'Is AV really so complex? Or is it just confusion marketing?' blog discussion

rhyski

Ellabelle wrote: »

Additionally to add a real life senario, I would only get 2 votes as I can only think of two parties that I would have any interest in being in government.

Yes I would prefer the Tories to the BNP - but I still don't want any part in the Tories being in government. If I add more than 2 preferences I am voting for the party I dislike the least (but still very much dislike).

It seems very daft to me to ask people to register a vote for a party they very much dislike (even if there are parties they dislike more). Of course people can choose to only register 1 or 2 preferences but then they are getting less votes than others.

If you put down two preferences, your votes would be counted an equal number of times as everyone elses on each round of counting.

Your first vote would be counted on every round, unless your candidate was knocked out, and if that happened then your second vote would be counted on every round until there was one candidate with 50% support.

At no point do you get less votes than anyone else.
If all your preferences have been eliminated, it just means you simply have no preference between the remaining candidates.

wozearly

GooeyBlob wrote: »

Another reason why AV is such a terribly flawed system. If the 2nd, 3rd or 4th preferences of everybody else are banded together, another candidate might overtake the person who led on first preferences.

But if the 2nd preferences of the original winner's voters are taken into account, another candidate entirely may have won. Indeed, if the AV winner is the complete opposite of the leader of the candidate with most 1st preferences, the original winner's voters would place the AV winner so far down the ranking that he or she would have been eliminated in an early round.

There is some logic behind collecting everyone's preferences and then determining the most 'popular' candidate by weighting the value of 1st preferences, 2nd preferences, etc, giving everyone a score and electing the winner...but I can't think of any electoral system which works on that basis.

However, that this isn't how AV works doesn't make it flawed in the way you seem to suggest.

A good way to look at AV is as a series of elections (ie, rounds) where the threshold to get elected is to get 50% of the vote, rather than the 'more than anyone else got' in FPTP.

In each round, candidates have one vote (ie, preference) - just like in FPTP. So the only difference is that you can't sneak through on, say, 25% just because the nearest rival had 24%...you need 50% of the preferences cast.

As a side note, this is specifically why AV works against extremist parties, who would struggle to get that many people to even consider giving them a preference. Hence why they're campaigning for a No vote, and why No campaigners who say AV helps extremists are talking out of their posteriors.

If no-one has 50%, the least favourite candidate is eliminated and the election is re-run. Everyone votes again for their preferred candidate, but those whose preferred candidate is eliminated can switch their vote to the next-most-favourite, assuming they've given additional preferences.

Eventually, one candidate gets over 50% and gets elected.

If this happens before the final round with only two candidates, that level of support is likely to indicate they had a pretty darn good chance of winning under FPTP.

In any event, to safely win if you have under 50% of first preferences (which a lot of candidates in the UK do, if FPTP voting is anything to go by) means you, or your party, have to have gained enough trust in voters for most of them to prefer you over your most 'popular' rival.

One reason Labour likes AV is the assumption that more Lib Dem supporters would switch their vote to Labour rather than the Tories, giving them a boost in the final round where its more likely Lib Dem candidates will come third and be eliminated. The reverse is true where Lib Dems are the second-most popular candidate with Labour third.

This is a key reason why the Tories dislike the policy (plus, they have always done well from FPTP).


As for those Lib-Dem bashing, remember that they never actually wanted AV in the first place. It was simply the only alternative system the Tories were prepared to have a referendum on - precisely because it was the easiest to challenge via negative campaigning and, even if it wins, its less harmful to their election chances than PR.


On a tangential note about it giving more coalitions, if you split the votes out nationally, 36% of people voted Conservative, 29% Labour, 23% Lib Dem, then a huge drop to 3% or below for all other parties.

That's the reason we had a coalition this last time round...political preferences are already divided much more evenly across the UK than the results of general elections indicate in terms of seats won. AV itself is no more likely to exaggerate this one way than the other - it all depends on how people vote.

tomwakefield

GooeyBlob wrote: »

AV penalises candidates who are closest to the candidate with the most first preferences. To give some voters a chance to vote again, but deny that privilege to those whose first preference is the most popular candidate is grossly unfair.

