venta

As opposed to the BS in that post you just linked? Particularly Point 5, which elides a lot of relevant distinctions between parliaments in various countries, and cherry-picks data by pulling out exceptional examples. The US has (essentially) FPTP voting for Congress and during the relevant time period has never failed to have a majority party.

Not saying the FPTP people are paragons of intellectual clarity, but what you linked isn't any less drek.

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alien8.livejournal.com

this isn't the official site of the 'yes to av campaign', just a blog and it's a damn sight closer to the truth even given point 5 bollocks than the _official_ no2av lot.

not saying either are perfect - but the no2 lot are _full_ of it. They're at tube stations peddling their BS.

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al-fruitbat.livejournal.com

Although conversely, why would a win for AV make PR more likely, rather than less? "We've already changed the system, now you want to change it again?"

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Baloney. Most of the points aren't "truth" or even "facts": they're analogies that can be shown to be irrelevant after a scintilla of thought. Not that I think the No2AV campaign is brilliant, but the sanctimonious quasi-intellectualism of the AV crowd gets on my nerves something awful. Take point 4:

4. In every UK general election bar 1997 and 1983, it is predicted that AV would have distributed seats more in line with vote share, i.e. a more proportional or fairer result.

That's not a "fact." "Fairer" is a normative term, and its quite possible to believe that FPTP is "fairer." I would argue that FPTP is certainly more "fair," and more proportional to what voting should be proportional to: the will of the constituency, not the country as a whole. This point simply begs the question: what is fair, and what is the purpose of a voting system? Define fair such that FPTP can't win, and yes, it's more "fair." But this has nothing to do with facts, and is actually pretty "full of it" as a method of argument.

Point 7 is bogus: AV is not an implied primary, because it doesn't allow party members to elect the candidate of their choice without interference from non-party members. (Admittedly, one could argue that it's a "primary lite" option, but it's not a primary, and supporting AV pretty much eliminates any hope that a party will start having primaries.)

Point 8 is also mathematically incorrect: AV is not the same as elimination by multiple vote, because the voter knows the result of the first vote before the second choice vote was cast: voting strategies will different in the two systems. (At least, Big Brother used to be multiple elimination: you eliminate one person at a time. I can't imagine why Big Brother would change formats to actual AV voting, as it would make the phone voting not only less complex, but less lucrative. But if you tell me differently, I'll believe you.)

Point 9 is just an expression of opinion, unless you present as a fact that this is why all politicians would use AV for a party but not a general election.

I could go on and on, but most of that post is self-serving claptrap that, if you happened to disagree with it, you could easily tear apart. Basically, this is cheap reasoning. It's just cheap reasoning that you happen to agree with.

Edited Date: 2011-04-13 01:50 pm (UTC)

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undyingking.livejournal.com

Yes, I think that will be a pretty difficult ask as well. Just not quite as difficult, as at least the principle that it is sometimes OK to change voting systems will have been established.

(Personally I don't want PR, so I'm not bothered either way from that point of view.)

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alien8.livejournal.com

fair enough.

go shoot their site down! :-)

I could honestly care less. Politicians suck.

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vicarage.livejournal.com

Odd for Owen to want this, as it would put PR outside his own lifetime.

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exspelunca.livejournal.com

Mathmos say FPTP is the worst system but consider Arrow's Theorem of Impossibility (Kenneth Arrow 1951 and he got the Nobel Prize for it), proving mathematically that perfect democracy is impossible. FPTP adherents can still buck AV by voting for only one candidate.

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cardinalsin.livejournal.com

This would have been my argument too.

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In which case, I would say that one should vote for which of only AV or FPTP you prefer, not what you think is more likely to lead to PR.

(I know that there are some people who want PR voting no because they do believe AV to be worse than FPTP; but the site linked above appears to make no argument against AV compared with FPTP, and only talks in terms of what they think will be more likely to lead to PR.)

Having said that, it's no secret that people who want electoral reform prefer other systems. I'm not sure who "we" is in your quote - the Tories aren't going to offer PR in either case, but a "No" result means they can far more easily claim the public support their point of view. It's far harder to do that if there's a "Yes" result.

