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

HairY

mabrookes wrote: »

FPTP is the only one that takes the majority into consideration, the majority of people who vote for the candidate they want wins.

Well that's just the opposite of the truth. Under FPTP, 70% of the population can hate your bloody guts and you can still win!

Only a tiny % of swing voters make the difference in many constituencies. Consider a constituency with 101 voters - 40 vote Tory, 39 vote Labour and 22 vote Lib Dem.

Under FPTP this constituency could bounce between Tory and Labour when just TWO measly people change their mind. 2% of people hold the balance of power. TWO! And yes, some constituencies are this tight.

The more parties you have, the worse this situation gets. With only 2 parties FPTP is fair because to win one will always have a majority (50%+). With 3, you are guaranteed victory if you have 34% of the vote. With 4, just 25% etc...

Need I remind you that only a third or less of the MPs in Westminster were elected by a majority of their constituents?

FPTP is only effective in a 2 party system. A system we no longer have. It must go.

mabrookes

EdgEy wrote: »

The view that people get "multiple votes" is silly. Really. It is like saying "get me a mars bar, otherwise a twix". How is only having the option to say "get me a mars bar" better?

There is no point engaging in debate if you cannot grasp that simple point.

Noone gets any more or less votes than anyone else. If you vote for the winner, your vote gets counted twice, three times, however many for the same candidate.

"I think AV will be a disaster" is just scaremongering. FPTP isn't a disaster. AV wouldn't be a disaster. It simply makes the process of voting more democratic and fairer to those who actually take into account anything but the top two parties.

That is the most ridiculous and badly formed analogies I have every heard, There is no aspect of it that resembles the reality of what is been talked about. Which puts your "if you can't grasp this" statement in perspective really.

This is more of a manipulation of reality as it just doesn't work out, yes if I vote for the winner I get a vote counted for the same person over and over but the person who prefers the least popular candidate gets multiple goes to choose other people. It is outright stupidity that this is the case, .

I think it will be a disaster is an opinion, labeling what you don't agree with "scaremongering" is childish. Especially when you then go on to offer you own opinion that it will work fine, be fairer etc and try and present it as fact.

HairY wrote: »

Well that's just the opposite of the truth.

Only a tiny % of swing voters make the difference in many constituencies.

Consider a constituency with 101 voters - 40 vote Tory, 39 vote Labour and 22 vote Lib Dem.

Under FPTP this constituency could bounce between Tory and Labour when just TWO measly people change their mind. 2% of people hold the balance of power. TWO! And yes, some constituencies are this tight.

The more parties you have, the worse this situation gets. With only 2 parties FPTP is fair because to win one will always have a majority (50%+). With 3, you are guaranteed victory if you have 34% of the vote. With 4, just 25% etc...

Need I remind you that only a 1/3rd or less of the MPs in Westminster were elected by a majority of their constituents?

FPTP is only effective in a 2 party system. A system we no longer have.

Majority - I meant as in the definition "the greater number". Who gets the greater number of votes is who wins whether by 1 vote or 1 million. And these two do not have some magic powers, they are not a secret society conspiring this is just a silly idea.
And you have to assume no one else ever changes there mind and the votes are counted all year round for this to even be a problem, it is complete nonsense.

All the MPs got the majority of the votes to win, the losers and people who don't like it need to get over this. In my opinion AV has far more problems and solves nothing.

HairY

mabrookes wrote: »

Majority - I meant as in the definition "the greater number". Who gets the greater number of votes is who wins whether by 1 vote or 1 million. And these two do not have some magic powers, they are not a secret society conspiring this is just a silly idea

Well, that's not a majority is it. You seem to have a problem with definitions and analogies. I saw nothing wrong with EdgEy's Twix analogy whatsoever.

You think it's fine that a party can come to power because of a few 100,000 swing votes, be hated by 70% of the population, and still hold absolute power in the Commons (majority of seats).

Personally, I think that's appalling and AV at least tries to address it by coming to a reasonable compromise. It's not great, but it sure sucks less.

Derivative

Straight from our honorable source Wikipedia.
A majority is a subset of a group consisting of more than half of its members.

The vote for or against AV is a vote on whether, as Martin says, we should give the majority the best possible, or the largest minority their preferred choice.

It is fair enough if you believe it's more important that a minority gets exactly what they wanted, rather than most people getting a good compromise. Whether or not you think that is fair is up for debate.

The whole "multiple votes" thing is just silly and sidesteps the point, which is to establish a clear winner, with some backing from ALL voters.

If I put it in terms of 'cake' instead of minority parties and whatnot, perhaps it'll be easier to see why I believe AV is fairer.

FPTP: 40 vote cheeseburger, 32 vote chocolate cake, 26 vote carrot cake, 2 vote marmite (had to slip that one in)

Cheeseburger wins.
Hang on, didn't most people want a dessert?

tomwakefield

HairY wrote: »

The more parties you have, the worse this situation gets. With only 2 parties FPTP is fair because to win one will always have a majority (50%+). With 3, you are guaranteed victory if you have 34% of the vote. With 4, just 25% etc...

Wrong

34% of the vote in a three party constituency will only get you a victory if the other two parties happen to split the remaining 66% of the votes evenly. It's entirely possible for two of the candidates to get higher than 34% amd clearly they can't both win. 34% is just the very minimum number of votes required, far from a guaranteed victory.

