Changing my mind on AV

Eastlondon

In 1997, little over a decade ago, AV would have left the Conservatives with 70 seats despite getting over 30% of the vote. The technical reasons why AV yields landslides haven't gone away - and it doesn't depend on support for the top two parties. As long as the third party is willing to provide second preferences to one of the top two, AV will yield landslides.

Dawn Barnes

Just to clarify, the Yes campaign don't say that AV will give 'fair votes' but 'fairer votes'. A minor point but 'fairer votes' is true, 'fair votes' would be a different system that's not on offer on 5 May.

Nicholas

Surprise, surprise.

Adrian Sells

I just want to take issue with you about your BNP point. I think it is quite probable that the BNP (and all the other minority parties - UKIP, Greens etc)will actually get more votes under AV for the simple reason that people will more happily vote for the minnow parties, knowing that it is not a "wasted" vote because they then have their second preference. I'm not suggesting that AV will see representatives of these parties elected, but their vote will go up and they will then claim increasing credibility.

normanc

As a Scot I can't see why we don't adopt the Scottish / EU election system where you still have a FPTP representative topped up by 'list' MP's elected by PR. Best of both worlds.

We already use the system in aforesaid elections so surely it wouldn't be much more expensive, or complicated for people to understand, or any of the other reasons trotted out.

This AV referendum has been a complete nonsense, although maybe that's the plan - make us participate in a referendum so risible that politicians can fob off a referendum on the EU on the basis that this one was so pointless.

David Lindsay

If the question is which system best keeps out the BNP or some such, then AV is actually the best of all, whether First Past The Post, STV, party lists, or whatever.

BNP candidates would always be eliminated very early on, and their supporters would never have expressed any second preferences, just as those candidates would never have received any. After all, second preferences for whom, and second preferences from whom?

Don't take my word for it. Ask the BNP. Or, if you prefer, ask the Communist Party. Such are Sayeeda Warsi's allies, the only entire parties with which the one chaired by her is allied, in the No campaign.

Tim Almond

There are 2 problems with Jenkins' report.

Firstly, we have no idea how people would actually vote under AV using FPTP votes as the incentives are different.

Secondly, if we'd had AV in 1992, we probably wouldn't have had massive landslide for Labour, which was partly down to a massive tactical switch.

I'm also not sure about the 2nd preferences for weak leaders argument. One of the benefits of AV is that people aren't led towards voting in a binary fashion. People found the politics of Foot unpleasant, but also knew that voting SDP or liberal was a wasted vote under FPTP, so voted Conservative.

Davey L.S

I think normanc has a point, if we are changing our system, why don't we go to one that we have some experience.

Phil Ruse

You forgot the bit of nonsense about BNP still being peddled by AV supporters: "BNP say 'No', therefore vote 'Yes'".

And, please, this is the umpteemth blog that supports AV by complaining that we don't have PR.

normanc

I can't understand what the big deal with the BNP / Communists / whoever is.

If a million people vote for the BNP why shouldn't they be represented? Because you don't like them? If they are a legal party and enough people back their policies they should be represented.

If people aren't happy with that we should introduce a version of the Nuremberg laws (or perhaps an IQ test) to restrict who can vote.

Hugh Anderson

The last election wasn't a very good guide to long-term trends because the Libdems got an unusually big slice of the votes. Nick Clegg's blown their chance to do that again. The main other contenders to dilute the Tory/Labour share are the nationalists (Scottish and Welsh that is, not British). But if they ever get enough votes to matter, Scotland and Wales will probably go for independence.

Jupiter

Why is the AV referendum being conducted under the first past the post system?

Matthew Blott

It's worth noting that a miserable compromise is usually better than nothing. I was having a discussion about this with my brother yesterday and he was making a lot of the same arguments about distorted victories that Cohen makes above. Thankfully, although he's a recent graduate and detests Nick Clegg, he was resisting the temptation to vote no and give Cameron's human shield a good kicking as so many voters in the negative camp discomfitingly seem to want to do with the likely outcome that electoral reform will be kicked into touch for a generation (which is why I am voting yes). Such actions might make people smile for five minutes while Clegg squirms giving his congratulations to his opponents but it is pretty bone-headed behaviour and just about sums up the most uninspiring of campaigns.

Fergus Pickering

I'm not sure an IQ test would weed out the BNP. Marie Le Pen isn't stupid, and neither was her daddy. Come to that, are you SURE Hitler had a low IQ? An IQ test would probably weed out the Lib Dems, though. And the Greens. Let's have one.

AY

Something tells me that the whole idea of AV is a diversion. IMHO, its introduction could bring some marginal corrections to elections results.. not more.
So, it is an attempt to push irrelevant agenda forward, keeping relevant one from realization for as long as possible.

Here it is, much more interesting suggestion.

Can we have referendum on separation of state and religion? (Pleeeease).

John Adlington

The Lib Dems' insistence that AV will not lead to BNP representation in parliament is ludicrous. If we get AV they hope they will get more seats, if they get more seats and become eternal kingmakers they will insist on pushing full PR. With full PR comes BNP representation. Seems bloody obvious to me.

