AV or Not to AV, That is the question

[SeagullEd]

I have had time to read all the posts so apologies if these points have already been made.

But this is an urge to vote yes.

It's not about fairer votes, in my opinion - although I think it is fairer. If you're apprehensive, sit easy in the knowledge that actually according to many polls and studies it'll have a fairly small effect.

It's about saying we're not happy with the current system... I find it deplorable that we are not being given the option of PR - it's our country and ultimately we should decide the voting system and the fact that many want a PR option on the ballot means it should be an option - who are the tories to say we shouldn't be given a vote?

I think you have to consider the wider message your vote gives out... a 'no' vote, i think, says you're happy with the status quo, a 'yes' vote says you want change and you want to embrace the power that we as citizens eligible to vote should have.

This is our chance to say a much wider message to the politicians - it's not about whether AV is a brilliant electoral system, as I say it'll actually make little different from what I've seen, but it's about steps towards change and fairness.

Vote yes!

 

[Waynflete]

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.

I take your point but I don't agree with it! Under AV, you can listen to the policies of all the different candidates and then decide vote for them in order of preference according to whose policies you like most. You can do this without worrying that your vote will be wasted, so it would increase the importance of a candidate's policies.

I'm not saying that there won't be any tactical voting, but I don't think it will be anything like as bad as it is currently.

 

[peterward]

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.

Simster you are correct entirely in your first paragraph. However, for your second paragraph, It is for those lesser parties in any consticuency to canvas, make their arguments, knock on doors and pursuade people of their vision and program. It is not to change and rig the elections so they get more power by using second and third preferences.

I dont like Cameron particularly but he is right, if you come third in the race it doesn't award you third place, you will take the votes off the biggest losers in the race and you can still win with second or even third pref of the least popular who will include independents/greens/bnp/mosnter raving loonies etc

make all electoral boundaries the same size/weight. Limit funding so the bigger parties don't simply spend more. Giving the same weight to someones third choice as anothers first choice is not fair.

 

[beorhthelm]

You can do this without worrying that your vote will be wasted...

the claim of the "wasted" vote is a nice gambit. if one were to vote for the candidate placed second, my vote will apparently be wasted, while those voting for candidates eliminated are counted repeatedly untill they chose the winner. why is it important for one persons vote not to be wasted but its ok for anothers? theres still large numbers of rosette-on-a-donkey safe seats where there wont be any change. really no vote is wasted, you just didnt vote for the winner. thats democracy for you, someone wins, someone loses.

 

[Chicken Run]

I have had time to read all the posts so apologies if these points have already been made.

But this is an urge to vote yes.

It's not about fairer votes, in my opinion - although I think it is fairer. If you're apprehensive, sit easy in the knowledge that actually according to many polls and studies it'll have a fairly small effect.

It's about saying we're not happy with the current system... I find it deplorable that we are not being given the option of PR - it's our country and ultimately we should decide the voting system and the fact that many want a PR option on the ballot means it should be an option - who are the tories to say we shouldn't be given a vote?

I think you have to consider the wider message your vote gives out... a 'no' vote, i think, says you're happy with the status quo, a 'yes' vote says you want change and you want to embrace the power that we as citizens eligible to vote should have.

This is our chance to say a much wider message to the politicians - it's not about whether AV is a brilliant electoral system, as I say it'll actually make little different from what I've seen, but it's about steps towards change and fairness.

Vote yes!

So come friday after the poll and the yes vote gets 50.5% thats fair is it?

 

[peterward]

I have had time to read all the posts so apologies if these points have already been made.

But this is an urge to vote yes.

It's not about fairer votes, in my opinion - although I think it is fairer. If you're apprehensive, sit easy in the knowledge that actually according to many polls and studies it'll have a fairly small effect.

It's about saying we're not happy with the current system... I find it deplorable that we are not being given the option of PR - it's our country and ultimately we should decide the voting system and the fact that many want a PR option on the ballot means it should be an option - who are the tories to say we shouldn't be given a vote?

