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

clouty

Some good stuff about AV I came across online today


Dan Snow's Alternative on YouTube.

Johann Hari in the Independant - the X factor

toasted-lion

InMyDreams wrote: »

Nope, I do see GooeyBlob's point and he's right. The problem is that AV won't *necessarily* put the two most popular (or least hated) candidates into the final round. It *might* not because if, as GooeyBlob says, all the people who put the losing finalist as their first choice had put the guy who was eliminated in the penultimate round as their second choice, then you could argue that that guy (who would have come third under AV) could potentially have beaten either of the other candidates in a head-to-head and deserved to get that chance.

Ok, so you're pointing out that it's not a Condorcet method. This is correct, but FPTP definitely isn't! With FPTP you could have a winner that would not beat any other candidate.

I really don't understand how people can be focussing on these scenarios where AV would not give the fairest winner as justification for voting for FPTP when FPTP gives rise to these situations not just in rare examples but in every election.

Nobody is saying AV is perfectly fair - I believe there is no such thing as a perfect voting system. AV is just so so much fairer than FPTP.

toasted-lion

jamesd wrote: »

Preventing such parties from more often being in a position to pick the winner of a national election is a big part of why I think that voting no is the best choice at a national level.

It seems to me that what you want is not FPTP as opposed to AV, but rather you want national elections to choose the government instead of a constituency-based government.

Given that we do have constituencies, surely we cannot possibly justify not choosing the winner fairly, regardless of what happens in other constituencies?

Onyourcase

tgroom57 wrote: »

I am into the strict practicalities of the count. I don't like the idea that whoever is doing the count will always have to reshuffle the votes a few times before telling us the result.

It's why I'm voting No. I like election night as is , stay up late with a few beers and see the old MPs getting the boot. Let's not loose that!!! AV would obviously take much longer to count and imagine the recounts. It'll take days of bargaining afterwards as well. I'm sorry that Ed's for it, but at least other Labour MPs are against. Yes to a fairer system, no to AV from me.

dggar

Onyourcase wrote: »

It's why I'm voting No. I like election night as is , stay up late with a few beers and see the old MPs getting the boot. Let's not loose that!!! .........

I think casting your vote is a bit more important than that.

wozearly

GooeyBlob wrote: »

AV is only going to count the 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc preferences of some voters, and not others. The person who gets elected under AV (often with under 50% of votes) will probably be abhorrent to those who supported the most popular candidate.

I don't understand why people are getting caught up on the "...this person seems to get more votes than me because I backed the winner" side of the argument.

No-one gets more opportunities to express a vote than anyone else. Each round in AV is, essentially, a separate election. What changes is the number of candidates available, giving people who preferred an eliminated candidate the opportunity to re-cast their vote and see if that gets any other candidate over the 50% threshold.

That's potentially galling if you live in a safe seat and intend to vote for your current MP, as it gives the opposition a chance they never previously had...but seriously, if an incumbent candidate is so "abhorrent" to such a large majority of the electorate that all other candidates would receive higher preferences, then I don't personally think FPTP has done a particularly good thing for democracy in letting them get elected.

As for your point about wanting to drop some of your first preference votes in an attempt to tatically nobble the second-favourite candidate who might beat your preferred one...the mind just boggles.

wozearly

zagfles wrote: »

Yes, if you have 2 broad opinion groups who will transfer within that group, then AV works well. But that's not reality.

If anything, AV is better suited to multiple opinion groups than FPTP, which just picks the candidate who has the largest single opinion group and/or the least amount of competing 'noise' from candidates in a similar space.

Its by no means perfect if there is a massively broad spread of opinions (for that you'd probably want PR), but in the absence of a landslide favourite candidate at least AV will consistently return candidates who are preferred (or at least not actively disliked) by a broader section of the voting base than FPTP.

There's no reason to assume that won't be exactly the same candidate that FPTP returned...in many cases, it will be.

Ultimately, I think a lot of people's views on whether AV is better/worse than FPTP is going to be swayed heavily by their political leanings and whether or not the change stands to benefit or detract from their preferred party / type of parties.

Or, sadly, whichever side manages to get its propaganda machine working more effectively.

jamesd

toasted-lion wrote: »

It seems to me that what you want is not FPTP as opposed to AV, but rather you want national elections to choose the government instead of a constituency-based government.

It is possible that I'd support some system that had AV at a constituency level and some other way to select the national government.

toasted-lion wrote: »

Given that we do have constituencies, surely we cannot possibly justify not choosing the winner fairly, regardless of what happens in other constituencies?

I'm more interested in the national government being chosen fairly than local government being chosen fairly, because national government has the greater power. I don't think that a system that's likely to more often have smaller parties deciding which will be the government is more fair than what we have now.

It's a large part of why I'll be voting no. Providing an appropriate election result to one party is another reason for me voting no.

MainlyBeer

jamesd wrote: »

It is possible that I'd support some system that had AV at a constituency level and some other way to select the national government.

I'm more interested in the national government being chosen fairly than local government being chosen fairly, because national government has the greater power. I don't think that a system that's likely to more often have smaller parties deciding which will be the government is more fair than what we have now.

It's a large part of why I'll be voting no. Providing an appropriate election result to one party is another reason for me voting no.[Democracy can only work bottom-up, THINK ABOUT IT PLEASE/QUOTE]

Chris357

I remember an episode of Dad's Army where AV was demonstrated ( I don't know which one) and which resulted in no one getting what they wanted. I'm surprised the FPTP fans have not dug this up and used it.

However, FPTP IS unfair but AV is a poor subsititute. It is always a good idea to learn from what has happened in other countries ( especially northern European countries). Take Germany, for example. During the Weimar Republic, there was a very proportional system of voting in place ( much like what the Liberal Democrats want) which resulted in weak government with many parties in coalition. This chaos helped Hitler on his way to power ( but it was not the only reason).

After the war, the semi proportional Additional Member System ( AMS) was adopted. This has resulted in coalitions but they have been strong ones with strong government. The system is very easy to understand: you have two votes of which one is for a constituency MP as in FPTP and the second is a party list vote. Parties that do not achieve at least 5% of the vote are not represented. Thus there is never a large number of small parties in government. Critics say that the system creates two types of MP but, in practice, the list MPs become government and opposition ministers. Under FPTP we have the ridiculous situation where the PM is supposed to look after his constituency while running the country. He simply doesn't have the time.

The AMS system in Germany at first had Conservative, Social Democrat and Liberal coalitions but has created real change in Germany in recent years with the Green Party forging ahead and they could be the second largest party. If people were equally concerned about environmental issues in this country, there is no way they could express their feelings under FPTP. The Greens have no chance.

It is very unlikely that this proved system of voting will ever be adopted here because it does not gel with the political ambitions of the main political parties here in the UK. That is, none of them really care about our democratic representation.