AV - how to vote?

[HarrietStar]

I haven't watched the video because I'm at work but can I say thanks to dosxuk, headingnorth and hbrochris for your very useful posts, it's starting to make more sense now! a very helpful thread so far, I just hope it doesn't turn into party politics!

 

another couple of questions

 

what is pr, how does av differ from proportional representation, and why has it been decided we cant have pr?

 

and will the counting take longer under av? I really like watching election night tv - the maps, the charts etc. will av mean we wait longer for a result, and if so, how long would the count take?

 

thanks!

[mattleonard]

Any system that means that giving voters a choice of broadly similar candidates can result in them being represented by an MP that most of them didn't want is broken. AV is a small change that fixes that problem, so is a big improvement on FPTP.

 

Except it introduces more, and bigger problems.

 

To be elected by a majority is an ideal - to make it a requirement is great if possible, but is also somewhat arbitrary. To say that a voter's second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth choices are "who they want" is a distortion, and no account is taken of any degree of preference.

[mattleonard]

PR (which isn't on the table) is more to do with representatives being elected in proportion to constituency sizes (so a bigger constituency would return more MPs).

 

This would be a positive step IMO. But as I said, it's not on the table.

[HeadingNorth]

PR stands for proportional representation - you probably knew that much.

 

Under a purely PR system, you don't vote for a candidate - you vote for a party. The total number of votes across the entire country is added up, and the party with 43% of the total vote gets to have 43% of the MPs; the party with 28% gets to have 28%; and so on. (There's usually a fixed minimum percentage below which you get zero seats, and it's usually around the five per cent mark.)

 

The biggest argument in favour of PR is that it means the nation's preferences are reflected exactly. The biggest argument against it is exactly what I said at the start - you don't vote for a candidate. You don't have a local MP. Labour gets 33% of the overall vote, which is (say) 200 out of 600 seats in total, and the Labour leadership decides which 200 people will take those seats.

 

There are some countries which have such a "pure PR" system, where a single family has supplied all of the MPs for the ruling party for decades.

 

 

The AV, Single-Tranferable-Vote, Approval Voting and various other systems, are designed to get closer to proportional representation, without losing the link between a constituency and a specific elected MP. Because they are by nature compromises, there are faults with all of them. Indeed, it can be mathematically proven that there is no such thing as a truly fair voting system. They all have major flaws.

[HarrietStar]

why isn't it on the table, I thought it's something the lib dems campaigned on

[HarrietStar]

ok great thanks, I like the idea of x number of people voted

for party a so party a gets x number of seats, but I don't like the idea that the party then chooses who takes those seats, the democracy seems to go at that point! although not having local mps might mean better national decisions and planning! still not sure which system I prefer, I think av sounds better but it also seems quite complicated!

[HeadingNorth]

why isn't it on the table, I thought it's something the lib dems campaigned on

 

The Lib Dems didn't win the election. Had they done so, they probably would have introduced a bill to change the system much more radically.

 

As part of the agreement under which the Tories and Lib-Dems formed a coalition, the Tories agreed (grudgingly) to hold a referendum giving two choices; no change, or a switch to AV. (A referendum with more than two choices isn't a sensible option, because you'd have to argue about which voting system would apply to the referendum!)

 

They are, however, campaigning for no change; the Lib-Dems didn't force the Tories into agreeing to a change of system, but they did force them to offer the public a choice. They also won various concessions on economic policies the Tories wanted to introduce, and forced them to introduce some of their own economic policies, such as the large increase in tax allowances.

[HeadingNorth]

ok great thanks, I like the idea of x number of people voted

for party a so party a gets x number of seats, but I don't like the idea that the party then chooses who takes those seats, the democracy seems to go at that point!

 

That's exactly the argument used against it.

 

Elections to the European Parliament have been held under sorta-kinda PR; about twelve very large constituencies, which return five, six or seven MEPs each. Each party specifies a list of who their MEPS will be; if the party earns enough votes for one MEP, the guy at the top of the list gets in, if they earn two, the next one gets in as well, and so on down the list.

 

That at least means that you do know who your Bright Pink Party candidates are, and which ones are likely to get in. It still makes it difficult to vote for a specific person you like, though.

[dosxuk]

That at least means that you do know who your Bright Pink Party candidates are, and which ones are likely to get in. It still makes it difficult to vote for a specific person you like, though.

 

Although arguably, we're getting further and further away from voting for a candidate at every election. I would suggest that the majority of the voting public at the last election voted for which party they wanted to win, rather than the person who was representing them, so would such a change actually bother many?

[gravity426]

While I'm not going to go over what has already been said (most of it sensible & accurate descriptions) I will give two words of warning/advice.

 

1) Most of the people who are either 'passionate' about AV/FPTP or claim to speak for either campaign have a personal or party political motive. Do your own research into the science of AV and ignore the newspapers and any high profile spokesperson on this subject, then decide based on your own knowledge, not a vague gut reaction.

 

2) A referendum is a very rare thing. I will be voting yes, not because AV is perfect, but because this is one of those rare chances to change the way we participate in politics and democracy, and in a largely positive way. If this vote is rejected, or passed with a small % of turnout, you can count on never being asked to participate in this way again for a very long time.

 

3) Obviously point 1 and 2 are in conflict, I'm happy to say I'm voting for change for the reason above and because I've voted in a Tory stronghold for the last 25 years, not once has my vote contributed to a serving politician's election.

 

My personal opinion is that a rejection of change sends the message that the public either don't care or are happy with politics as is. Who can honestly say that they are?