AV - how to vote?

[evildrneil]

I'd say so, very definitely.

 

Why is that - surely a consensus driven approach to politics is better than an ideological one?

[mattleonard]

As I said above in the rest of my statement - if your support is too concentrated nationally then you win only a few and if it is too spread out nationally you can't contest enough seats.

 

AV only blurs this issue out - rather than solving the problem. Whilst it's not ideal, I really think that it is better for a party to be penalised for their support being too concentrated than to be penalised for having too much support.

 

The main root of the problem is that we live in a representative democracy, but have an innate feeling that it should behave like a presidency.

[Akrasia]

Whilst it's not ideal, I really think that it is better for a party to be penalised for their support being too concentrated than to be penalised for having too much support.

 

I think we need to hear under what conditions a party could be penalised for having too much support, so that we can decide how likely we think it is to happen.

[mattleonard]

Also, check

out.

 

It makes me suspicious that one side would try and baffle the public so much if the system they are fighting for really is the best one.

 

It doesn't make you suspicious at all - your mind is clearly made up already.

 

I agree that the No campaign have behaved pretty disgracefully at times, but that doesn't make their conclusion wrong.

[mj.scuba]

I've yet to be convinced why this change is needed at all, so at the moment I'm on the NO side of the fence.

[mattleonard]

It's not to do with 2nd preferences, it's do to with split votes.

 

Imagine a constituency with six candidates: Green, Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative, UKIP, BNP.

 

• 40% of voters have centre-left views: they will vote either Labour, Lib Dem, or Green, and they mostly hate the BNP.
  
• 35% have centre-right views: they will vote either Conservative or UKIP, and about half of them hate the BNP.
  
• 25% have far-right views: they will vote BNP.
  

 

In a head-to-head race, the BNP would lose against each of the other five candidates.

 

• Against a Labour, Lib Dem or Green candidate, their opponent will get all of the centre-left votes and enough of the centre-right candidates to win.
  
• Against a Conservative or UKIP candidate, their opponent will get all of the centre-left votes and all of the centre-right votes and win a landslide.
  

 

Under FPTP, though, the results might come out something like this:

1. BNP 25%
   
2. Conservative 23%
   
3. Labour 18%
   
4. Lib Dem 17%
   
5. UKIP 12%
   
6. Green 5%
   

 

So even though the electorate would prefer any other candidate to the BNP candidate, FPTP would make the BNP candidate the winner.

 

So, in this scenario the sensible thing would be for the mainstream parties to come together and field a single candidate.

[mattleonard]

It's safe to say that anyone who voted Labour or Lib Dem wouldn't have wanted Cameron...

 

This on the other hand makes me very suspicious. If it's so safe to say what people would've wanted why do us plebs need the vote - surely it can be decided for us by the powers that be.

 

I really don't like the idea of someone who no doubt has a clear political viewpoint of their own deciding what other people's viewpoint is.

 

My position in the last election sums this up. Historically I have found my views fairly closely aligned to party A. However, I felt that the country would be better governed by party B. Added to this, I was spectacularly disillusioned with party A at the local level - in my opinion they had behaved shamefully recently and their campaigning tactics were vile. The candidate they were putting forward was someone who I would really struggle to cast a vote for with a clear conscience. Yet party B's candidate was also far from ideal. It was hard to pin down if he had ever visited Sheffield. Which brings me to party C's candidate. Of the mainstream parties, they were the one who I least wanted to govern us. But their candidate for our seat was far and away the strongest on offer. He had a great track record of local public service and interest in the community. I thought he would make a great MP (and my impression is that I have been so far proved right). So I voted for him.

 

As it worked out, everything about the election result was better than I could've hoped or imagined. It won't take much working out for you to deduce that I fitted exactly into the category of people whom you feel it is safe to say don't exist.

[Akrasia]

So, in this scenario the sensible thing would be for the mainstream parties to come together and field a single candidate.

 

No, the sensible thing is to use an electoral system that lets voters choose between mainstream candidates without letting fringe candidates in by the back door. Something like AV, perhaps.

[mattleonard]

No, the sensible thing is to use an electoral system that lets voters choose between mainstream candidates without letting fringe candidates in by the back door. Something like AV, perhaps.

 

Well it seems to me more like "fixing" (in the negative sense of the word) the system to attempt to give what seems like the right result based on one single interpretation of what is broken. And the scenario you describe doesn't just apply to mainstream parties. The far right fringe suffers from their vote being split too. What is so bad about the candidate who gets the most votes being the winner?

 

To be honest both sides can use the BNP getting in as a counterexample to the others preferred system, so surely it's better to go with a system which is based on the right principles, ie one vote which is intended for you to choose who you want, and will always be counted, rather than a system which is tailored to dealing with what we think are the wrong consequences.

[Akrasia]

The far right fringe suffers from their vote being split too... To be honest both sides can use the BNP getting in as a counterexample to the others preferred system.

 

Well the BNP prefer FPTP, because they know that their best chance of winning is the kind of scenario I described.

 

However, that was just an example, and my point was about split votes not about the BNP. I object to split votes handing victories to minority candidates in all cases, whether that's the Labour/Lib Dem vote being split to let a Conservative in, or the Conservative/UKIP vote being split to let Labour in, or whatever.

 

Well it seems to me more like "fixing" (in the negative sense of the word) the system to attempt to give what seems like the right result based on one single interpretation of what is broken. And the scenario you describe doesn't just apply to mainstream parties... What is so bad about the candidate who gets the most votes being the winner?

 

Often, the candidate who gets the most first preferences is the best choice of winner. AV recognises that, making them the winner 95%+ of the time.

 

But sometimes, the majority vote is split between two candidates, letting a minority candidate get the most first preferences. In those cases, under FPTP the electorate then gets stuck with an MP that most of them didn't want.

 

For example, if a constituency has 60% centre-left voters deciding between two centre-left candidates, and 40% centre-right voters voting for one candidate, then the centre-right candidate (who would lose in a head-to-head against both other candidates) could easily win under FPTP.

 

Don't you agree that would be the wrong result? And don't you agree that something like that happens in dozens of constituencies at every general election.

 

Your solution to this requires similar parties to foresee this, and decide in advance which one of them will win so that the others can stand down before the election. That would take power away from voters, who would no longer be able to choose between the candidates, and in any case is extremely unlikely to happen.

 

My solution is to switch to AV, which recombines split votes so that voters can choose which of the similar candidates they want to beat the minority candidate.