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It's still not the official site. In any debate, there will be people on all sides who make incorrect or misleading claims - I don't think it's ever fair to take an argument made by a single person, and imply it to be representative of people on that side of the debate in general.

The bigger concern I feel is the offical Tory-backed No2AV campaign that's based on lies and scaremongering. No, not everything the Fairer Votes campaign have said is 100% accurate, but it doesn't come anywhere close to No2AV's tactics in my opinion.

Hell, I could be a troll and put up a "No2AV" site putting up completely stupid and foolish claims, to ridicule their side. (Except I'd have a hard time outdoing the nonsense of the official campaign, that is...)

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One random thought I had - is there any reason why a country has to use the same system in every constituency? I mean, if we the people of Cambridge decide we want to use say Borda Count to elect our representative to the House of Commons, is it the business of anyone else in the country?

I mean yes, in practice it's easier and less confusing to use the same system everywhere, but the thought did cross my mind. It would be interesting to see how much variation there is in the vote (if that information is available).

(Cambridge University used to elect two members, which were chosen via STV. Not that I like the idea of giving extra votes just for going to a particular University, but it does seem in the past we managed with using a different method for some constituencies.)

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I think it's the difference of information. On X-Factor people can
quickly see the real states of the voting (based on last week's poll) so
can make informed choices about the next poll, including tactical voting
if they so choose.

Can you give me an example where knowing the previous results would mean you might want to change your preferences?

But either way - yes I know that runoff voting isn't identical to instant runoff voting, but I don't see how that affects the point about why people's votes aren't reduced in value? Why should people's votes be reduced in value in IRV/AV if their most preferred candidate drops out in a round, but not in runoff voting?

The other reason why votes aren't reduced is because it would make the change pointless - you'd be going back to the tactical voting decisions of whether to vote for a minor party or not, just that it'll be a "reduced" vote you get instead of a "wasted" one.

If everyone on the X-factor got one chance to vote, then yes I would say
that they should adopt a ranking system rather than STV.

What if the choice is between IRV and FPTP?

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Give me a break: I didn't select this site as "kinda needed to counter the garnage [sic] being put out atm." My point was that this was countering garbage with garbage, merely garbage the whiff of which didn't bother alien8's nose overly much. If your point is that the "official site" is so much better, and doesn't make such claims, you're welcome to link it. But it's a bit silly to say it's unfair to point out that a post linked approvingly to "counter the garnage" is itself garbage.

That the Fairer Votes campaign is more "accurate" and less "based on lies and scaremongering" is, in my opinion, more a reflection of your pre-existing views on the matter than any kind of reasoned critique based upon looking at both sides. For instance, looking at this (which I'm assuming is part of the campaign you're mentioning), the site contains a similar number of... shall we say spun distortions of the truth. To spend just five minutes playing devil's advocate:

The Alternative Vote is a simple system but infinitely fairer than the discredited First Past The Post system we currently use.

Really? FPTP is discredited? The many countries, including the U.S., which use it are engaging not in a political choice system with which one can honestly disagree, but one that is absolutely without credit? Cheers, at least two of the world's largest democracies are illegitimate! (Oh, except for the city of San Francisco. Edwin M. Lee was legitimately elected, but the system that got Nanci Pelosi in is, according to the Lib Dems and your apparently "official" campaign, "discredited.")

The biggest country in which the Alternative Vote is used is Australia, where the strong political system is widely credited with helping the Australians avoid recession recently.

The idea that AV was even a significant factor in Australia's avoidance of recession (as opposed to, say, its position as a key materials supplier to China) is laughable. Note that India also avoided much of the recession, and uses FPTP, but if the No campaign used it as an example I'd think they were bonkers.

Look, I'm happy to admit that there are pros and cons to both FPTP, AV, and most voting systems. (I mostly subscribe to Arrow's hypothesis about the impossibility of a perfect voting system, so it's all trade offs.) And an intelligent conversation can be had about the nature of these tradeoffs. But the idea that either the Yes or No campaign is engaging in this conversation, or that one is on the side of the angels... well, it may be your opinion, but it's woefully short on fact.

