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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-04-13 01:50 pm (UTC)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.