The AV Game is Lost

I despair. Or, if it makes any of us happier, I give up. When even a chap as intelligent as my friend Daniel Korski completely misunderstands everything about the Alternative Vote I can only conclude that the game’s a bogey. It’s done and First Past the Post will be with us for at least another generation.

That’s fine. Elections have consequences and all that. Nor is AV especially brilliant. Then again, nor is FPTP or any other system. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. I take a fairly disinterested view of it all. The Yes campaign, however, has been utterly inept. All that need be said in favour of AV (perhaps all that can be said) is that it ensures all MPs attract at least grudging acceptance from a majority of those constituents prepared to vote. Since commanding a majority in the House of Commons is what’s usually required to become Prime Minister it might seem logical for that notion to trickle down to the constituency level too. Or not!

Brother Daniel has some concerns however:

[AV] will force politicians not to take principled positions but try to triangulate, Blair-style, in order to get as many different kind of factions to vote for them. What should I give the Lib Dem voters? How can I get the BNP voter’s second, or even third, preferences? These are the kind of questions MPs will ponder. Sure, to a degree that already happens — but AV will systematise the madness.

Since the BNP-spectre has loomed so large in this election can one point out that Phil Woolas was hardly the only politician making a pitch for what might be termed BNP-lite first preferences? Is it better to run a campaign persuading someone to vote Tory or Labour rather than BNP or one in which said Tory or Labour candidate might hope to receive a BNP voter’s second, third or fourth preference?

Next! OK, here we go:

I don’t think that the BNP voter’s preference should count as much as it would under AV. Let us be clear. People who vote for extremist parties — such as the BNP — would have their vote counted again and again, while people backing mainstream candidates would have to make do with one vote.

Not true! Imagine a election run using FPTP and a constituency which, for whatever reason, is not contested by the BNP. Imagine then that said BNP-sympathiser still exercises his franchise. Is that vote deemed sub-standard because it’s not his “true” preference? Or would the beneficiary of that vote not bother to ask too many questions? There are fascist goons in every constituency but the BNP don’t stand in every constituency. 

Nor, sweet merciful Jesus, is it true that the BNP (or Trotskyite) man has his vote counted “again and again” while other people backing “mainstream candidates”  have “make do with one vote”. Every vote is counted the same number of times. No votes disappear. They don’t go missing. Actually, they keep being counted. If you cast your ballot for one of the two most popular candidates your vote will be counted just as often as the votes transferred from less popular candidates.

All that happens is that a process beginning with, for example, the question of “Which of these six candidates do you want to support?” becomes “Which of these five candidates do you support?” and then, if necessary, “Which of these four candidates do you support?” and so on until some poor sod passes the 50% or “He’ll do” threshold.

For that matter, distributed preferences are a feature in other electoral systems. And yet I’ve never heard an Irishman complain that some people’s vte gets counted more often than others’ using STV. Nor do the Australians seem to find this all terribly unfair when using their own system of preferential voting. Since a losing Australian is God’s Own Whinger one might think this could have been mentioned by now.

As I say, I don’t think AV an especially super system but it’s sufficiently simple it’s now used by the Academy Awards to decide the Best Picture Oscar and if the Academy can cope with its “complexity” I reckon even the Great British Public has chance of understanding it.

Finally, Dan writes:

Then there is the question of what comes next. Since AV is nobody’s favourite, it is hard to imagine that a Yes vote would finish the constitutional process. Many Yes campaigners openly admit that they see AV as a way-station to a properly-constituted PR system. Whatever you may think of PR, I abhor the idea that we could be asked to vote on the electoral system now, only to be asked again soon. Britain has been undergoing one of the longest processes of constitutional change of any country, starting with the early Blair administration. Voting Yes will likely continue this well into the future — something I’m weary of.

Sure. I believe in slippery slopes more than the next fellow. But this referendum, whatever the result, will settle the matter for at least 20 years. There’ll be no appetite for a repeat and, as Dan knows, once the substantive issue has been decided there’s rarely much appetite for a second or third go. Sure, Quebec but how’s her independence movement going? Quite. That’s also why Alex Salmond is happy he never got his referendum on independence. A once-in-a-generation thing is how he views it and he’s right and the same would be true of electoral reform.