AV - how to vote?

[andikay]

Mathematically speaking, and ignoring any political preferences, I think it boils down to three choices.

 

Firstly, the existing FPTP system, which has the large advantage of simplicity. You vote - your votes are counted - the person with most votes wins.

 

Secondly, the pure PR system, where you abandon the notion of constituencies altogether and have a party list. Each party gets exactly the percentage of seats that its percentage of votes says it should get.

 

Thirdly, of all the various non-FPTP ways to appoint a constituency candidate, Approval Voting is the one least subject to paradoxical outcomes. You never get someone losing who would have won if he'd secured less votes. You never get a person who wins in one half of a constituency, wins in the other half, but loses overall. (Both of those things can happen under AV, or Single Transferable Vote.)

 

 

But here's yet another paradox. If you held a referendum on these three choices, and none of them secured an outright 50%-plus-one-vote - how would you count the votes of the referendum? AV? STV? Approval voting? Would you hold a referendum to decide under what system you'd count votes for the referendum? You could go on forever.

 

There's another mathematical treatment that shows that, given a large number of people and a large number of choices, it is a certainty that "the general public" will hold illogical and contradictory views, even though each single person has perfectly logical and consistent ones. There just isn't a "good" answer to this question.

 

For the record, most of the mathematical stuff that I'm referring to but not giving in any great detail, comes out of a book called

"Archmedes' Revenge" by Paul Hoffman. one chapter of which is devoted to mathematical examples of why, and how, these problems occur. Hoffman himself comes down in favour of approval voting.

 

When you look at the results from the last two elections you can see the FPTP system isn't fair.

 

The Conservatives got more votes than Labours previous win but did not win.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

 

In 2005 Labour got 9,552,436 votes and won,

In 2005 the Conservatives got 8,784,915 votes and lost.

In 2010 the Conservatives got 10,726,614 votes but didn’t win

In 2010 Labour got 8,609,527 votes and lost,

 

Lib dems got 5,985,454 in 2005 6,836,824 in 2010

[mattleonard]

Here's an example.

 

BNP and UKIP both have candidates in the constituency. You definitely don't want the BNP in - under AV a good tactical vote might seem to be to put UKIP first to ensure the BNP come last, so that if it goes to a second round, the BNP will be eliminated and the UKIP second choices aren't all going to the BNP. But now, UKIP are still in and your UKIP first choice vote is still being counted despite you not actually liking UKIP. It is now bolstered by all the BNP-lovers who put UKIP second.

[mattleonard]

When you look at the results from the last two elections you can see the FPTP system isn't fair.

 

The Conservatives got more votes than Labours previous win but did not win.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/election2010/results/

 

In 2005 Labour got 9,552,436 votes and won,

In 2005 the Conservatives got 8,784,915 votes and lost.

In 2010 the Conservatives got 10,726,614 votes but didn’t win

In 2010 Labour got 8,609,527 votes and lost,

 

Lib dems got 5,985,454 in 2005 6,836,824 in 2010

 

But that problem isn't solved by AV. It might be by PR, but not AV.

[mattleonard]

I give someone my vote but it's not counted,

 

In what way is it not counted?

[HeadingNorth]

So far it seems that AV gives all of the benefits that you're after, without introducing any problems that aren't present under FPTP. Or are there problems other than the preference weighting issue and the lack of time for reflection that we haven't yet discussed?

 

I've mentioned a few, but they seem to get swallowed into the void. Perhaps it's because far too many people just go "mathematics - ugh" and ignore what follows.

[HeadingNorth]

When you look at the results from the last two elections you can see the FPTP system isn't fair.

 

That depends on how you define "fair" to begin with. If you define fair as meaning "proportionally representative" then PR is the only fair system, but that would be a worthless argument.

[Akrasia]

I think that one of the crucial influences on who I want to vote for will be the field of candidates. By the time you get to the sixth round this is going to be very different from the first round.

 

Apart from your preferred candidate being eliminated, what might change your preference?

[mattleonard]

Apart from your preferred candidate being eliminated, what might change your preference?

 

See post 93

[dosxuk]

See post 93

 

This only becomes an issue if you are voting tactically though. I think it's more unfair if you are able (in you example) to vote UKIP solely to get the BNP kicked out, and then change your vote to a different party who you actually are interested in winning.

[mattleonard]

This only becomes an issue if you are voting tactically though. I think it's more unfair if you are able (in you example) to vote UKIP solely to get the BNP kicked out, and then change your vote to a different party who you actually are interested in winning.

 

And yet the need for the very same tactical voting seems to be one of the main reasons people are currently dissatisfied. AV does little to eliminate the need, and it increases the potential for there to be unintended consequences to such a tactical vote.