. They all lived happily ever after. K M A.

Stepney

And, if I may, two more questions for Mr Huhne:

Is a Cabinet Minister worthy of the role and the title if his behaviour includes threats of legal action to his Prime Minister? If not then when will that Cabinet Minister act in the only way left to him and resign the post he can no longer, 'honorably', serve?

And one for the rest of us:

Would the Governance of our country be better off without this sanctimonious, talentless, self-serving and utterly odious twerp?

Andy Leeds

Of course AV will cost more to administer than FPTP - only an idiot like Huhne would deny that. They have to keep counting and counting until you get a result so it will take longer and cost more. There are plenty of lies coming from the Yes Campaign such as calling the 'No' outfit 'Conservative funded'. Completely untrue. What is true is that the Yes camp are funded by sectional interests like the ERS and the Rowntree Trusts. A collection of the reactionary Left.

Sir Graphus

Huhne strikes me as being a man of such shocking mediocrity that to resign his ministerial brief on a matter of principal is the best outcome he could hope for as he flounders with a role he can hardly understand.

It strikes me he's a liberal because he couldn't possibly have given a seat for either of the other parties.

Stop whinging Huhne; politics is a tough game. Ask your mate Simon Hughes who ran a homophobic campaign against Peter Tatchell while being closetted himself in this winning of his own seat.

tankus

Huhne , Huges and Cable.... the three horses of the liberal apocalypse.....

Pestilence, plague, and famine, to the morals ,policies, and integrity of liberal politics .......

Personal gain and power before party, party before members ,voters before members ,and the country can go to hell , its the nulabour third way with a liberal taint.

Justathought

The LidDems demanded this beauty pageant and as contestants they look like the ugly sisters who are anxious about the result! This is looking more like a referendum on Nick and is a likely precursor to an end of this sham marriage.

Gawain

Jannie, 21st century Liberals like Huhne would regard "shame" as an outdated ideology which is only now observed by a right wing clique. Huhne is an over ambitious lightweight of the type that gives politics in this country a very bad name. He is only interested in exercising his ego at the taxpayers' expense. Clegg would be wise to watch his back and if he had any balls he would sack him for his outburst yesterday.

Baron

what is the key objective of any electoral system, rather should be in a true democracy, ha ? To save on the administration of it? Nope, it’s the noble aspiration to give all burghers an equal voice, hence ensuring a representation that’s as close an embodiment of it as one can get in given circumstances.

The FPTP has failed to deliver abysmally, in a diverse society, it more often than not results in the dictatorship of the minority; when the last Labour lot got in with a sizeable majority in the House, seventy seven out a hundred of those eligible to vote didn’t want Labour in charge.

One shouldn’t mind if a system costs marginally more as another, if those elected under it represent the views of the unwashed better, reflect those views in their decisions, statutes and stuff, mirroring closer what the country thinks, wants, and not what a cabal of lawyers, PR men, social manipulators thinks, wants. That’s what gives us a better chance to avoid going into wars, protect pension rights, deflect a loss of sovereignty, avert no boom and bust idiocies.

To go for an electoral system on the basis it saves on the cost on the night of counting is only good for people who mind not ending in a shite.

TrevorsDen

But the plain fact is both you and the Spectator are wrong in your accusations.

As is the NO campaign. Huhne is being silly and petty in his response - but that does not take away the fact that he is right. The NO campaign contains many left wingers as well.

denis cooper

Not only does Australia use manual counts for both STV and AV elections, but so does Ireland and here is an example of an Irish parliamentary by-election held under exactly the same variant of AV that we would have here:

http://electionsireland.org/counts.cfm?election=2007B&cons=85&ref

Some people have been deliberately misled into imagining that a manual AV count must be a difficult and protracted affair, possibly with all the ballot papers having to be sorted and counted again and again with the risk that it will descend into chaos.

That isn't the case in practice, as is clear from this real-life example.

There were nine candidates and it needed eight counting rounds to finally identify the winner, with these numbers of ballot papers being sorted and counted in each round:

1. 28,412
2. 203
3. 528
4. 676
5. 893
6. 3,621
7. 4,420
8. 6,537

Total = 45,290

In the first round, the count of the first preference votes, the tellers had to sort and count all 28,412 valid ballot papers, just as in the single count under FPTP.

But the second round after the elimination of the bottom candidate, O'Loughlin, involved reallocating only the 203 ballot papers in his pile, which would have taken very little time; and similarly with the next three counting rounds, each of which involved less than 1,000 ballot papers.