Perhaps, in an ideal world, everyone would get to vote again in the second round, even people who still have their first choice to vote for. However, this would take a huge amount of time as new voting slips would have to be sent out each round, half a dozen or more elections to attend, and voting in someone could take weeks longer.

As it is, I think the vast majority of people who could vote for the same person in subsequent rounds will do, so denying them the opportunity to change their vote and saving considerable amounts of time and money is a reasonable compromise.

wozearly

Ellabelle wrote: »

For me this is about the principal of democracy (everyone getting an equal vote) rather than the actual outcome as perceived by each voter. I think the principal of a matter is almost always worth fighting for.

Ella, everyone does get an equal vote - all that changes at any given stage is the number of candidates.

Taking a slightly off-piste example, lets say if given a completely free choice for my MP I would vote for Alan Sugar standing as an Independent. Unfortunately, he's not standing, so I can't vote for him.

But as soon as I look at the list of available candidates and decide to vote for John Smith of the Squirrel party, I've made an AV-style decision. If I was a true FPTP the post fanatic, perhaps I should have spoiled my ballot as Alan Sugar wasn't standing?

For people backing a candidate who isn't eliminated, subsequent AV rounds don't give them less of a voice - their vote is still trying to get that person elected, but that person may now pick up the support of people who would have voted for them had their preferred candidate not stood. Which is essentially how the rounds work using the elimination process.

By artificially re-running the election with fewer and fewer candidates each time where there is no clear winner, plus a 50% threshold to win, the aim is to give more weight behind candidates and/or parties who have a wider broad base of support and weaken the chances of those who are widely unpopular but supported by a slightly larger minority than anyone else at first preference level.

In the final round of AV that decides who wins, everyone only has one vote count.

The same is true of the previous rounds, which are basically qualifying stages to eliminate the weaker candidates one by one until there's one person who more than 50% of people were prepared to vote for.

Ellabelle

rhyspaulburton wrote: »

If you put down two preferences, your votes would be counted an equal number of times as everyone elses on each round of counting.

Your first vote would be counted on every round, unless your candidate was knocked out, and if that happened then your second vote would be counted on every round until there was one candidate with 50% support.

At no point do you get less votes than anyone else.
If all your preferences have been eliminated, it just means you simply have no preference between the remaining candidates.

I see your point.

The bit where I don't see your point is that after my 2 preferences have been knocked out other people who had additional preferences are still 'voting' in the remainder of the election.

Thats the other problem with this - its so complicated that when someone like me (I would say I have an average intelligence) struggles to understand this then what hope is there for others who perhaps are less intelligent or have perhaps a learning disability - Who are as much entitled to vote as anyone else. (No offence to anyone meant, especially those with learning disability - some of whom of course will be able to understand AV, don't want to generalise)

bristol_pilot

The difference between having more than one vote and having a single vote that is counted several times is splitting hairs. People whose first preference is eliminated in the first round get to have their second preferences etc counted but those that voted for the leading candidate don't. Furthermore, voters might have ranked their preferences differently had they known in advance which candidates would be eliminated and in which order.

Has anyone read through this whole thread and still thinks AV is 'simple'?

My own opposition to AV is based on potential non-monotonicity and the issue of 2nd/3rd preferences of voters whose 1st preference was for an extremist party potentially deciding the outcome. As we have seen on this thread, these arguments are complex to get across and there are counter- and counter-counter- arguments to each and every point. So if I were running the 'no' campaign I would concentrate on Clegg bashing and alleged expense, which is what they seem to be doing. We live in a dumbed-down world but, hey, that's democracy.

tomwakefield

Ellabelle wrote: »

I see your point.

The bit where I don't see your point is that after my 2 preferences have been knocked out other people who had additional preferences are still 'voting' in the remainder of the election.

Someone who doesn't want to vote for any of the available candidates in a FPTP election system gets fewer votes than someone who does want to vote for someone.

This does not mean that person (or you, in your scenario) didn't have an opportunity to vote. It means that they (you) did not wish to use it, based on the options.

bristol_pilot

rhyspaulburton wrote: »

Your first vote would be counted on every round, unless your candidate was knocked out, and if that happened then your second vote would be counted on every round until there was one candidate with 50% support.

