Monday 21 February 2011

AV Not As Easy As 1, 2, 3

This week has seen the papers finally start to talk seriously about the referendum on electoral reform that will take place on May 5.

Not that one can blame them for taking their time covering this story. After all, there are far more important stories about fairness and democracy going on the other side of the Mediterranean. Perhaps these stories should put the Yes campaign's grievances with First Past the Post (FPTP) in to perspective.

Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer (20/02/11) went for a preemptive strike against the No campaign's argument that the Alternative Vote (AV) was too complicated by claiming that that was going after the 'Thicko' vote.  Rawnsley seems to believe that by too complicated the No campaign mean that people are too stupid to be able to put their top three candidates in order. He makes it sound like the No's are saying people can't count to three.

I'll credit Rawnsley here with misrepresentation. I wouldn't for a second presume that people who don't agree with me are too thick to understand the argument. Let me try to explain what I think they mean.

The point the No's are trying to make is this: As we have seen with the raise of tactical voting AV would encourage people to try to manipulate their extra votes by putting a party that would never win as their first choice and a mainstream party as their second or third.

This will lead to an abdication of responsibility of the voter. Suppose you have some sympathy with an extremist party, say the BNP. You would be able to put them as your first choice on the basis of one issue, for example immigration. You would not have had to have read their manifesto and may even have been appalled by it if you had. You care about immigration so vote BNP first then one of the main parties second.

No big deal you might say. During the first couple of elections that would be true. There will come a time, however, that a marginal seat will be won for a major party by people who voted BNP (or whoever) first and the major party second. If it hadn't started before then that will mark the beginning of the main parties 'listening' to extremist groups so as to secure the second votes of their supporters. Extreme parties might be against AV because they will never reach 50 per cent of the vote but it will turn them in to more successful lobby groups.

Starting to sound a bit more complicated than counting to three, isn't it?

Rawnsley, along with all AV supporters, believe that 50 is a magic percentile. That an individual candidate reaching it is worth changing a system that has given us stable and middle ground governments for time immemorial.

I believe that one is also a magic number.

One person, one vote was a popular slogan for universal suffrage a hundred years ago. Do we really want to do away with that principle? A principle that was so hard won.

AV would create an unequal democracy with some people having more than one vote by virtue of their immoderate views.

Although I won't dwell too much on this Rawnsley also implies that FPTP supporters are little Englanders. That pointing out that hardly any other nation uses AV for general elections is trying to make it sound un-British. It is in fact internationalist to look at other nations and the systems they use. Having done that you would be foolish indeed to not ask yourself why so few go for AV.

Rawnsley's article also makes several assumptions about those who fall in the D/E class bracket. He says that the D/E's are more likely to be persuaded and more likely to stick with the status quo. I'm sorry but that is nonsense. A sweeping statement like this could just as easily be made that they are more likely to follow the line taken by the Labour leadership.

None of this is to say that FPTP is without problems. Of course there are plenty of things wrong with it. These problems will not be solved by AV. Elections will still come down to marginal seats and the House will still not perfectly reflect numbers of votes cast for each party. Only Proportional Representation can fix those problems. Though, like every other it would bring its own difficulties to the table. At least it would also bring benefits.

Unlike AV.

4 comments:

  1. "AV would create an unequal democracy with some people having more than one vote by virtue of their immoderate views."

    Their previous vote is nullfied by their candidate being eliminated and no longer being able to win, every round everyones vote is counted again, regardless of whether it's changed or not. There is no such thing as some people having "more than one vote", and even if you were to twist it as such, everyone else does too.

    25% of the electorate in 2010 voted in such a way that if they hadn't bothered to turn up it wouldn't have made any difference to the balance between 1st and 2nd. If they wanted to vote for anyone else below 2nd it would make no difference, they wouldn't have a say on the actual final result. Yet if they changed their vote to 1st or 2nd their vote would have had an effect on that final result. FPTP by it's very nature ensures that those with minority views are ignored, unless they are willing to vote against their true wishes in order to join the level of people really fighting it out for the win.

    FPTP is clearly a system where votes are not equal, where votes have a very different effect. AV eliminates this, it leaves it in the hands of those 25%, and not in the system, to make a choice whether their wider and richer opinion is taken in to consideration. If this can't be described as a benefit then I don't know what can.

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  2. While I can accept some of your points there Lee (I'm as quick as anyone to say FPTP is not perfect) saying that having a vote discounted, or nullified as you put it, doesn't count as having more than one vote seems a stretch to me. It's the consequence of who people put as there first choice just to give a leg up to one issue that we should be worried about. If we want to make votes equal go for PR not some compromise that just has the worst of both systems.

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  3. This is a really good piece, I am working for the Liberal Democrats at the mo, and they have got campaigners in the office working on this project phoning up people to lend support. I will have a snoop in and see what I think of their campaigning! As I said ill get back to you!

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  4. I know I'm rather late on this post, but I was thinking about AV today and remembered this item so it seemed a suitable place to voice my
    opinions.

    It's worth remembering that the minority parties (or "extremist groups" as you call them) cover a broad range of the political spectrum. The largest party outside of the big three is the Green Party (if you ignore the various 'celtic' independence parties). I suspect that there will be many iterations through the minor parties before a final winner is chosen, possibly going down to two parties, so candidates will have to bear in mind that if they go for the extremist vote of the very small parties that will be the first to go to the second round, they may well be foregoing the second votes of supporters of other larger parties. During the last elections we heard a lot about people voting for BNP/UKIP as "protest votes". I hope that's true because it firstly means that this country isn't quite as racist as the polls may indicate, and secondly that again, attempts by major parties to appeal to the BNP mindset may be misplaced.

    Also, I think your concern about tactical voting might be overstated. For a start I think it's better that people can vote for the minor party they really support for a first vote, and then back the "least bad" for their second, than the current system where one has to make a decision of "do I vote with my heart knowing that my party will not win, or do I vote for a party I don't really like on the basis that they're marginally better than the party I think is most likely to win?"

    The worst outcome would be a 'race to the bottom' in terms of blandness to appeal to all groups, but I feel that that would (eventually) result in backlash where someone with the balls to stand up for their principles would win public/media support.

    What I do feel is certain though is that although AV may not be the best method, if we don't vote in favour of AV the Tories will say that 'the public voted against changing the system', and we will not be given any chance to get another system for a generation (Labour benefit from FPTP almost as much as the Tories). AV is probably our only chance of a stepping stone to a fairer system. I've tried to think of an analogy, and right now the best I can come up with is that voting against AV is a bit like saying that parliament should have thrown out the bill that gave women the vote on the basis that it didn't also include equal pay for women.

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