Only after that did the number of ballot papers to be dealt with in each successive counting round start to become significant, and so start to create a significant increase in the work and time required.

Overall because of AV the tellers had to carry out 16,878 additional sorting and counting operations, an increase of 59% over those needed for FPTP.

It may be argued that the tellers would be slower picking out the correct number 1, 2 etc than a single X, but on the other hand it may be argued that on average we would not have nine candidates in each constituency and some of the results would be decided on the first count.

It should also be borne in mind that when we have an overnight count here, as we usually do and we should always do, the tellers are not active for the whole of the period between the polls closing and the result being declared.

There is the delay while ballot boxes are brought in, then there is the verification count, and then the first count proper when ballot papers were actually sorted between candidates, and then finally a delay after completion of the count before the result was finally declared - and all of those steps would be essentially the same under AV as under FPTP.

If they are so minded, returning officers can get through all those steps in a surprisingly short time - in the 2005 general election, the first constituency to declare was Sunderland South, a mere 44 minutes after the polls closed.

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/briefings/snpc-05166.pdf

That was a city constituency and a safe Labour seat, but there were still about 31,000 ballot papers to deal with.

When Hampshire North East declared at 8.02 am, 10 hours after the polls closed, there were only 8 other constituencies in Britain which had not finished.

The only extra work and time and cost arising from AV would come with the insertion of the additional counting rounds, if any were required.

It would probably be a generous estimate to say that on average the declaration would delayed by maybe 2 hours under AV compared to FPTP, unless more tellers were employed, and the cost of that would be in the region of £2 million for each general election.

Occasional Ostrich

"Would the Governance of our country be better off without this sanctimonious, talentless, self-serving and utterly odious twerp?"

Patience, Stepney, May 2015 will come.

ollie

Buff is a complete tool. Law courts indeed.

Stepney

@Baron.

In a democracy every vote has equal weight.

In FPTP this is maintained. In AV it isn't.

Under AV if there is only one party which comes near to my beliefs and hopes for the governance of the country I have one vote. If I have an agenda against a party or individual I can vote as many times as there are candidates.

ergo Under AV some have more votes than others and that is NOT democratic.

As for your 77% of the country didn't want a Labour government let's not kid ourselves - 48% didn't bother to profess a preference either way. Would AV have cracked that little problem? I think not.

In the Olympic 100m final there were 7 other runners who didn't want Usain Bolt to win. Does that, according to your logic, mean he shouldn't be Olympic Champion because the majority didn't want the outcome?

Under FPTP every candidate has an equal platform and the electorate has an equality of involvement. It aint perfect but it's the best and it always will be.

Slim Jim

Going to court over lying politicians? It's a shame he didn't get so aggrieved over the Lisbon Treaty referendum sham. Another question for Huhne - why are you using up valuable oxygen?

denis cooper

Q. Some MPs and peers are telling us that AV is fundamentally flawed because it destroys the principle of "one person one vote".

So why is it being used by MPs and peers themselves?

MPs for the election of Select Committee chairmen:

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/executive/briefing-note-ballot-select-committee-chairs.pdf

Peers for the election of their Lord Speaker:

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/SpeakershipElectionResult.pdf

Hereditary peers to elect a replacement for a deceased peer:

http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-information-office/holbynotice10052011.pdf

A. Because they know that what they're telling us about AV being fundamentally flawed is not true.

hfc

Huhne is reported to have used the words 'claims which have no foundation in truth whatsoever'.

Hmm. Don't they also apply to the claims of climate warmists, the like of which he embraces unquestioningly?

Baron

Stepney @ 4.25:

“In FPTP this (one vote) is maintained. In AV it isn't”.

That, my friend, is a 24 carat crap.

As I vote ranking candidates, I have no idea if my man comes first, second, last, if it’s first, the votes that got him the lead will be counted again during the second count, as they will be for the rest of the candidates except the last one who gets eliminated, they ain’t lost; if he comes last my second preference gets added to the ‘once more counted votes from the first round’ for all but my eliminated candidate. And so it goes until one runner gets 50% or more.

Or think of it this way. If on the election day, nobody gets 50% or over, there’s a second round next day, next week, but the last of the runners gets kicked out, those voting for him must choose another remaining runner for the repeat election. If the leading candidate after the second election day is still below 50% there is yet another election day until one of the runners gets 50% or more. What the AV does, it just saves on our having to walk to the election booth more than once.

You follow, still lost?