Edited Date: 2011-04-13 11:16 pm (UTC)

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In theory, no. To give one example, while all members of the U.S. House of Representatives are elected by the same system, the primary system in each state may (and does) differ. Hence, Iowa has caucuses, New Hampshire has primaries. Moreover, state primary rules differ.

I don't know of a jurisdiction that uses different systems within the same area (e.g. caucus for some positions in one state, but primaries in another). My guess is that this is a cost issue: since states often bear the cost of holding the election, holding two different types is a duplicative expense.

Whether this would violate some rule in the U.K., though, I don't know.

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undyingking.livejournal.com

I believe that in the Representation of the People Act 1948, the voting system to be used was specified, and its uniformity across all constituencies was imposed. But I guess that could be amended if there was a real desire to do so. It seems unlikely in the foreseeable future, though. Both for practical reasons (as you say) and also because I think there would be a nervousness of a system whereby different MPs might try to claim different degrees of 'legitimacy' depending on how exactly they had been elected.

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I agree that that Lib Dem page has a couple of woolly claims. Although that's still not what I mean by scaremongering and lies - I don't mind if No2AV say that FPTP is discredited - or as they do, undemocratic. Saying that Australia etc are undemocratic is bizarre too, but that's not the thing I have a problem with, as it's simply an opinion being expressed.

I mean things like the two-faced-ness of it: it's not that Cameron calls it undemocratic and unfair, but that he does so when a form of AV made him Tory leader and hence Prime Minister. Similarly, this also makes me suspicious of their "second bite of the cherry" talk. Even though I think that's nonsense (see my other comments here), I could at least accept it as someone's viewpoint on the issue, if they thought that 1st preferences are all that should count. But the Tory party evidently don't think that, which makes it come across as using the argument to scaremonger. Similarly again with the "It means the loser wins" claims, when presumably Cameron doesn't think of himself as a loser.

That no one wants AV - by all means tell us what they want, but there's something frustrating in claiming that the Yes supporters don't want it.

Indeed, the whole stitch up where the Tories are the ones to offer only AV, and then use Clegg's "miserable little compromise" quote out of context (which he said about AV compared with their preferred STV) in their campaign to imply he doesn't want AV over FPTP. Other people are quoted too, including the Electoral Reform Society - the implication being they've changed their mind, when actually they always liked FPTP even less.

The stooping to levels of "Vote No or the baby gets it", and linking the debate to the cuts - especially when the Tories are the ones making the cuts.

The lies about needing voting machines.

The lies about the cost - the figure almost entirely made up of the unnecessary voting machines, and the referendum.

The scaremongering about the BNP, even though there's no evidence AV will help them, and they are campaigning against it. (It's true that the Yes campaign are now referring to the BNP - though firstly that's based on the truth, since the BNP are against it; and secondly, it's fair game to respond to No2AV's claims about them in my opinion.)

Lies that some people (like BNP voters) have their votes counted again and again, whilst others don't. (Saying that it's unfair that people's lower preferences are counted is one thing, but claims about some people having more votes that others is just plain wrong.)

The claims that it'll mean an eternal coalition with the Lib Dems in power.

Trying to make it all about Nick Clegg, instead of a discussion about voting systems.

That only Nick Clegg's vote would count in AV.

The bizarre claim that AV leads to broken promises, based on grinding an axe against the Lib Dems (even though this happened under FPTP...)

Yes, I've no doubt you can go away and find a webpage somewhere which has a couple of inaccurate claims, or refers to FPTP with an unkind description. There are indeed areas where I would criticise the claims made by Yes to Fairer Votes, and areas where I wish they would focus on instead. But I'm still not convinced this is on the same scale as the examples I give above. And these aren't found on some website - they're on the forefront of the campaign: TV adverts, multiple leaflets through my door etc. The Yes letter through my door had some woolly stuff about making MPs work harder, but none of the same kind of thing as I've described.

Maybe I'm biased because I have a point of view - but then, maybe you are too :) This is why I did state my view was "in my opinion".

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[continued]

And an intelligent conversation can be had about the nature of these
tradeoffs. But the idea that either the Yes or No campaign is engaging in
this conversation, or that one is on the side of the angels... well, it
may be your opinion, but it's woefully short on fact.

