AV: Yes or No? A comparison of the Campaigns’ ‘reasons’

At last we have some sensible claims to compare, at the Beeb. Here are some comments:

YES Campaign

Its reasons

1. AV makes people work harder
2. AV cuts safe seats
3. AV is a simple upgrade
4. AV makes votes count
5. AV is our one chance for a change

An Assessment

These are essentially taken from the all-party Jenkins Commission. The NO Campaign rejoinders seem to be:

1. Not significantly so.
2. Not significantly so.
3. AV will require computers and £250M to implement (see below).
4. AV Makes votes count twice, or more (se below).
5. Too right!

A Summary

Worthy, but dull.

An Addenda

I would add:

• There would be a lot less need for tactical voting
• The results would more reliably indicate people’s actual first preferences
• It would be a lot easier to vote out an unpopular government – no ‘vote splitting’
• It would make it possible for a new party to grow support across elections to challenge the status quo.
• It may lead to greater turnout, especially in seats that are currently safe

NO Campaign Reasons

AV is unfair

Claim

“… some people would get their vote counted more times than others. For generations, elections in the UK have been based on the fundamental principle of ‘one person, one vote’. AV would undermine all that by allowing the supporters of fringe parties to have their second, third or fourth choices counted – while supporters of the mainstream candidates would only get their vote counted once.”

Notes

According to the Concise OED a vote is ‘a formal expression of will or opinion in regard to election of … signified by ballot …’ Thus the Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Australians, who cast similar ballots to AV, ‘have one vote’. The NO Campaign use of the term ‘counted’ is also confusing. The general meaning is a ‘reckoning’, and in this sense each polling station has one count per election, and this remains true under AV. A peculiarity of AV is that ballots are also counted in the sense of ‘find number of”. (See ‘maths of voting’ for more.)

Assessment

There is no obvious principle that requires us to stick with FPTP: all ballots are counted according to the same rules.

Should ‘supporters of fringe parties’ have their second preferences counted? The ‘fringe’ includes:

• Local candidates, such as a doctor trying to stop the closure of a hospital
• The Greens
• In some constituencies, Labour, LibDem, Conservative.

AV is blind to everything except how voters rank them. Consider an election in which the top three candidates get 30%, 28%, 26%, with some also-rans. According to the NO campaign the candidate with a narrow margin should be declared the winner. Thus they would disregard the preferences of anyone who votes for their hospital (say). Is this reasonable?

AV is not widely used

True-ish, but neither is FPTP (in terms of countries – one of them is large), and variants of AV (IRV, STV, …) together are the most widely used.

AV is expensive

Countries with AV don’t have election machinery. Australian elections may cost more than ours, but it is a much bigger country with a smaller population. 

AV hand more power to politicians

See the Jenkins Commission.

AV supporters are sceptical

Opposition to FPTP is split between variants of AV, with single-member constituencies and forms of PR. The Jenkins Commission recommended AV+, seeking to provide the best of both. The referendum is FPTP and hence can only cope with two alternatives: YES or NO.

I don’t know that AV supporters are sceptical against a move away from FPTP – just differ on what would be ideal.

Addenda

• The NO campaign is playing down the ‘strong and stable government’ argument. The flip side is that an unpopular government can survive.
• A traditional argument for FPTP was that it encourages tactical voting and hence politicking, and hence develops tough leaders, good at dealing with foreigners. We haven’t heard this, this time. Maybe the times are different?

See Also

• Wikipedia and Jenkins
• The NO Campaign’s worst example
• The Mathematics of Voting