I think you have to consider the wider message your vote gives out... a 'no' vote, i think, says you're happy with the status quo, a 'yes' vote says you want change and you want to embrace the power that we as citizens eligible to vote should have.

This is our chance to say a much wider message to the politicians - it's not about whether AV is a brilliant electoral system, as I say it'll actually make little different from what I've seen, but it's about steps towards change and fairness.

Vote yes!

Ed i don't like the tories but your post lost credibility to me as soon as you let slip your avid dislike of the tories in it, it then just sounds tribal. They have in their defence allowed a vote on AV. A different system is needed, but this is not it and is a step backwards.

The Russian revolution was enabled because people wanted change from their old 'status quo' system and they embraced the first thing different thing offered without knowing it was actually less democratic. Many of the wost political systems came about because people jumped on a change bandwagon without really understanding what they were changing to.

Please lets change our system, but lets leave out party political allegiances and hatreds and make it truly fair for every voter. AV is not the answer

Here are the opinions many different politicians (with political self interests) on AV.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12596268

Look at what John Howard the former australian PM says on AV (fiji are trying to ditch the AV system)

 

[SeagullEd]

Ed i don't like the tories but your post lost credibility to me as soon as you let slip your avid dislike of the tories in it, it then just sounds tribal. They have in their defence allowed a vote on AV. A different system is needed, but this is not it and is a step backwards.

The Russian revolution was enabled because people wanted change from their old 'status quo' system and they embraced the first thing different thing offered without knowing it was actually less democratic. Many of the wost political systems came about because people jumped on a change bandwagon without really understanding what they were changing to.

Please lets change our system, but lets leave out party political allegiances and hatreds and make it truly fair for every voter. AV is not the answer

Here are the opinions many different politicians (with political self interests) on AV.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12596268

Look at what John Howard the former australian PM says on AV (fiji are trying to ditch the AV system)

You're right, I don't like the tories... but I am not avid labour or lib dem in any way. The party who seem not to want to give us what is rightfully our choice, however, are the tories.

My main problem with them (someone will say that every party does this - i know, but im criticising the current government) is that they spread arguments which are inherently fallacious.

I have addressed your point already - as I say, from what I've seen AV really won't make much of a difference... to continue you're metaphor, we can all jump on a bandwagon towards change (using that word now is so cheapened because of politics) because this bandwagon isn't that dissimilar in structure from our previous system so it's not going to break or be that different, but it starts the process moving nonetheless. The wagons, therefore, are decidedly similar, it's just that one is rolling backwards and the other has the potential to role forwards.

 

[fork me]

We've already had a taster of AV in the last general election. Vote LibDem and your vote gets changed into a Conservative one.

Actually that's not AV, that a problem with first past the post. With AV, you actually CHOOSE who your alternative vote goes to.

The News Of The Worls said that Thatcher would not have gained power under AV. Bizarrley, they seemed to think that was an argument against it. Any system that wpuld have stopped that bitch getting to power gets my vote.

 

[Acker79]

the claim of the "wasted" vote is a nice gambit. if one were to vote for the candidate placed second, my vote will apparently be wasted, while those voting for candidates eliminated are counted repeatedly untill they chose the winner.

Will it? It's not like all 3rd-9th place votes will go to the current first place candidate. 3rd-9th will be split with some people continually voting for the loser, 2nd place might get enough secondary or tertiary votes that push them into first place.

really no vote is wasted, you just didnt vote for the winner. thats democracy for you, someone wins, someone loses.

Agree with that.

 

[DTES]

Wow - a lot of posts since I've had chance to come back to this thread, and I don't have the time to reply to every comment right now.

On this one though...

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.

Not quite right - it's a mandate in the sense that the winning candidate is guaranteed to be preferred by the majority of the candidate that came second. Under FPTP this is only true in a 2-candidate election (this is of course where FPTP came from, when there only used to be 2 candidates in each constituency).