I never suggested they were angels - I said "not everything the Fairer Votes campaign have said is 100% accurate".

I've seen focus on the reduction of tactical voting, so there is some focus at least on the voting theory side of things. All I've seen from No2AV on this is "It means the loser wins" and "Some people have more votes than others"...

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I think the best way to describe it is 50% of all votes cast *after transfers*. If your ballot becomes exhausted because all your listed preferences are eliminated, then you are not transferred, you don't cast a vote in subsequent rounds, and you aren't part of the group of which the winner needs half.

AV supporters have IMO misled on this point - in particular exaggerating the importance that it would have even if it were true. OK, so an AV winner does have over 50% of the vote, after discounting all the people who didn't vote at all, and all the people who didn't express an opinion between the winner and the second-placed candidate.

Of course we think, "so what?". At the point where I'm expressing a preference for the BNP over the National Front (or vice-versa) on the basis that I think that one of them is very slightly less a bunch of racists and criminals than the other, I don't in any sense *support* the winner, and if pro-AV people are going to interpret that preference as "support", then I'm hardly going to want to express a preference. I suppose I'll just take whatever racists I'm served.

Anyway, it's actually expected that under an AV system, many or most voters don't need to express a second preference, because elections are reasonably predictable. Once you've listed either of the candidates who (eventually) makes the final round, there's no point listing anyone below them, because there is no possibility that your ballot will go any further than that candidate. I expect that in many constituencies it will be pretty clear who the last two candidates will be. If you don't know who the last two will be (and after all elections are only *reasonably* predictable, not entirely predictable), or if you want to give an ultimately futile show of support to someone else, then you list two or more preferences.

Consider the London mayoral election. Conducted with a special dumbed-down AV system three times, but fundamentally if you wanted to have any influence on who won, literally all that mattered on the day was how you relatively ranked Boris and Ken. Most of the first-choice votes went to one of the two of them, suggesting that most London voters don't need AV on their own account. They might want in future want to express a first choice for a candidate expected to come third or worse, of course.

Last time out, 83% of voters used their second preference. I can't predict whether the ability to express a third preference, or general antipathy toward AV, would depress this. Or whether it was inflated in the first place by things like the Lab-Green second preference pact, a perception unique that the supplementary preference (uniquely) is an important "show of support" for someone you don't really want to win, or perhaps even by Londoners not really understanding the system.

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It does make sense, but I find myself slightly bemused anyway.

Over 80% of people used their second choice in the last London mayoral election, despite the fact that 78% of people voted first-choice for one of the candidates whom all the polling said would be the final two.

In fact I'm surprised by the actual voting behavior, and taking on board that surprise causes me to *also* be surprised that fewer than 50% used their second preference in the AV mock election.

Something, perhaps the fact that second-choice totals are published "above the fold" of the returning officers' statement, causes people to express a second choice in London when it makes no difference to the result of any round of voting. Something else then causes them to not express a second choice in the mock-AV even though it would affect the result.

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If you expected that under AV, the number of votes to win is 50% of the turnout rather than 50% of the final round, did you also expect that under AV, you can turn out and cast your ballot with no preferences on it at all, and if there are enough of these then there's a no-result? Was this the case in the mock election? Were the mock voters told that it was the case.

We've never had a genuine RON option on ballots, and I'd expect to hear about it if anyone in parliament was at all serious about trying to introduce one even by means of exhausted AV ballots. In a tight race, of course, it doesn't require very many such ballots to prevent a result. Nobody in politics really wants to see the electorate "doing a Wisconsin" where a minority withholds quoracy, however entertaining it is in a "fight the power!" sense.

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Isn't the most obvious candidate for the difference that these are two separate polities? The mock election was not limited to Londoners. I would expect their voting habits to be different, just as I would not be shocked to find DC Metro area voters to behave differently than US voters as a whole. Not saying that is the only explanation, but at least an obvious line of inquiry.

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"Were the mock voters told that it was the case."

Ah, no, I see: it wasn't that the BBC used the wrong system, it's that Guido has (no doubt unintentionally) misled his readers about the pros and cons of AV by making a false statement about its results. The BBC stated the result correctly.

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