AV or Not to AV, That is the question

[drew]

I am struggling with the idea that someones second vote could end up being equal to my first vote. Doesn't seem right to me.

I understand the frailties of the present system, but to me the biggest problem is that too few people actually come out to vote in the first place.

As someone who has only ever voted for one party, under AV if I do not select a second choice, does that spoil my ballet paper?

Then instead of having AV they could make voting compulsory. If that were the case then I could accept FPTP as being fair.

 

[Albumen]

Can't believe there are so many pro FPTP on here. Are you really that happy voting in the Tories even after what they've butchered so far this term? I think it's the only think I hate about Brighton - Too many god damn Tories. People are strange.

 

[JJ McClure]

So Fiji, Australia and Papua New Guinea are the only three countries in the world to use Av and Australia are considering ditching it. Doesn't really sound like a very succesful system to me.

 

[Lush]

I think it would work better if it was made clearer that it's an Alternative vote, but you don't HAVE to use it.

 

[Simster]

I think it would work better if it was made clearer that it's an Alternative vote, but you don't HAVE to use it.

Totally agree. I am astonished that the yes campaigners haven't made more of this.

Anyway, I'm resigned to the No voters winning, simply because I want it to be a yes.

 

[Chicken Run]

So, not sure if there has been a poll on here before but as the elections are looming in just over two weeks wondered what the feelings for change were on the electoral system in this country.

My own view is that AV is not perfect but it is better than fptp so I shall be voting for it. Too few MPs represent considerably less than 50% of their constituency. Ideally PR would be my preferred choice but it ain't on the voting slip!!!

Now what would be really cool is if you had set up a poll with a second choice option, mine would then be 1st: FPTP 2nd: Couldnt give a stuff!

 

[beorhthelm]

Totally agree. I am astonished that the yes campaigners haven't made more of this.

not surprising, because they'd then be open to the question: so whats the point?

 

[Simster]

not surprising, because they'd then be open to the question: so whats the point?

Not really, as that is a ridiculous question.

 

[beorhthelm]

Not really, as that is a ridiculous question.

really? how else do expect the average voter to react to the proposition "please vote using a new system where you rank your favorite candidates in order of preference, but if you dont have any preference just put a "1" next to one and dont worry about the rest"?

 

[Titanic]

Why should people who have been STUPID enough to vote for the WORST candidate get a second shot at it?

 

[Simster]

really? how else do expect the average voter to react to the proposition "please vote using a new system where you rank your favorite candidates in order of preference, but if you dont have any preference just put a "1" next to one and dont worry about the rest"?

Put simply, the average voter's vote doesn't actually carry any weight at the moment because there are so few key marginals. And often, where it does actually count, people feel they have to vote tactically anyway.

AV certainly eliminates the second problem, and there is a good chance of making some relatively safe seats not quite so safe, which can only be a good thing. There are simply too many seats where sticking a blue or red rosette on a dog would see the hound romp it.

 

[JJ McClure]

Put simply, the average voter's vote doesn't actually carry any weight at the moment because there are so few key marginals. And often, where it does actually count, people feel they have to vote tactically anyway.

AV certainly eliminates the second problem, .

AV wouldn't eliminate tactical voting, it would just change it. The tactical vote would become the second preference thats all.

 

[Acker79]

Why should people who have been STUPID enough to vote for the WORST candidate get a second shot at it?

Stupid? Are you fishing? It isn't about good or bad candidates (generally), it's about the candidate that best represents you. Just because your policitics are in the minority, and thus the candidate that best represents you best represents the least number of people and gets the fewest votes doesn't make them the 'worst' candidate.

The whole point of elections is to vote for the candidate that best represents you, not the one who has the best chance of winning. It isn't stupid to vote for the candidate that best represents you, even if they are not expected to win. It's democratic.

 

[Simster]

AV wouldn't eliminate tactical voting, it would just change it. The tactical vote would become the second preference thats all.

That's a massive change though isn't it. Your second or third vote doesn't mean anything unless your first vote is eliminated.

 

[Acker79]

That's a massive change though isn't it. Your second or third vote doesn't mean anything unless your first vote is eliminated.

But don't most people who vote tactically do so because their first choice is someone who doesn't have a chance?