FPTP allows a result where the majority (in theory, up to 71% in one constituency last May) could look at the result and think "Really? I much prefer the guy who came second to the guy who won". This, for me, is just nuts. To have a "mandate", you must be preferred to whoever you've beaten by the majority of voters.

 

[peterward]

Sir Winston Churchill said on AV in 1931

AV gives the greatest influence to "the most worthless votes for the most worthless candidates"

 

[SeagullEd]

Wow - a lot of posts since I've had chance to come back to this thread, and I don't have the time to reply to every comment right now.

On this one though...



Not quite right - it's a mandate in the sense that the winning candidate is guaranteed to be preferred by the majority of the candidate that came second. Under FPTP this is only true in a 2-candidate election (this is of course where FPTP came from, when there only used to be 2 candidates in each constituency).

FPTP allows a result where the majority (in theory, up to 71% in one constituency last May) could look at the result and think "Really? I much prefer the guy who came second to the guy who won". This, for me, is just nuts. To have a "mandate", you must be preferred to whoever you've beaten by the majority of voters.

Seriously, the yes campaign badly need you... way of explaining it in common sense and understandable terms rather than the political crap they come up with!

This is exactly why we need it! We have this idea that all these political parties influence whereas in reality in almost every constituency there are 2 parties who we know it's between... this was the one that is preferred by the majority wins. people cottoned on to this thinking through the 'wasted' vote argument and tactical voting... that doesn't matter anymore! By expressing your first choice, even if they don't have a chance of winning, but allocating your second choice to the party you view as the best of the worst we get to see (and more important, politicians get to see) how people actually feel but the one who is the best alternative gets power... I think its a good system for communicating with politicians. Say labour win on second votes but a lot voted their first choice as the Greens, they know they need to further strengthen their environmental policies etc.

 

[DTES]

DTES i simply do not agree with your assertions that AV is in anyway fair, and thus why it is only used in 3 countries in the world, 2 of those are tinpot alleged democracies run by dictators - Fiji and New Guinea

There are only three countries in the world that use *instant* run-off, yes. There are many more that use staggered run-off voting, and there is a massive majority that use PR. Surprisingly few use FPTP which is the only alternative here.

You make your argument well and I will contend that FPTP is flawed and does end up in most cases with a majority of people who didn't vote for that candidate. But thats the price of multiparty politics and it is still only fair to have one person 1 vote for 1 candidate. It may be that 65% didn't vote for the winning candidate in our multi party FPTP system, but the 65% all had 1 vote, they used it and not 1 of their chosen candidates got more votes than the winning candidate. If you have 9 also rans they will always likely form more than 50% collectively.

You offer absolutely no argument here as to why it is only fair if it's 1 person 1 vote. If everybody has the same number of votes, why isn't it fair if that number is greater than one?

Say you have 10 people for a job interview. Would you ever employ someone in the same manner? taking the next preference of the least wanted person in interviews and tests and adding it to the other interviewees...and so on until this system of using losing candidates other preferences decided for you who was best. Even though 1 person did better than the other 9 initially?

If there was a large panel of selectors picking the candidate? Yes, actually I would. Say 4/10 people thought a candidate was great, but the other 6/10 thought he/she was absolutely dreadful - the person clearly shouldn't be employed, but a "FPTP" system would get them the job if the other 6's first choices were split by 9 other candidates who were all equally good.

In AV fringe party losers second or third prefs will decide who wins? And you think its fair? that if you were to vote lets say Labour for example and they get say 40% for example and I were to vote (and I would never vote BNP), but lets just say I put BNP number 1, UKIP 2, Lib Dems 3. Now if it transpired that the BNP went out first, my second pref would be used and another vote from me would be added to the UKIP pile and if they went out next, my next pref would be used and by the time the Lib dems who may have originally been 10% behind you, actually win the seat with 51%, I may have in effect voted for 3 different parties and you just for the one party with first pref.

