The AV referendum - 5th May

[SiHart]

It may have escaped people's notics, but we're having a referendum on AV- the Alternative Voting system on May 6th at the same time as the local government elections.

But what does it mean? What are the choices? I don't really know as we don't seem to have been sent any information on it.

But this morning I found this site: http://www.yestofairervotes.org/pages/what-is-av which explaisn how it works and points out some of the myths associated with the system that are being trotted out by MPs
http://www.yestofairervotes.org/pages/av-myths I found it very helpful and thought I'd share it with you.

And ask your opinion- is it a good move or bad one?

Si xx

[Jason Thompson]

I'm not convinced by some of their arguments on the myths page. Certainly not by their first one that claims it won't cost more to implement. The numbers might not be right, but the fact remains that the AV system is more complex to count than a simple case of dividing ballot papers into piles for each candidate based on where the cross is on the paper and then adding them up. Electronic counting machines or hand counting is irrelevant: more processing time is required, and hence either new machines are needed or more work by people is needed, and that has to be paid for.

They also seem to miss the point with their 'it's too confusing' myth. Yes, the process of voting by ranking candidates is easy for the individual voter. The confusion is to do with the counting up part later and how everyone's votes are counted to produce a winner in the event of no clear majority arising from people's first choices. Their job interview analogy is flawed, since the final choice has nothing to do with voting and can often come down to something as trivial as who had fewer spelling mistakes in their CV if the candidates are otherwise evenly matched. Their chip shop analogy is also flawed, as they are not describing a system where everyone gets their own choice at the end of the process. It's more like getting a party of people to all eat the same thing when you have a vegetarian, a few people with religious dietary requirements, a gluten intolerant person and someone who hates chips, even before you get to the chip shop and find they're all out of onion rings.


It also does little to alleviate the dilemma we faced in the last election: namely that the local MP we supported (because he was frankly head and shoulders above the rest in terms of local policies, not resorting to personal attacks on his opponents, and his attitude to the public in general) was a member of the party that we did not want to actually govern the whole country.

[Rob McCow]

It's slightly better than the current system, in my opinion. It's slightly more representative.

With the current Boroughs and 'First Past The Post' system, there's a big problem. If you vote Conservative in a constituency where a Labour candidate wins, your vote does not count towards who forms the Government. It's discarded.

In addition, the candidate with the highest number of votes wins. So if you had a seat where the vote was split between three or four candidates, a candidate could win even though the majority of people voted against them.

This is what Alternative Vote addresses (to an extent). My understanding of how it works is this:

1. Voters choose their first, second and third preferences with their vote. So they could choose Janet first, then John second.
2. If Janet gets the required number of votes from the first preferences, she wins. End of story.
3. If no-one wins outright, the second preferences are counted. (Then the third, and so on).
4. Eventually, either Janet or John will reach the required total of votes and win the seat.

So at the first count, Janet could be in the lead. But if everybody's second preference is for John, then he would win the seat.

I've put in 'Quotes' because it's important.

Under the current system, campaigners focus on a few small areas of the country, the 'Swing seats' where there's a narrow difference between the parties. With AV, the parties will have to make more of an effort to engage with more of the people. We'd all win, because the government would have to work harder to win our support, which would get more people to actively participate in politics.

[WhiteCrowNZ]

Oooh - do I get to vote? Been wanting to vote for this for years ...

[Rob McCow]

Are you still a citizen, Mike? Do you get a postal vote?

[Larry]

well I agree with what several people have said on the news over the last few days 1 person 1 vote , I think it's wrong that a candidate could in theory come 3rd on the first round of voting yet still go on to win once all the different choices have been taken into consideration. So i'm far from convinced that A.V is the right way forward and that's why i'll be voting against it.

[Dino]

Angela Eagle won the last election in my ward. Despite this, the Conservatives and Lib Dems who both trailed, joined forces and took over the council. If they can pull stuff like that with "First Past The Post", I hate to see what they'd get up to with the new voting system?
So that's a "No" vote from me.
But I'm not going to join the campaign for a "No" vote. It's just my personal view and I'll probably be outvoted etc...

[Rob McCow]

1 person 1 vote

Yes, but that's not what we have under the current system.
If you don't vote for the winning candidate in your constituency, your vote counts nothing towards who forms government. So that's 1 person, no vote.

I hate to see what they'd get up to with the new voting system

Conversely, it would make it harder for that situation to occur, because providing a ranked alternative vote would make it clearer who the electorate didn't want to win.

[SiHart]

It also does little to alleviate the dilemma we faced in the last election: namely that the local MP we supported (because he was frankly head and shoulders above the rest in terms of local policies, not resorting to personal attacks on his opponents, and his attitude to the public in general) was a member of the party that we did not want to actually govern the whole country.

Tricky one that one, isn't it? I wouldn't know what was best to do at that point either.

On the whole issue I'm rather worried that we're not being properly informed about something as important as this. There doesn't seem to be anything official stating exactly what happens under each system so you can adequately get your head around it. How are we supposed to make an informed choice without that?

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

The TV schedules are about to be rocked by the AV Ad!

Created by Farm, the Government's "birds" campaign includes 30-second and 20-second spots that introduce a booklet, which explains the referendum for the voting system used to elect MPs to the House of Commons.

Briefed by the COI and Electoral Commission, the campaign will launch on 1 April and span across TV, radio and press. The aim is to create awareness of the referendum taking place on 5 May. It will also direct viewers to the Electoral Commission's website aboutmyvote.co.uk.

