The Alternative Vote

[barcode]

That's the way I understand it, Chie. Of course there's no cause for the voter who only chose one candidate to feel hard done by - it's entirely their choice to only make one selection.

But if there is only one candidate who represents the voter's views, what are they supposed to do? All they can do if choose one candidate. Whereas other voters, who may feel their views are represented by 4 candidates, effectively get 4 goes, which kind of flies in the face of the yes campaign's argument that AV is fairer than FPTP.

AV purpose to allow more candidates to stand to allow greater view of the public does it not, I dare say many UKIP ect may just vote tory thus it will help them. BNP voters seems to come from a wider church ie ex labour voters

[dosxuk]

That's the way I understand it, Chie. Of course there's no cause for the voter who only chose one candidate to feel hard done by - it's entirely their choice to only make one selection.

But if there is only one candidate who represents the voter's views, what are they supposed to do? All they can do if choose one candidate.

Correct. You can withdraw your vote if you have no opinion on the remaining candidates.

Whereas other voters, who may feel their views are represented by 4 candidates, effectively get 4 goes,

It's not "effectively getting 4 goes", it's allowing people to say "if my first preference is rejected, I would rather this candidate got my vote instead". It isn't some kind of competition to guess the winner, and you only get a prize if you vote for the correct candidate.

which kind of flies in the face of the yes campaign's argument that AV is fairer than FPTP.

On the second+ rounds of counting, where second+ preferences are counted, it's not a case of giving those who failed a second chance, it's allowing those who's voted for the disqualified candidate(s) to have a view on where their vote is put amongst the remaining candidates. They are allowed to withdraw their vote if they have no preference. The No to AV group like to portray this as multiple votes, but it isn't in the slightest, every voter only gets one vote, but they can move that vote if the person they wanted to represent them most doesn't get a majority. I feel this is fairer and more representative than the heavily manipulated voting we get under FPTP, where a majority of people are unable to vote for who they want to win because they feel they have to vote for a party in order to try to beat the candidate they don't want.

Someone could put 10 preferences down (providing there's sufficient candidates obviously), but still only have their first preference counted.

[eoin]

Your "most popular" person under FPTP can also be your "most unpopular" person, with a majority held by the "unpopular" group.

Under AV, this can't happen. The "least unpopular" candidate has to have a majority of voters who think they are acceptable in order to win the seat.

Therefore in my eyes at least, more people will be happier under AV, where [provided they vote for the eventual winner] they may not have got their favourite candidate winning, but it will be someone they find acceptable.

... and there is the divide, I do not consider a transferred vote as being valid in such comparisons others do.

DVB, you've not really answered dosxuk's point here. Presumably you don't consider the transferred vote valid because you don't accept his reasoning on the "most unpopular", "least unpopular" and "most popular" candidates. But you haven't explained why.

Say, for example, you're with a group of people with limited resources to buy food. It's decided to have fruit for lunch, but only one type can be bought in order to save money by buying in bulk. You need to decide whether the group will have apples or bananas for lunch. A vote is taken. 60% of people love apples and hate bananas. 40% love bananas and hate apples. But the apples group is divided roughly evenly over whether to have Granny Smith or Golden Delicious. Most of the Granny Smith fans would quite happily settle for Golden Delicious if it meant not having to eat bananas. But because of the method used to vote, the whole group, most of whom hate bananas, end up having to eat them for lunch anyway.

To take this hypothetical situation a little further (bear with me), in an ad hoc show-of-hands type situation, the Granny Smith people would probably protest aloud that in the event of no Granny Smiths being available, they'd much prefer a nice Golden Delicious over a banana, thankyouverymuch. Some bloody banana-lover's protests about natural justice and stitch ups and invalidity of votes and "you should have tactically backed one type of apple" would, I'd imagine, be met with short shrift, as they'd seem quite unreasonable the banana-hating majority.

So, DVB, can you explain to me why all those banana-haters should have to eat bananas in punishment for having tastes a little more nuanced than simply apple or banana?

By the way, I realise the explanation above takes this right down to basics. It's not intended to be patronising, honestly, I just can't see how anyone could disagree with this analogy.

[eoin]

Separate point: although "nobody else uses this system" is a pretty piss-poor argument against it anyway, it's worth pointing out that AV, also known as instant-runoff voting, is simply a more cost- and time-efficient version of plain vanilla runoff voting (the two-round system).

If we consider that both systems produce broadly the same results, then the Fiji, Australia and Papua New Guinea argument pretty much falls apart. Because the runoff system, according to Wikipedia, "is used in French presidential, legislative, and cantonal elections, and also to elect the presidents of Afghanistan, Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Dominican Republic, Finland, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Uruguay, Zimbabwe".

