I’ll be putting a cross next to Yes tomorrow, for a very simple reason.
It’s better than nothing.
It’s time we realised that politics can’t always be about black and white decisions. It isn’t a case of I hate our current system and love AV. I just happen to prefer AV to FPTP, but this doesn’t mean I think AV is perfect.
Although Shane and I will be voting in opposite ways tomorrow, we actually agree on quite a bit on this issue. Like him, I would much rather have had tomorrow’s referendum be a choice between FPTP and PR. Unlike him, I think some change to our voting system is better than none. Here’s why:
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Two-thirds of MPs currently sit in Westminster having not achieved a majority. AV will change that. Yes, around 200 seats will be unaffected, but that’s still better than what we have now, I feel.
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This referendum is the first step on the way to something else. It might not be this Parliament, or even next, but if we get a Yes vote tomorrow it will pave the way for discussions about further electoral reform in the future. If there is a resounding No vote, it will be used to trump any suggestion of another referendum for generations to come.
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AV will bring tactical voting out in the open. At the moment, you might try and second-guess the result in order to give your vote the most impact. Under AV, you don’t have to guess – you can just rank your preferences and they will be taken into account.
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A common criticism of AV is that it allows people who don’t put the winning candidate as their first preference more than one vote. This isn’t true – preferences are eliminated, not transferred. In actual fact it means that the winner has a broader base of support than under FPTP.
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AV isn’t complicated. To suggest that a reason for not having AV is because people won’t be able to understand it is, frankly, insulting. We already use it for reality TV shows and on surveys. And even if we didn’t, ranking a list of candidates in order of preference is not something many people struggle with.
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I also think that the cost of the referendum is eyebrow-raising, but disagree that that’s a reason not to change our voting system. All elections are expensive – it’s not an argument not to have them.
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Like Shane, I’ve found much of the two campaigns dull and frustrating. I’m not impressed with the tactics employed on both sides; I’m also very disappointed that several politicians I have great respect for have aligned themselves with No to AV and endorsed some very questionable arguments. However, I don’t really care about the campaigns. Despite their best efforts, if enough people vote Yes tomorrow, we will have a different voting system.
- Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, David Miliband will be voting Yes to AV. And as our esteemed blogger Harry Cole has pointed out on a number of occasions, I tend to think anything he’s endorsing is a good idea...
Read Shane Greer's piece on why he'll be voting No to AV here
Comments
scottspeig / May 04 2011 2:52pm
I won't be joining you in voting yes, although that is not because of the "official" campaigns (both of which are pretty useless!)
While AV sounds good, and has 1 major advantage (vote with heart and conviction first, then tactically), there are 2 main flaws in the system
1. It doesn't really do what people want - an example - 100 votes cast, 45 vote Con then Lib, 40 vote lab then lib, 15 vote lib then ?? - most would like to see a lib dem win, but they don't. . An unfair example perhaps which leads to
2. the youtube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmP81NW9_O0) gives the main reason - in essence, gaining more first preference votes can harm your chances of winning due to the knock-out principle. While this may be rare, it shows a fundamental flaw in the principles of this voting system. That the more popular you are (and the more appealing you are) can have an adverse outcome is an absurd notion that shouldn't even be possible in elections.
(I think the first one failed due to link!)
P.W. / May 05 2011 12:08pm
The great problem with A.V. unfortunately is that it is essentially a poor-man's runoff system. As a result perhaps it's most substantial rationale - obtaining a clear 50% + majority for the winner - is undermined, possibly fatally, by a contradiction created in order for the system to work. This contradiction is that A.V. institutionalises the concept that some votes being worth more, or less, than others, but ends up counting them all equally as indications of voter wishes. To illustrate: in the first count under A.V. all 1st choice votes are counted equally, but in the absence of a clear winner a second, third or fourth count may be required, and this is where the great contradiction kicks in.
So what is the worth of a vote here? We know that a 3rd preference is worth more than a 5th. If that were not the case then the 5th preference could be used first when it came to redistributing votes from eliminated candidates. It is at this point in the process where votes are not equal. They cannot be, otherwise it is impossible for the system to operate (just think of trying to operate it if everyone registered all their preferences with a value neutral X). However, once the counting begins again, each vote, despite in some cases openly demonstrating a lower level of support, are all counted as being of equal weight. The process naturally continues until there is a clear winner and one of the candidates has passed the magical mark of 50% of voters having made their mark next to their name and it being counted as such. The winning candidate then can (and generally does) claim this as their democratic mandate: effectively that they have the equal support of all of these voters when they may well be relying on a significant percentage of votes that can self-evidently be called "yes buts", "oh I suppose so's", or "anything to keep them out!" to get them there.
This problem afflicts a full runoff system rather less severely due to the fact that in each round voters express only one preference out of the available candidates and have to return to the polling booth and run what is, in effect, a separate election each time over the merits of the remaining candidates. No discernable differential values are attached at any point, although strictly speaking it is possible to look back to the early rounds and use those results as a partial indicator of a candidate’s real level of support. The trouble is that runoffs are expensive and time consuming: hence A.V. is a poor-man’s runoff.
P.W. / May 05 2011 12:14pm
Incidentally, the whole "this is a first step" thing is a little discomfiting. The options as advertised are A.V.? Yes or No? There is no option that says A.V., or A.V. now and P.R. later. Even if one takes the great leap and accepts this as something of a subtext, there is no plan in front of us and no timetable. How many elections are to be suffered under what several on the Yes side confess they believe to be a sub-optimal voting system? The comment states that if Yes wins, the next stage "might not be in this Parliament, or even the next." It should be hoped not, otherwise serious questions would have to be asked as to why a referendum had been held over a voting system that was either never used or used just once.