Why AV reform would still be a big improvement on Westminster
The possible impact of the alternative vote (AV) on British politics is almost always talked about in the context of seat numbers and tactical voting, with a dash of talk about legitimacy courtesy of AV meaning that each MP has to end up with at least 50% plus 1 of the transferable votes.
Having a decent relationship between vote share and seat numbers is an important part of what a voting system should deliver (and the failure of first past the post to do that is part of what originally made me join the Liberal Democrats).
However, the votes / seats correlation is not the only factor to consider when evaluating the alternative vote.
If it was, national list PR would be the best electoral system. Rather, the votes / seats correlation is one of a number of factors, factors which at times can be contradictory – and which therefore help keep debates about the most suitable electoral system bubbling along.
So that’s one reason why my eyes tend to glaze over when another seats projection showing how AV might work appears. It’s not just about seats.
A second reason is that I’m dubious about the value of such projections even in their own terms. You don’t just change the way votes are counted when you change an electoral system. You also change the ways parties, the media and the public behave. So asking someone how they would vote if there was an AV election tomorrow is a rather false question because before any actual AV election we’ll see a different dynamic of electioneering.
It may well also be that when faced with an actual ballot paper the public’s behaviour will change in unexpected ways. We’ve already seen how the number of votes for parties other than the major ones shot up on the list element of the Scottish and London devolved elections – far more so than expected in advance.
The third reason is an extension of this. What really interests me about AV is the change in political culture it can bring about. Personally, I would prefer STV because it both brings multi-member constituencies (thus, for example, usually allowing voters to continue to support their preferred party even if there is an individual candidate they really want to vote against such as because of their record on a local issue) and also because it has preferential voting. AV may fail on the former but it too has the latter.
Under preferential voting most candidates hoping to win most of the time have to have an eye on appealing to the second preferences of those who cast a first preference for another party. That imposes a significant burden on the style of politics where you seek out any difference between yourself and another party and inflate it to baby-eating monstrosity levels.
Instead of politics where everything is black and white, AV with its shades of grey when you vote encourages shades of grey in campaigning.
That does not stop passionate disagreement where it’s justified, but it would be a healthy brake on some of the more juvenile styles of politics that we see all too often.
So whilst AV isn’t my first choice of voting system, what it should do for our political culture makes it a big improvement on our current system.
One aspect of AV deeply worries me, or maybe ive got the wrong information regarding how it would work? If the bottom candidates votes are re-allocated that woud effectively result in that parties supporters being able to vote against the leading candidate denying the majority of first preference voters thier choice of MP.
In my constituency last time the vote below assuming the great majority of CON votes would then be transferred to the Liberal would result in an MP supporting policies which would be very unpopular in a working class seat,
LAB 42% LIB DEM 28% CON 25%
This appears to me to be anti democratic and for that reason I would ot support the proposed change.
Laurie,
You do understand AV correctly. I disagree that the outcome in your scenario would be “anti democratic”: if a majority of voters in a pairwise comparison prefer the Lib Dem candidate to the Labour one, they surely the democratic outcome is that the Lib Dem should win.
Also, just because someone is working class, don’t assume they are automatically a Labour supporter. That’s as silly as assuming that all well-off people support the Tories.
(Incidently, it’s unwise to make the assumption that the “great majority” of Conservative voters would transfer their votes to the Lib Dem — some undoubtedly would, and probably more would than would transfer to Labour. But many wouldn’t have a 2nd preference. Most voters vote in part for idiosyncratic reasons, and their views can’t neatly be pigeonholed.)
Phillip,
You dont say my understanding is wrong in the way the above scenario would result..
However, I beleve there is a big difference between a 1st prefrence votes value and a 2nd preference votes value, for a lot of peple I dont think it means a lot to have a 2nd preference as you indeed suggest. By the way Im really just pointing out that in a coalition situation as we have now, few peole would have voted for the Tory policies which we have ended up with and from my view this would be anti-democratic particuarly if initially the Tory candidate only ad a quarter of the votes compared to the Labour candidate just below half of the vote.
Laurie: two points to add to the comments above. First, you said in your first comment, “assuming the great majority…”. The point about AV is that you don’t have to make any such assumptions about how people’s other preferences might stack up. They get to record them on the ballot paper. I think that’s better than second guessing what you think they may have thought.
Second, I disagree with your point about the relative worth of different preferences. Put it the other way round: do you think that a vote should count for more if someone is more enthusiastically backing that party than another voter? If so, shouldn’t that logic also apply to a first past the post election? ie if I’m much keener on my party choice than you are on yours, then my vote should count for more.
Would you be happy with me having said at the last election, “Hey, I’m much keener on my vote than you are on yours, so mine should count more”?
Mark,
Given that most commentators agree that last time Labour were saved realatively speaking by their core voters I cant follow the logic as it might apply to my example. The bigger parties each have a far bigger core vote than the Liberals who seem doomed in my view to be banished to the Celtic fringe by their cazy alliance with the Tories. I feel a lot of working class voters will never trust them again, no wonder Simon Hughes is worried.
However, in all this I would consider supporting a more genuine PR system.
Im just saying that AV appears very flawed to me for the reasons I have given.
Laurie: if you think your vote should count as much as mine, why don’t you also apply that logic to AV, instead of saying that you don’t like AV because you think some people’s votes shouldn’t count as much as others?
This debate is getting a bit strained, I think the supporters of PR should come up with a better system than AV. Otherwise there will be no PR as the referendum wilL HIGHLIGHT the fact that AV is not really PR and is being put foward as a sop to the Lib Dems. The other point is that the boundary commission changes will not be subject to public hearings, adding to the coalition stitch up perception of this proposal. Smaller parties like the Greens wont benefit at all, I trust Labour voters will oppose it. My hunch is that it wont get through in the end.
I think that AV (Alternative Vote) is very badly flawed indeed. The side effect of Laurie’s example would be the competition to gain second place and thus the chance of winning outright in the “play-off”. This would mean the 2nd and 3rd place candidates doing their best to destroy each other’s campaigns whilst ignoring the 1st place candidate. And then, as Laurie says, the final decision is made by the voters of the least popular candidate(s). It’s a stupid system.
Much better and much simpler is Approval Voting. In this simple modification of First-Past-the-Post you are allowed to vote for ALL the candidates of whom you approve. Whoever gets the most votes, wins.
And with Approval Voting there is a built-in incentive to run a positive campaign aiming for the widest possible approval from all the electors.
Finally, mathematically there is NO FAIRER SYSTEM for a single member election. As a matter of fact, Approval Voting probably comes closest to the “Condorcet result”, (another extremely fair but far more complicated electoral system).
If we are to retain single member constituencies, Approval Voting is the only way to go. Alternative Vote would actually be a step backwards for proper electoral reform as it would give the illusion of reform without actually doing so, which means we might be stuck with it for decades.