No, no, no! It is a myth that in AV the winner has 50% support. They only have 50% or more of the votes remaining in the final round. Not necessarily support of 50% of the voters voting in the election.

tomwakefield

bristol_pilot wrote: »

The difference between having more than one vote and having a single vote that is counted several times is splitting hairs. People whose first preference is eliminated in the first round get to have their second preferences etc counted but those that voted for the leading candidate don't.

One comment I've read somewhere suggested weighting subsequent votes, to acknowledge that someone voting for the party X (their fourth choice) in round 4 because "anyone is better than party Y" maybe shouldn't have the same weight as someone who was voting party Y from the start and passionately believes in their policies.

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Furthermore, voters might have ranked their preferences differently had they known in advance which candidates would be eliminated and in which order

I, for one, think any system which can help eliminate tactical voting has at least one benefit from the existing system.

bristol_pilot wrote: »

Has anyone read through this whole thread and still thinks AV is 'simple'?

Yes, I think it is simple. More complicated than FTPT, but still simple. And the most simple solution isn't necessarily the best.

InMyDreams

Ellabelle wrote: »

Its not about not being "bothered to vote" in more than one round.

Lets say there are four candidates representing four parties available on the ballot paper.

person A - Likes candiate '1'. Person A however finds the policies of candiates '2', '3' and '4' equally abhorent. Person A therefore can only vote for party '1'. Their political opinion precludes them from voting any further. They therefore get one vote and the opportunity to vote in one round.

person B - Likes candidate '2' best, candidate '3' second best, candidate '4' third best. Person B therefore gets three votes in three seperate rounds of voting. Three seperate chances to have a single (different) vote counted.

In conclusion, depending on a person's political views they could get the opportunity to vote in a varying number of 'rounds' in a general election. A person may have the legal right to register more than one preference but in practice their political views may wholy preclude them from doing so. This undermines the democratic concept of one person, one opportunity to vote.

But still don't see why this would be any more undemocratic than FPTP.

What if candidates 2, 3 and 4 are all very similar but fundamentally opposed to candidate 1, and those who would be happy to support any of 2, 3 or 4 find 1 as abhorrent as A finds 2, 3 and 4. Maybe the majority of people feel like person A or B. If most people feel like A then candidate 1 wins. If most people feel like B then under FPTP, candidate 1 still wins because B votes are split between the very similar 2, 3 and 4 candidates.

I'm not saying there aren't flaws in AV too, but I don't see how AV is less democratic than FPTP. For me, by the very nature of it being harder to vote tactically (and even harder if not impossible to vote tactically en mass), it will deliver a much more representative result. Surely that makes AV [I]more[/I] democratic that FPTP.

Ellabelle wrote: »

Additionally to add a real life senario, I would only get 2 votes as I can only think of two parties that I would have any interest in being in government.

No. You would only get 2 votes if both your two favourite parties were eliminated in the first two rounds. As long as one or the other is in the running, your vote will count every round. It only stops counting when the only choices left are the ones you wouldn't vote for anyway so you've chosen not to pick between them.

GooeyBlob wrote: »

AV penalises candidates who are closest to the candidate with the most first preferences.

But FPTP penalises candidates who are not one of the perceived top two. That doesn't sounds so bad until you think about who/what determines who those top two are which is anything but democratic. People end up voting negatively, to keep the people they hate out, rather than positively to support the policies they really do want.

Even if AV does penalise the candidates who are closest to the candidate with the most first preferences, if they are so close, presumably when those candidates gets eliminated, the people who put them first will have put the former second, so at least the majority will end up with policies not too far from what they wanted in the first place.

GooeyBlob wrote: »

To give some voters a chance to vote again, but deny that privilege to those whose first preference is the most popular candidate is grossly unfair.

As has been said again and again, if your first preference is the most popular candidate, you are NOT denied the chance to vote again. You DO vote again. But you get to vote AGAIN for your FIRST preference. Lucky you! How is that grossly unfair???