I don't like tactical voting, I think it goes against the system, people should vote for who represents them not the person who has the best chance of beating the guy who they like least/least closely represents them.

I also think tactically voting can become self-fulfilling. How many people have lost out because, although they had enough people who wanted to vote for them, media/pr suggested he wouldn't win so they all voted tactically? I don't know, no one can, really, but wouldn't this go some way to eliminate that?

If people vote for who they want first, they may be surprised by his popularity/chance of winning, and if not, their tactical vote then comes in to play.

 

[Waynflete]

So the voters who voted for the parties in 1st or 2nd place find their second choice ignored "because it matters very much what everyone thinks, even if their first choice isn't one of the main candidates"

If everyone felt strongly enough about the main candidates, why didnt they vote for them in the first place?

If they didnt want the person who was elected to get in, why didnt they vote for the person who was their main challenger anyway
Also as you look to other preferred choices, you find more and more will not have expressed a preferrance, meaning even fewer voters will end up deciding the outcome - so it still wont neccessaryily be the majority of all that constituancy's choice of candidate and less than 50% of available voters may have voted for them, but as their original choice is eliminated, their vote is no longer counted and their voice is lost.

All your many points seem to boil down to one basic position, which is that it's unfair that the vote of someone who feels strongly enough to vote for a major party as first choice, ends up being the same value as the vote of someone who only voted for a major party as a second or third choice (forgive me if I'm misrepresenting you).

That's a legitimate position. However, I look at our political and electoral system and I see gross mismatches between votes cast and who wins, utter disenchantment with politics from the vast majority of people and an unrepresentative and often incompetent set of MPs.

AV won't solve all this, but by allowing people express their views in a more sophisticated way it is unquestionably a step in the right direction in my opinion. It gets closer to revealing what people collective actually think and want, and for me that trumps the fact that some peoples' second choices will count for the same as others' first choices.

I can't understand why anyone with an interest in the health of our democracy can defend the first-past-the-post system that has delivered a succession of unrepresentative, one-track and (some would say) dishonest governments.

 

[beorhthelm]

That's a massive change though isn't it. Your second or third vote doesn't mean anything unless your first vote is eliminated.

so we come back to an earlier point, that seats will be decided by those whose first vote is Socialist, Green, UKIP, BNP etc but have their 3rd or 4th preference count. hardly the objective, to make the voters of least popular parties the most influential is it?

 

[Simster]

If people vote for who they want first, they may be surprised by his popularity/chance of winning, and if not, their tactical vote then comes in to play.

And I think AV will increase the likelihood of this happening.

so we come back to an earlier point, that seats will be decided by those whose first vote is Socialist, Green, UKIP, BNP etc but have their 3rd or 4th preference count.

How is that any worse than the current situation where candidates with 35% of the vote get in, despite up to 65% of the electorate wanting anyone but that candidate to win?

At least with AV, the winner is mandated by a majority.

 

[Waynflete]

so we come back to an earlier point, that seats will be decided by those whose first vote is Socialist, Green, UKIP, BNP etc but have their 3rd or 4th preference count.

That's quite unlikely, actually, because if the votes of all the minor parties are redistributed it's very unlikely that they'll all break the same way. E.g. Socialist voters more likely to put Labour second, UKIP more likely to put Tory second etc.

Because they'll be spread around it's only likely that one candidate will reach more than 50% of the vote when one of the bigger parties (e.g. LibDems) is knocked out, unless a candidate was already extremely close to reaching the 50% threshold.

 

[beorhthelm]

How is that any worse than the current situation where candidates with 35% of the vote get in, despite up to 65% of the electorate wanting anyone but that candidate to win?

At least with AV, the winner is mandated by a majority.

yes, that is a problem with FPTP. but AV is hardly a credible solution to those relative few cases. The so called mandate of AV is only a majority once you've ignored many voters first choice - its a mandate of least disliked, not the most popular.

@Waynflete, i dont know if its likly or not. im coming round to thinking it will change seat by seat. some places it will increase tactical voting, others reducing. i can see complicated arrangments of 1st/2nd/3rd/4th choices being provided by local campaigns to see their least worse alternative win. ie vote for independent, or one of the other fringe parties 2nd so that the 3rd vote counts.

i all this back and forth, the broader point comes through that AV moves us further away from what elections are supposed to be about - policies.