Iain Hall

Perhaps the biggest improvement to British democracy would be to make voting compulsory as it is here in Australia. The result here is that elections tend to reflect what the people truly feel about the political choices rather than what those who can be bothered to vote think.

Hayward Maberley

As a fellow denizen of DownUnder I would like to make it clear that voting itself in the Commonwealth of Australia is not compulsory.

It is attendance at at a polling station that is compulsory. What is done after having your name ticked on the electoral roll and collecting ballot papers then entering the little cardboard polling booth is entirely up to you.

You may proceed to vote by filling in the ballot paper in the prescribed ways or simply write a comment of some sort or do nothing thereby voiding that vote, called informal in the parlance of the Australian Electoral Commission.

Those figure were 5.55% for 2010, 3.95% for 2007,5.18% for 2004 in the voting for the House of Representatives elections.

Australia has a much more equitable electoral system. For in Federal elections there is preferential voting for the House of Representatives and proportional voting to elect the upper house, the Australian Senate.

One other advantage of the Australian electoral system at all levels, Federal, State and Local is that voting is always held on a Saturday. Much more civilised and equitable than holding it on a weekday.

In most cases in urban and regional Australia, where most of the population live it generally involves a walk to the nearest school or civic centre. Though it can be much more arduous rural and remote areas.

As an ex inhabitant of the UK I find voting in Australia far less onerous and far more equitable.

Ruby Duck

Are you happy that there can be a change to the constitution based on a simple majority of a turnout that may be as low as 35% ?

tericles

People are losing interest in this so-called referendum. A low turn-out will be misinterpreted by our politicians as an indication that the voters have no interest in referenda on any subject whatsoever.

William Campbell

Why do you want politicians to campaign HARDER? That's when they're not listening. They'll have more lines to spin to different audiences. I want my politicians to think and reflect and pause more, and be more considered in what they do, and more independent. You seem to want them to print lots more differentiated leaflets and put them through even more doors.

Dilettante

I think that "gone for good" is a little optimistic. The British political situation fluctuates over the decades, from the monolithic Conservative and Liberal duopoly to the more fluid, flexible politics of the interbellum to the monolithic Conservative and Labour duopoly of the post-war period and now into a new period of flux.

If Labour had held onto a few more seats at the last election and formed a coalition the next election would almost certainly have produced a Conservative landslide. I don't dally in determinism, and of course the days of a powerful two party system may never return. But frankly, I think it is far, far too early to start predicting such a thing as a certainty.

David Gould

@Ruby Duck

Tony Blair decimated our constitution. And he bulldozed through 2 laws which can rewrite what's left without any discussion in Parliament.

One is quite infamous: the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act. On a couple of short-notice votes, elections could be effectively abolished by amending the Parliament Act (or soon the Fixed Term Parliaments Act which supercedes it).

The other is called the Civil Contingencies Act. Part 2 is remarkably similar to the Enabling Act Hitler used to grab absolute power. It states that in the event of minor national emergencies, even junior ministers can dictate a new constitution at whim.

On FPTP vs AV there is no competition. FPTP doesn't even work properly with > 2 candidates.

http://www.tbpsw.co.uk/2011/04/06/fptp-vs-av-at-a-glance/

The alleged disproportionality of AV is based on a single poll in 1997 where the pollsters said that many people put the Tories last. In other words, it was not how people would actually vote in an election.

Secondly, any majority over about 100 means you can effectively push any legislation through the Commons you want.

Dave Page

Nick is wrong to accuse the Yes campaign of dishonesty in the way he does. A PR system where the seats won better reflect the votes cast is a fairer voting system, true.

But a preferential system where the votes cast better reflect the opinions of the electorate is *also* a fairer voting system.

Dan P

@Jupiter,

Because with only two options, AV is effectively the same as FPTP. Think about it. Unless it's a dead heat, one choice will always get to a 50% majority, (so no AV run-off is required) and win outright. i.e. FPTP It's only when you have more than two choices that AV comes into it's own. That's the the whole point: AV is a better system for extracting consensus when you have many candidates.

Dave Page

Nick is also wrong in accusing Clegg of calling AV a "miserable little compromise". This was Clegg's opinion of the Labour party offering AV as a concession in coalition negotiations, when it had already been in Labour's manifesto - it was clear by that stage that Labour couldn't unite its party behind its manifesto commitment for AV.

Dicky Moore

This is a good article, Nick. And I agree that none of us like landslides, but at least under AV, any party that wins a landslide will have around or over 50% support. That's something that didn't happen with the landslides you mentioned, when the majority voted against each party.

Yes, some of that support that puts the winning party over 50% could come from second preferences, but remember, the landslide that gave Tony Blair victory in 1997 came a lot from Liberal Democrat voters who tactically voted for labour. They were already giving their 2nd preference, at a scarifice to their 1st. This was a bad situation that AV will remedy.

Baron

Dicky Moore @ 10.29 sums it up well, the aim of an electoral system should be to enable as accurate a representation of the views of the voters as possible, one shouldn’t give a toss if one party gains or loses by it, it ain’t about parties, it’s about us, it shouldn’t matter either if it costs few shillings more, was or wasn’t a part of any party manifesto and stuff, we the unwashed are better heard with the AV in place, it’s no brainer then what to go for.