In that situation, with the figures you give, given a straight choice between Labour and the Lib Dems (the second place candidate) the majority of voters (51%) prefer Lib Dems to Labour. That's the point, and that's what AV guarantees. So yes, that's spot on that the Lib Dem candidate should get elected.

I am not against changing the system. I am completely in favour of something fairer but this AV system is ill considered, undemocratic and definately not a step forwards.

Your opinion, not much I can add here apart from reiterating everything else I've said.

Changing consticuency boundaries to have equal size and weight is fairer, allowing some to only have a vote for 1 candidate used and others for 3 or 4 different candidates is not fair.

I absolutely agree with changing the boundaries, no argument here. The 1 vote v 3/4 votes though misses the point I've already made several times. Everyone gets the same number of votes, just some people use their votes in every round for the same person.

Is it any wonder it is being so widely embraced by the Labour party and their ideologically aligned socialist fringe parties like SNP, Plaid and greens. Of course it isn't. This is not in the best interests of democracy, fairness or the electorate imho. This is an attempted left wing stitch up in the interests of obtaining more power and influence in the hands of "progressives" and trying to institute AV enables the long dreamed for and secretly planned socialist rainbow grand coalition that locks out the right wing parties for good (I am not against the end of the tories, but not in this underhand manner). And I am somebody who would see myself as a left of centre eurosceptic. I read the guardian and new statesmen a former blairite who voted Lib Dem. But I can see beyond the hidden agendas. I don't like anti democratic carve ups by politicians acting in self interest and disguising it to the un-informed as "better off for all".

It isn't being widely embraced by the Labour party. Ed Miliband supports it, but party membership is pretty evenly spread. Plus UKIP (as aligned to the Tories as any of the "fringe" parties you name are to Labour) are also behind a Yes vote. Sorry, but this kind of completely undermines your point here, IMHO.

 

[DTES]

Sir Winston Churchill said on AV in 1931

AV gives the greatest influence to "the most worthless votes for the most worthless candidates"

And he said this, about FPTP:

The present system has clearly broken down. The results produced are not fair to any party, nor to any section of the community. In many cases they do not secure majority representation, nor do they secure an intelligent representation of minorities. All they secure is fluke representation, freak representation, capricious representation.

Nice selective use of quotes though - can we debate honestly now?

 

[beorhthelm]

Will it? It's not like all 3rd-9th place votes will go to the current first place candidate. 3rd-9th will be split with some people continually voting for the loser, 2nd place might get enough secondary or tertiary votes that push them into first place.

it depends on how the vote is split and who is eliminated first. i dont see how the candidate first place in the first, second, third even forth round getting knocked to second in the fifth is any better.

FPTP allows a result where the majority (in theory, up to 71% in one constituency last May) could look at the result and think "Really? I much prefer the guy who came second to the guy who won". This, for me, is just nuts.

did you mistype? because if i replace FPTP with AV, i read that and it makes an argument against AV. you didnt l ike them enough to vote for them, tough. i would say to have a real mandate you need to have been positivly and actively voted for, not third choice.

 

[Waynflete]

it depends on how the vote is split and who is eliminated first. i dont see how the candidate first place in the first, second, third even forth round getting knocked to second in the fifth is any better.



did you mistype? because if i replace FPTP with AV, i read that and it makes an argument against AV. you didnt l ike them enough to vote for them, tough. i would say to have a real mandate you need to have been positivly and actively voted for, not third choice.

Don't think he mistyped. Under FPTP you could theoretically have a situation where, between the two most popular candidates, 71% of people preferred the candidate who lost to the candidate who won. This could not happen under AV.

 

[DTES]

did you mistype? because if i replace FPTP with AV, i read that and it makes an argument against AV. you didnt l ike them enough to vote for them, tough. i would say to have a real mandate you need to have been positivly and actively voted for, not third choice.

