#no2av

On the day of the Alternative Vote referendum, I conducted a simple exit poll in our office foyer. We have about 50 people working in our building and while the poll might not have been scientific or statistically significant, the results showed that AV was certainly favoured in our neck of the woods.

Interestingly, this seems to chime with the official results. The Hackney Citizen reports:

Hackney has bucked the trend, voting 61% in favour of the proposed changes to the parliamentary electoral system.

The ‘yes’ vote beat the ‘no’ vote in only six London boroughs (Camden, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Southwark and Hackney)

The sheer number of people I've seen saying they're voting NO on the AV election because it's ~complicated~ or ~unnecessarily confusing~ is beginning to worry me. Like, seriously? It's not that difficult.

The Guardian's got a handy interactive guide to it, in a short 5 slides.

And why are so many people buying the dead babies and ousted nurses bullshit? Even if we spent zilch on this referendum I still doubt they'd see any of that money with the way things have been going lately. Not to mention the blatant lying from the No2AV side over money.

Today is a big day in the UK. We get to choose whether we get a new voting system for future elections.

The current system we have splits each city up into small chunks, takes the top (majority) result for your small chunk, and then that is meant to represent your vote. But not so much if you voted for someone who didn't get the majority in your chunk.

The AV (Alternative Vote) is a system where each individual vote will count. Yes, it's true that only three other countries use the system; but most countries in the world either have obscenely corrupt governments who look after the system that looks after them, or they simply aren't the right size for the system.

What the 'No2AV' campaigners don't tell you is that just because only 3 other countries use AV, it does NOT mean that every other country in the world uses our current system. In fact, far from it.

In 1931, Parliament debated the introduction of the Alternative Vote system. During the debate, Winston Churchill spoke passionately against the proposals, using the now famous quote "worthless votes for the most worthless candidates" Below is a fuller text of what he said, Churchill was seldom wrong, the country heeded his words then and we need to heed them now.

The Government have, as it seems to me, rejected without reasonable consideration both the method of Proportional Representation and this method of the second ballot. The plan that they have adopted is the worst of all possible plans. It is the stupidest, the least scientific and the most unreal that the Government have embodied in their Bill. The decision of 100 or more constituencies, perhaps 200, is to be determined by the most worthless votes given for the most worthless candidates.’

‘Imagine making the representation of great constituencies dependent on the second preferences of the hindmost candidates. The hindmost candidate would become a personage of considerable importance, and the  old phrase, “Devil take the hindmost,” will acquire a new significance. I do not believe it will be beyond the resources of astute wire-pullers to secure the right kind of hindmost candidates to be broken up in their party interests. There may well be a multiplicity of weak and fictitious candidates in order to make sure that the differences between No. 1 and No. 2 shall be settled, not by the second votes of No. 3, but by the second votes of No. 4 or No. 5, who may, presumably give a more favourable turn to the party concerned.

This method is surely the child of folly, and will become the parent of fraud. Neither the voters nor the candidates will be dealing with realities. An element of blind chance and accident will enter far more largely into our electoral decisions than even before, and respect for Parliament and Parliamentary processes will decline lower than it is at present.

‘It is a Bill which will weaken the structure of Parliament and vitiate electoral procedure. Great sacrifices may be demanded of us for great causes, but rarely has so great a sacrifice been demanded of our country for so petty a cause as this, when the fabric of the House of Commons is rotted and popular elections are confused, in order to secure a few more months’ experience of the bitter sweets of office to this dismal, fatuous and impotent Administration.’  

[EDIT: This is so TLDR it's not even funny. I hope it's worth reading, as I tried to explain my reasoning as clearly as possible on what I feel is a very important issue.]

This year's referendum concerns voting procedure for our general elections, and specifically the question of whether our existing "first past the post" method should be replaced by what is called the "alternative vote" method.

The AV system, to use its short name, requires the winner of each constituency to have a majority of voters supporting him or her, 50% +1. If, after the first count of votes, no candidate has reached that 50% threshold, then the person with the lowest number drops out, and their votes re-checked for second preferences.

These second preference votes are then added to the remaining candidates' tallies. If this takes one of them over the 50% threshold, then they are declared the winner. If still no-one has reached 50%, then the next lowest person drops out, and their 2nd preference votes are again distributed, along with the 3rd preferences for those who supported the initial loser, and gave their 2nd preference votes to this person.

It continues in this manner until somebody reaches the magic mark of 50%, even if the number of candidates must be whittled down to two to get at least one of them over the threshold.

To facilitate this, the way in which voters mark their ballot paper must change. Instead of marking a single X for one candidate, they will instead use numbers to show their preference. They can still go with just one, or can mark the entire list in order of preference. Obviously, by marking just one candidate the voter takes the risk of their vote being discarded should that candidate eventually drop out by finishing last.

It really is not complicated at all, and shouldn't be any more difficult for voters than the current system. Counts on election nights will probably take a bit longer, but that's not the end of the world.

I am fully in support of the change to the voting system. It is fairer than our current system, and more likely to produce the kind of politics and politicians that I want to see.

Saying that, though, I know it is insufficient. What we should have is at least a chunk of proportional representation, so that every vote can be shown to count in the nationwide scheme of things. We are electing a national government, after all, and there is a need for our make-up of politicians to represent the votes cast nationwide.

Currently, there are too many safe seats in the country, which will pretty much never change hands except in the biggest of landslides. If memory serves, the Economist this week quoted a study which said "winnable" seats for any party only make up approximately 16% or so of the total seats. The other 84% of seats have very, very rarely changed parties in the last few decades.

AV won't by itself solve this problem, but it helps. It can lessen the need for tactical voting, for casting your vote for a party not because you support it, but because they can beat the party which you oppose. That cheapens your vote, and cements any two-party domination of your constituency.

With AV, you can vote for the party you fully support, and then cast your second vote for a party that is perhaps more likely to win. This enables your main party to be better-supported in a particular area, and perhaps target more resources towards it next time, giving you a better chance of seeing your preferred party win in the future.

It will also have more immediate effects, in the form of more consensual politics. The vast majority of constituencies in Britain were won in the last general election by candidates polling less than 50%. By targetting their base, and ignoring the majority of voters in their area, they win, but are not necessarily representative of that constituency's political make-up.

AV will require each candidate to build more of a consensus in their constituency, and to have wider appeal. This will naturally move them towards the middle of the political spectrum, away from tribal rhetoric and divisive platforms.

(This consensus-building will also reduce the chances of extremist parties being able to win seats, which is a big positive for the AV system. Racist and hateful groups like the BNP and EDL have no part to play in politics.)

Hopefully, the wider appeal at constituency level will trickle upwards to the national level, when these elected representatives take their places at Westminster. They will know that being tribal after being elected will damage their reputation locally, and reduce their chances of being re-elected. This should mean more willingness to build a consensus with their counterparts in other parties, where possible.

This for me is the focus of why I'm voting Yes to AV: it lays the foundation for more consensus in our political system, from top to bottom. I don't want to see tribal politics wreck the country through arguing and stubbornness (c.f. the budget debate in US Congress), and I think that there is more to be gained through working together than being diametrically opposed for the purpose of appealling to an ever-diminishing base.

The whole range of politics in this country has become ever more centrist in recent decades, and yet we still have this divide between political parties on certain issues that prevents co-operation on other issues. AV goes some way to reducing the divide, and that is why I support it.

It's also the first step along the road to proportional representation, which is a goal that remains some way off. Rejecting AV means that we won't see the issue of PR raised for decades, and nor a resurrection of AV itself. For PR's sake, AV needs to succeed.