[Chie]

It's not "effectively getting 4 goes", it's allowing people to say "if my first preference is rejected, I would rather this candidate got my vote instead".

Even so, each preference carries the same weight as the voter's first preference, even though they like their fourth preference less than their first preference. It's ridiculous. I can't believe the nation is wasting so much time and money on this. It's not even a miserable little compromise, it's just crap.

Anyway, the result of the latest Comres poll:

No: 66%
Yes: 34%

[DVB Cornwall]

Quite simply - 35pct vote for the winning candidate, their most popular choice, 32pct vote for the second candidate. The most popular of the two is the winner on first preference, no matter how many transferred votes are added to the second candidate, their popularity based on first choice cannot possibly exceed that of the first.

If when receiving transfers the candidate receiving 32pct gets over 50pct and gets 'elected' they are elected on an inferior preference, bolstered by the votes of others whose first preference is eliminated.

Wholly unsatisfactory and against natural justice to the candidate gaining most first preferences and to those who voted for him or her.

[marksi]

Wholly unsatisfactory and against natural justice to the candidate gaining most first preferences and to those who voted for him or her.

Frankly, rubbish.

Would you be in favour of fully blown PR? Or are you entirely wedded to First Past the Post owing to the fact that it unfairly gives the party of your choice a greater chance of winning despite the fact that a majority of people did not vote for it?

[eoin]

Quite simply - 35pct vote for the winning candidate, their most popular choice, 32pct vote for the second candidate. The most popular of the two is the winner on first preference, no matter how many transferred votes are added to the second candidate, their popularity based on first choice cannot possibly exceed that of the first.

If when receiving transfers the candidate receiving 32pct gets over 50pct and gets 'elected' they are elected on an inferior preference, bolstered by the votes of others whose first preference is eliminated.

Wholly unsatisfactory and against natural justice to the candidate gaining most first preferences and to those who voted for him or her.

Yeah, you still haven't really explained why it's wholly unsatisfactory. Why is my preference an "inferior preference"?

If the candidate who got 35% in the first round failed to have this bumped up to 50 in the second then he/she was clearly quite unpopular with the remaining voters. More people are happy with the candidate elected in the end. The candidate is more representative of their constituency. What exactly is so objectionable about this?

And please address my banana-apple analogy. It took a good 15 minutes of my life to write. Do it the courtesy of a response. Why should the whole group have to eat bananas when most of them would prefer apples? I suspect you've ignored this point as you've no good answer to it.

[cdd]

I would like to hear from those against AV why they, effectively, want to force people to express less detail than they would like to on their ballot paper.

After all, under AV, you're still able to express support for only one candidate. (I think I even remember reading that you can still use an 'X' if marking only one).

And if there aren't enough secondary preferences for a candidate to be elected with >50% support, a candidate could theoretically still be elected with with a smaller quantity, just like FPP.

The only arbitrary thing about AV is the number 50. But "more than half" is, I think, the least arbitrary of numbers since it represents the majority of the population which is what democracy is meant to be about.

Those who want to express more refined detail on their ballot can. Those who don't want to can choose not to. It's for that reason that I take against DVB Cornwall's argument.

FPP retentionists are basically saying "I don't want to express support for more than one party on my ballot paper so nobody else should be able to". Riiight.

(Incidentally, if you want some depressing reading, take a look at page 17 of this ICM opinion poll commissioned a little while back by The Guardian. Tory voters are 73% likely to vote for FPP, whereas Lib Dem voters are only 35% likely to. It suggests that the appeals to party politics to influence the AV vote are working, and that the majority of AV votes are going to be for political reasons - and I think everyone can agree that's wrong.)

[marksi]

Here in this part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland we use the following systems for our elections:

Stormont: Proportional Representation.
Local Councils: Proportional Representation.
European Union: Proportional Representation.
Westminster: First Past the Post.

We haven't got expensive voting machines. The public here has no difficulty in using PR. The counting does take a bit longer. (Watch for yourself on Friday from 1500 on BBC ONE NI/1900 on BBC TWO NI).

I fail to understand why some people can think that a candidate acceptable to 40% of voters is preferable to a candidate acceptable to 60% of voters. Are we doing democracy here or are we discussing survival of the fittest?

[cdd]

Are you entirely wedded to First Past the Post owing to the fact that it unfairly gives the party of your choice a greater chance of winning despite the fact that a majority of people did not vote for it?

Well said. I haven't seen any views against AV that don't resolve to the view-holder being either ill-informed, thick, or self-interested. I'm quite frankly not sure which of the three is worse, but the No2AV is clearly a hefty dose of the latter which contributes to the former.

David Cameron's speeches and interviews are quite an eye opener in that respect: he may not be the sharpest tool in the box but nobody who got to that position can be that dim. Tactical and disgusting.