The campaign has been produced by 76 Ltd and media handled by GroupM's M4C.

The vote on will determine whether to keep the first-past-the-post system for electing MPs or to switch to the alternative vote (AV), which allows voters to rank candidates in their constituency in order of preference.
The ad was directed by Yann Secouet from 76 Ltd with Farm's Gary Robinson as creative director, Edward Copland, copywriter, and Lee Williams as art director.

[Captain Tancredi]

As things stand, I'll probably vote for- I think one of the problems we're going to have in this country assuming that things don't improve dramatically in the next three or four years is that voters will increasingly turn out to vote against the government of the day for not making things better rather than for something. We're a bit short of people who can communicate vision and inspiration at the moment, and I think anything which encourages people to vote positively is good.

The alternative is that we end up in a cycle of voting Labour to get rid of the Tories and four or five years later vote Tory to kick Labour out again. One of the reasons why we ended up with a hung parliament was that none of the parties succeeded in making a compelling case as a party of government and it would need the whole country to unite against the current cuts or Ed Miliband to win a personality in Labour's annual raffle to make a real difference to that.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I didn't click the link because I think getting impartial advice from a site called yestofairervotes is probably unlikely.

I don't really see the point of this to be honest. If you have a vote between four or five candidates then it's unrealistic to expect or demand that the winner has more than 50% of the vote. Adding up 2nd and 3rd choice votes as if they count the same as a 1st choice vote is just a way of massaging the numbers really, it's never REALLY going to mean that more than 50% of people have chosen someone. For most constituencies it's not going to make any difference anyway, and in those where nobody gets their first choice, but more people get their 2nd choice, is that really an improvement?

And if you live in a constituency (like I do) where one party always wins and you happen to prefer another party, then they're still not going to win and your vote is still going to be effectively wasted. The only kind of proportional representation that would ever fix that would be to have a national vote where your vote goes towards a party total regardless of where you live, but that would require a complete overhaul of the whole parliamentary system. But really, anything less than that is just window dressing so why bother?

[Larry]

.

On the whole issue I'm rather worried that we're not being properly informed about something as important as this. There doesn't seem to be anything official stating exactly what happens under each system so you can adequately get your head around it. How are we supposed to make an informed choice without that?

Si xx

that maybe because the Conservatives don't want it and the less information about AV, and more people are likely to vote against it.

[SiHart]

That's entirely possible Larry

Simon

[Rob McCow]

I didn't click the link because I think getting impartial advice from a site called yestofairervotes is probably unlikely.

Well, you could look at the site and then head to the Telegraph for the other side?

[Si Hunt]

I say bring back the Audio Visuals NOW!

Si.

[Paul Monk]

From what I can make of this system I'm not sure its any fairer than the system we have now.
If I've got this right, your ideal candidate may get the most votes in your area but if they don't get enough they're effectively out and then it goes to second votes and so on until the least popular candidate is the one that gets elected. So the person that in terms of no. of votes, actually wins, loses under this system. Weird.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

They don't get knocked out, they just then get 2nd choice votes added to their 1st choice votes, then 3rd choice etc until someone has more than 50% of the vote.

[Larry]

well certainly with a month to go untill this vote I'm quite supprised that the government are not doing more to make people aware of what A.V, is and that there is even a vote - ok it may be a Lib Dem, thing but at the very least I'd of expected a leaflet about A.V. to of been sent with my polling card when I received it last week.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I don't think the government wants it, so best to leave people in ignorance so they don't vote for it.

[Andrew Curnow]

I can't help but think that, given the current state of things, there might be better things the government could be spending our money on.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Got a little leaflet about this through the post today. One part that caught my eye was the section explaining when AV would come into effect if most people vote "yes". It's perhaps slightly ambiguously-worded, but it seems to be saying that if MPs vote against changing the constituency boundaries after an upcoming review, then the voting system will stay as it is and AV won't be implemented at all, regardless of the result of the referendum.

This seems a little bit cheeky to me, as where the constituency boundaries are, and how the votes are counted in each constituency, seem to be two seperate issues. It seems to be a bit pointless having a referendum for issue X, if MPs later voting "no" to issue Y renders it moot.

Unless I misunderstood of course.

[Jason Thompson]

Well, the leaflet explained the ballot system quite concisely, but still not in any great detail. There are many possible complex outcomes of the AV system that were not addressed (the model assumed a clear leader, and makes no mention of the result of an even split at any stage).

Personally I think both methods are equally flawed, and that the AV method has the potential for some very confusing outcomes, especially given the notion that any voter can rank any number of candidates, so there is no guarantee that when a further round of counting is required there will be any ranking points to count. Frankly the idea of any party getting a greater than 50% share of the votes when a) we have three main political parties, and b) there are so many other parties active, is outdated and absurd. Maybe the problem lies not in the way we choose government but the way in which the political parties vying for leadership fail to motivate the populace to vote for them en masse.

And in any case it does not address the bigger issue for me, which is the way in which local results translate to government of the country as a whole. As I said, in the last election our best local candidate was a member of the party we did not want running the whole country.

[Paul Monk]

Its a silly system. Its main flaw being that the 2nd choice votes count the same as a first choice which is stupid. There should be some sort of weighting system added.

[Rob McCow]

Ah yes, but as soon as you add a weighting system then it gets even more complex!

What Jason wants is for Party preference to be separated from Candidate preference, which I believe you can do under some forms of proportional representation.

AV is a silly system, but then First-past-the-post is an outright ludicrous system. It's like choosing between the Silly Party and the Very Silly Party from that Monty Python election sketch.