However, I accept your point that, as the number of candidates increases, the minimum percentage of votes required to win drops so in some constituencies with many candidates, someone could be elected with only a small percentage of the votes.

melancholly

tomwakefield wrote: »

And if you didn't vote in FPTP you would get 0 votes to active voters 1 vote. You can't criticize a system based on those who make full use of it getting "more" than those who choose not to.

i'm not saying it's a massive problem, just that i can understand why that criticism is made and why people wouldn't like it. some of the anti-AV stuff can just be dismissed out of hand, but i can see why people thinking others may have 'more votes' then them is not a good idea.

(i think i'll be voting for AV - any change in electoral reform can only be a good thing and without a better option, i'll go with what i see as the least worst!)

kermitfrog

bristol_pilot wrote: »

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

Hear, hear! This is the great con of the 'Yes' campaign - that AV is as simple as 1, 2, 3...

.

MainlyBeer

I’m a publican in Leicester with an interest in voting systems. In planning a forthcoming cider & cheese festival, I was thinking about asking customers to vote for a Cheese of the Year award and whether it would be worthwhile. With the AV referendum coming up I mused if such a vote should be on a First Past The Post (FPTP) or an Alternative Vote (AV) System. Some interesting points emerged.

For an award vote FPTP seemed like the obvious choice: everyone gets to vote for any one of the cheeses in the Festival and the cheese with the most votes wins the rosette.

If only three cheeses attracted votes and those were:
Simon Weaver Cotswold Brie 62
Stinking Bishop 65
Keens Cheddar 81
Then on FPTP Keens cheddar would become champion.

This seems such an obviously appropriate system that it seems hardly worth looking at the complication of AV but let’s do it. Under AV with three candidates there are six voting possibilities if everyone fully details preferences. Let’s say it went like this:

1st Cotswold Brie 2nd Stinking Bishop 52 votes
1st Cotswold Brie 2nd Keens Cheddar 10 votes
1st Stinking Bishop 2nd Cotswold Brie 45 votes
1st Stinking Bishop 2nd Keens Cheddar 20
1st Keens Cheddar 2nd Cotswold Brie 10
1st Keens Cheddar 2nd Stinking Bishop 71

On this basis Keens Cheddar has 81 first preference votes, Stinking Bishop has 65 and Cotswold Brie has 62. Cotswold Brie gets eliminated and 2nd preference votes from Cotswold Brie get distributed. 52 votes get added to Stinking Bishop’s total and 10 votes are added to Keens Cheddar’s total. Stinking Bishop then wins with a total of 117 beating Keens Cheddar with a total of 91.

So which is the best system? Is it just the one that makes your favourite cheese the winner?

I think it depends on the point of the vote. If the vote is to establish which cheese is more people’s favourite than any other cheese then FPTP is the best system. For a Cheese of the Festival award it seems completely appropriate. AV fails because second preferences are given equal weight, undermining the point of the award – the ranking system seems to stink here. If AV is to be a good system for elections there has to be something different about the Cheese Award and electoral voting.

The difference is there and it is interesting, if subtle. If the point of the vote is to determine not which cheese to honour but which single cheese to choose for everyone in the electorate to eat then AV seems to be preferable. The reason for this is that the choice has an effect on the voters as well as on the candidate. Because in this case each voter is equally affected by the outcome (they only get to eat the winner) it seems reasonable that transferred preferences are given equal weight.

Given the preferences in our example, the AV result of Stinking Bishop as a forced food choice will surely be a more rational choice for the group than Keens cheddar. The ranked votes in the example show that people preferring one soft cheese, Stinking Bishop or Cotswold Brie tend to favour the other soft cheese as second preference. The soft cheese voters are split but are in the majority. The vote shows that had either of the two soft cheeses stood alone against the cheddar then they would have won under either system.

If the question put is “which one cheese shall our group eat?” and FPTP is adopted then those people feeling most strongly about eating soft cheese will probably adopt tactics to try to eliminate the split vote. Discrediting their less favoured soft cheese, trying to get that cheese to withdraw from the contest are options. Some less partisan Softies may vote for their less favoured soft cheese in the hope that it keeps the cheddar out and so on. It all gets very messy.

FPTP is the better system when the point of the vote is simply to find which candidate is the most popular and there is no significant effect on the voters. AV seems to be preferable when the selection has a significant effect on the voters and we want their preferences for and against candidates to be properly considered. Put another way, if you focus on which system is fairest to the candidates then FPTP may seem justified but once you consider the question of which system is fairest to the voters then AV delivers.

So will it be hard cheese for the voters on May 5th?

Derivative

kermitfrog wrote: »

Hear, hear! This is the great con of the 'Yes' campaign - that AV is as simple as 1, 2, 3...

.

It is as simple as that, for the voter.

People in this thread are discussing the intricacies of what is and what isn't fair. You can analyse FPTP just as much.

jamesd

It's not anywhere near as simple as that. You have to work out which order is most likely to produce the national government that you want. AV makes that task much harder because of its pro-coalition government and smaller party magnifying effects.

While more people wanted a dessert, none of them asked for a carrot cake with chocolate topping and Marmite decorations, which is what AV will produce. Unless you're unlucky and Marmite holds the balance of power and insists on being the whole topping, not just a bit of decoration, as the price for its support. Either way, nobody actually got what they voted for: they got a coalition instead, which lets the parties throw away their promises and makes it harder to completely throw out those who do badly.