Nope, were that to say "AV" instead of "FPTP" it would be a complete lie/mis-statement.

The whole point of AV is, as I've said above, that it guarantees that in a straight-fight the winner is preferred by the majority to the candidate that comes second.

In the example I gave, that you're challenging, one MP last may was elected with 29% of the vote. It's therefore possible that whole 71% of voters hated him and would have preferred the runner-up, it's just that their votes were scattered amongst the other candidates.

It's exactly like the BNP council examples I gave in the other thread - the BNP pick up 30%, and the three "main" parties' votes are split roughly 20-25% each. 70% of the electorate didn't want the BNP anywhere near power, but they got elected anyway.

For me, this is essential - you can't claim a "mandate" if the majority would have preferred one particular opponent to you!

 

[beorhthelm]

Nope, were that to say "AV" instead of "FPTP" it would be a complete lie/mis-statement.

The whole point of AV is, as I've said above, that it guarantees that in a straight-fight the winner is preferred by the majority to the candidate that comes second.

yes, in a "straight-fight" where there is only two candidates. we dont have only two candidates. it overlooks that if there were a simple two candidate choice, where votes might go might be different. if i knew my first and second choice would be eliminated, i might swap them or bump my third up to second as id "prefer" him to candidate x that wins. the single transferable vote would seem fairer. the run off system would be fairer, though costly and a massive hassle for each seat. AV seems the poorest compromise, based on wooly "preference" of this rather than that, over assertive votes for something.

we have to agree to differ, i cant see you can claim a mandate if you won by default of people disliking another candidate more than you. so 70% still didnt vote for X, but 10% chose X second and 11% chose X third so they win. but they didnt vote for X. we look at the process and purpose differently.

i reckon for me the main objection is not necessarily changing the FPTP, its that AV is just such a shitty, negative, unintuitive method. and i object to the fact that the supporters of fringe, non-mainsteam parties will hold the balance of victory in thier n'th preference.

 

[DTES]

yes, in a "straight-fight" where there is only two candidates. we dont have only two candidates.

Well, this is of course the entire point. FPTP was designed for a two-candidate system. In 1955, 97% of voters voted for one of the two main parties, so a 2 party voting system made sense. Last year it was less than two thirds, so clearly we need a change.

I object to the fact that the supporters of fringe, non-mainsteam parties will hold the balance of victory in thier n'th preference.

I just don't see it this way. I see all votes being equal in each of several rounds of voting. Who do people prefer out of the candidates left? Just because someone would have preferred a third candidate who is no longer involved in this round, their vote in this round shouldn't count any less.

we have to agree to differ

I suspect you're right. Good to have a debate though

 

[peterward]

i reckon for me the main objection is not necessarily changing the FPTP, its that AV is just such a shitty, negative, unintuitive method.

this.

DTES you make your arguments very well and I think most concur FPTP is not a great system. I Quoted what Churchill said on AV as a reason not to vote AV, you quoted what he said about FPTP to allege I am given a biased and unfair opinion as an advocate of FPTP. I am not and that was a mis-representation.

I am no fan of the tories, but I believe in an absolutely fair system of democracy (without ANY hidden agendas) and I don't think AV gives that (and FPTP is flawed btw). There are many tribal and partisan contributors and most parties are NOT interested in increasing democracy or fairness, they are ONLY intersted in increasing their share/powerbase, disguised as "better for all"

I will not accuse you of holding partisan political allegiences, as I do not know you, but every time I read you footer (as much as I agree with the sentiments) it says "politically motivated" and it is therefore no suprise that your pro AV arguments are very condusive with the "grand progressive coalition" supporters who I am convinced say vote YES for self interest more than voter of increasing fairness interests.

I could be pursuaded that another system is fairer and better that FPTP

But this politically motivated system is not it.