Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dave McNeill on April 5, 2011 at 23:52

I'm not going to try and persuade anyone - I would just suggest reading the 'No to AV' site. People who are generally repelled by the negative campaigning tactics of fear, uncertainty and doubt, probably won't even need to bother trying to understand what AV is all about and will just vote 'Yes'.

 

Alternatively, perhaps we should resign ourselves to a system whereby only Conservative and Labour votes are counted and all others (about 25% of us in the last election) just get binned.

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Permalink Reply by John Mather on April 6, 2011 at 17:17

Dave,

Many people would say that, rather than getting "binned", the Lib Dems have done pretty well out of the current system of voting.  They are in government after all. 

If you believe that voters should decide who the best person to represent them is, not the voting system, vote NO to AV on 5 May.

John

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Permalink Reply by Dave McNeill on April 6, 2011 at 17:38

In Government maybe, but not doing the things we voted them in to do (e.g. opposing tuition fees). 'Doing well' == selling their voters out for power.

 

I'm not saying that AV is the best system (I believe that it is yet another Lib Dem compromise). In fact I've only just started to try and understand the issues (better now than never, right?) What I have always known, however, is FPTP is just simply not representative and that's what democracy is all about.

 

Don't listen to us bickering though. Please look at the issues (not you, John, I mean everybody else) and make up your minds.

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Permalink Reply by John Mather on April 6, 2011 at 17:41

Agreed.  Hopefully there will be a decent voter turnout on 5 May and people will express an opinion one way or the other.

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Permalink Reply by Richard McKeever on April 7, 2011 at 10:40

Dave, John,

One of the problems is that a UK General Election is presented a s a single event - when in fact it is 651 seperate competitions each with their own local circumstances. At a national level things like the Leader' debates last time present the election as almost a presidential race based on personalities not a series of localised elections based on values and policies. 

I think it important that an elected representative should have a strong geographic connection with a specific constituency - and the issues pertinent in that locality - so a truly proportional system, with candidates drawn from a party list is also flawed in my view.

Whilst I accept that FPTP may not result in as diverse representation I am also troubled by the fact that under AV a voter whose first choice is one of the peripheral (or extreme) candidates may have their vote counted three or four times - when my vote may only count once.

I think any solution will be a compromise of sorts - but I entirely agree that a decent turn out is imperative... a change to the voting system which is only supported by a minority of the electorate would be damaging to the legitimacy of the system.

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Permalink Reply by Dave McNeill on April 7, 2011 at 14:55

Under AV, just because a vote is counted more than once doesn't mean it counts for more than one vote in the ultimate outcome. Would you deny someone a protest vote for the Green Party, knowing that his second vote for Labour will accomplish his primary tactical objective of keeping the Tories out?

 

Your comments about local interest are absolutely spot-on. I'm not sure, however, that the requirement that each constituency party fields candidates with local connections excludes proper proportionality (my ignorance perhaps). I am sure, however, that the party lists employed by the big two will continue to proliferate under FPTP.

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Permalink Reply by Richard McKeever on April 25, 2011 at 20:34

As a futher bit of background to the referendum discussion the New Economics Foundation has researched the impact of a change to the voting system on what they are calling a Voter Power Index It is an intruiging way of considering the impact that the proposed changes might make to an individual vote. Interestingly the index shows that voters in both our local constituencies Enfield Southgate and Hornsey and Wood Green would see an increase of 30% in the "power of their vote".

 

Have a look at www.voterpower.org.uk

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Permalink Reply by Mat Riches on April 25, 2011 at 23:01

I know that AV is not perfect but under the First Past the Post system I cannot see myself voting in a General Election in the near future. I walked away from the ballot box last year knowing that my vote counted for absolutely nothing at all.

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Permalink Reply by Administrator on April 30, 2011 at 11:48

Site member David Rennie has forwarded a response to the discusion by e-mail which is included below. David has recently been volunteering for the YES to AV campaign and has provided a summary of the arguments in favour of the change.

 

He says:

After campaigning for decades for a fairer voting system, I am voting YES in the Referendum.  Many people are saying that there is not enough hard information to help them choose between AV and our current system (First Past The Post).

The NO campaign has told us little about the supposed advantages of First Past The Post, focussing instead on trying to bamboozle and frighten us by spreading myths about AV. 

So this note begins by summarising what others have claimed as the advantages of FPTP, before turning to the Alternative Vote (AV), and then myths about it.

It is said that no election system is perfect.  Even STV – considered to be the best system from the citizens’ point of view – has minor shortcomings.  AV is a modest, though very worthwhile improvement.  But, in a competition for the worst electoral system for today’s Britain, I think FPTP has no rival.

 

David's full note is available here as a downloadable document in Word format and he has also provided  a very short flyer in PDF format detailing the proposed voting system. In addition to the discussion here David has also invited correspondence on his analysis by e-mail. 

 

 

Attachments:

• Fairer votes - AV v FPTP.doc, 34 KB
• Quick summary of AV 21 April 2011 A5.pdf, 335 KB

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Permalink Reply by Dave McNeill on April 30, 2011 at 16:44

That is an interesting read. The clincher for me is this:

 

"With AV, every MP needs the support of over 50% of voters who express a preference between the two front-runners"

 

For some reason (and with all of the literature I read before), this point never occurred to me.

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Permalink Reply by David Rennie on May 2, 2011 at 13:58

Dave, thank you for that comment – I hope I'm right in saying that it is my note that you are referring to!?  

In fact one cannot categorically go quite as far as your conclusion – although, once one takes into account the range of real voting behaviour, the chances of your conclusion ever being wrong are probably vanishingly small.  Certainly any unfairness that ever occurred would be tiny compared with the gross unfairness of FPTP.

My last paragraph said:

"With AV some voters may just 'plump' for one party.  So it is claimed [by the No campaign] that, if the voter's party is not one of the two front-runners, they cannot influence the result.  

It is in the voter's hands.  By voting for only one candidate, the voter is saying they have no preference between other candidates.  If they do have a preference, they just have to mark at least the likely front-runners 2, 3,…"

The main message of my paragraph was this:

Anyone who only votes for only one candidate in an AV election is missing out on the extra democratic right that AV gives them.  Voters also need to know that their first choice candidate will not benefit in any way if they vote for only one candidate; the result is simply that the voters have less chance of influencing which of the two front-runners is finally elected.

David Rennie

 

Dave McNeill said:

That is an interesting read. The clincher for me is this:

 

"With AV, every MP needs the support of over 50% of voters who express a preference between the two front-runners"

 

For some reason (and with all of the literature I read before), this point never occurred to me.

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Permalink Reply by Dave McNeill on May 2, 2011 at 16:26

David, I'm a bit confused by your post.

I wasn't drawing any real conclusion, merely highlighting your point about over-50% support. The line in the middle of my post is a verbatim, copy/paste from the document posted by Richard which I attribute to you.

Whatever, I think the fact remains that in the final count (the two-candidate 'run-off'), every single vote for the party that wins was cast by someone that either preferred that candidate over the loser or didn't vote for the loser at all.

It was this realization, which you nudged me towards, that clinched my support of the change. It also makes a blatant lie of the No Campaign's assertion that the third placed candidate can win. (Or should that be that it adds another lie to list of blatant lies.)

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