Look, under FPTP it’s the least acceptable candidate who gets elected unless he pulls more than half of the votes, that’s a fact, it ain’t open to an argument, but then in such case, i.e. pulling in 50% or more votes, he would be elected after the first round under AV, too. Under AV, it’s the most acceptable candidate to half or more of the electorate who gets through. How can anyone argue it’s worse than what we have beats me.

Baron

and another thing, Stepney:

Huhne isn’t the only sanctimonious, talentless, self-serving and utterly odious twerp, there are tens of other sanctimonious, talentless, self-serving and utterly odious twerps who shouldn’t get a look in when it comes to governing us. In my humble opinion, the AV system may, just may prevent such sanctimonious, talentless, self-serving and utterly odious twerps getting elected. It’s worth the try, the current system has failed to stop them, why carry on with it.

Stephen Byrne

It is clear that Mr Huhne will be happy to look his wife in the face and confirm that he is telling her the truth about ERSL.

Ralph Milli

Huhne just know which way to turn, day or night.

Woody

I think his 'girlfriend' works for the ERS.

Stepney

@Baron.

Mr Blue 48%
Ms Green 22%
Mrs Brown 18%
Mr Pink 12%

"Under FPTP it’s the least acceptable candidate who gets elected unless he pulls more than half of the votes, that’s a fact..."

No that's not a fact. That's utter cock.

In the above example Mr Blue is the most acceptable candidate. 48% of the population have thought so - indeed 26% more than the next level of acceptability. How could ANY of the others be more acceptable?

Politics is about beliefs not about passing your suffrage around like some pimp.

I reiterate. One man, one vote.

Too complicated for you?

denis cooper

AV is "one man one vote".

It is when the Australians use it, and when the Irish use it, and when MPs use it, and when peers use it.

Sir Everard Digby

Oh joy, the political classes could not manage a heavy drinking session in a brewery!

This would seem a relatively simple concept to campaign upon; yet they have managed to muddy the picture with personalities i.e if the No campaign lose it's a defeat for Cameron. Or complaints about nasty campaigning from the Lib Dems - pot,kettle,black springs to mind.

As a result the electorate(or more accurately,those who can be bothered to vote) are probably confused by both campaigns.

On a simplistic note, if the argument for AV is so overwhelming,it probably does not need a campaign anyway.

Anything which calls for the particular talents of Lord Mandleson to rescue it is in real trouble -just ask the last person he was asked to save. What say you Gordon?

Paul

Stepney "In a democracy every vote has equal weight. In FPTP this is maintained."

So a someone voting Conservative in a Tyneside "weigh the Labour vote don't count it" consitutency has the same weight as some voting Conservative in a knife-edge Con/Lab marginal? I don't think so.

2005 election

Labour 35% = 356 MPs and large majority
Conservatives 32% = 198 MPS

So how did votes have equal weight? Almost exactly the same share of the national votes but because of the way FPTP and constituency boundaries work a huge difference in results

Baron

Stepney, sir, the last stab at it, from me, anyway.

Your Mr. Blue didn’t get the support of 52% of the voters, that makes him the least acceptable winner, more voters said no to him than said yes.

In the case you quote, the outcome ain’t that bad, but what if Mr. Blue got 26%, Mr. Green 24%, the other two colours 25% each, ha? Not an uncommon outcome under FPTP; and it gets worth, if there were ten candidates one got 11%, another 9%, the rest 10% each, the winning man under FPTP would get in, even though only (roughly) one in ten voters picked him.

Doesn’t it strike you that may be one of the reasons the MPs fear not so much the electorate, more the party management, or rather the man who runs it, unless the seat is deadly marginal?

The result of it all is what we’ve been through since the times of Mrs. T’s rule when the party ‘centres’ imposed greater control over MPs. One bunch gets in, begins messing up the country, loses at the count the unwashed had enough, gets well paid jobs in the private sector, milks it there, whilst the other lot begins inflicting some more damage on the country, loses at the count the unwashed had enough, gets well paid jobs….

Bickers

FPTP is the least worst voting system. All that needs to be addressed to make it more accountable to the elecorate is to copy the US system and have primaries, so that the electorate choose their party candidate, not the party. That way an MP in a safe seat is not that safe if he can be usurped next time round (matbe he'll work harder for his constituents). If we had primaries voter turnout might dramatically improve, which is the big challenge facing our democracy (besides getting out of the undemocratic EU)

Baron

Stepney, sorry, sir, shows you how much I know English, in the ranting of mine @ 10.55 ‘it should get get worse, not worth’, apologies, will have to go back to school, even a bog standard comprehensive will do.