Grab and change it, it's yours

[venta]

Does anyone know what the actual text which is actually going to appear on the actual ballot papers on May 5th is? A bit of googling hasn't turned up any results for me, but the pages I was finding suggest to me that I may have been going about my searching in the wrong way.

I'm kind of assuming that the ballot paper will look broadly like this:

[Poll #1729575]

Now, lots of campaigners would have you believe that this is analogous to:

[Poll #1729576]

And lots of other campaigners would have you believe it's analogous to:

[Poll #1729577]

You'll notice that the second two polls allow the results to be interpreted as pol(l)ar opposites.

So, does anyone know exactly what the question is? More to the point, has the government made any commitment at all about what they're going to do with the results, how they'll be interpreted, or whether Cameron will (in fact) go "oh, that's nice" and carry on regardless with the existing system?

Comments

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly sure about my answers to the second two questions (it needs reform, and AV is non-ideal). I'm just not sure about my answer to the first question...

[glamwhorebunni.livejournal.com]

It's all very similar to the "Should Australia be a republic" poll a few years back. The choice was between business as usual or a really odd new system. Many Aussies who didn't want the monarchy still preferred the monarchy to the mad new system, so voted to keep the monarchy...

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Yes! Sadly I'd been living in the UK for slightly too long to submit an absentee vote on that one (only by a couple of months IIRC).

Much as the new system was a mad strawman invented by Howard to create a bias towards the status quo, I still would have voted in favour of it. Really though, I just wanted the governor general to be renamed, selected the same way he/she is now, and no longer rubber stamped by the Queen.

[venta.livejournal.com]

it needs reform, and AV is non-ideal

Indeed - I think that's how many people feel. But the various campaigners would have you believe you have to tick opposite boxes to express those two opinions.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

I was under the impression that AV losing was almost a given, but the increasingly desperate and transparently misleading lines taken by its opponents recently make me wonder.

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

The question is do we want AV or FPTP.

For that question the answer is a clear 'AV', but it's the wrong question and only being asked because there was no way that Clegg could get a genuinely good system past the Tories.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes; the problem is what's going to happen with the results? If AV wins, do we necessarily get it? (I've not seen any commitment on that).

If AV loses, are we never allowed to consider electoral reform ever again because "the country is clearly against it"?

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

No, and Yes.

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

If Cameron chooses to ignore an AV yes vote, the coalition dissolves (well actually, Clegg remains to witter, but the rest of the LD MPs bugger off), and a Vote of No Confidence causes an election. Then Labour get the most seats, but not an overall majority, and go into coalition with the LDs. Many argue that a narrow AV yes with a low turnout is not a mandate for reform, but the LDs say 'tough' and make the new system their key condition.

(Of course this assumes the LDs have any MPs after the election, they may implode)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

The bill clearly states that the outcome of the referendum is binding, although it wouldn't apply to any election held before 2015. But politics is politics, and of course a Yes vote could be ignored if the coalition breaks up before that.

However, I think that if the referendum really does deliver a Yes, no political party would then want to be seen to be so flagrantly disregarding the will of the people as to do anything that would block its implementation. It would make the anger over tuition fees look like chicken feed.

[mister-jack.livejournal.com]

The law passed mandates the passing of AV; and I can't imagine any government would dare back out on the will of a referendum but I suppose it might just happen - if, say, we had an election before 2015 and the winning party ran on a platform of a different system.

If AV loses there is little hope of us seeing another electoral reform opportunity within the next twenty years or so because FPTP favours those parties likely to be in power and they will be able to point to the failure of AV as a lack of appetite for change. I'm not sure AV winning would make it much different from that (we can't tamper too often with the system) but at least we get AV in the meantime.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

The official question is covered here. As far as I know, it has now been changed to the simpler second version proposed by the Electoral Commission.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aha, thanks for that.

Although, referring to a different thread elsewhere this morning, I note that that article you linked to says:

Anyone getting more than 50% of first-preference votes is elected. If no-one gets 50% of votes the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their backers' second choices allocated to those remaining. This process continues until one candidate has at least 50% of all votes cast.

So I maintain it's no wonder I'm confused!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

AFAIK the current proposed wording of the question is:

"At present, the UK uses the 'first past the post' system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the 'alternative vote' system be used instead?"

which is not too far from your first notion.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

That is indeed the question.

http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/referendum_2011.aspx?

There was a longer version proposed originally, but it was deemed to be "too hard" for the "less educated".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11442445

Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the 'alternative vote' system instead of the current 'first past the post' system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-10729454

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia has a lot of info on this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_Alternative_Vote_referendum,_2011

It gives the same wording that people have said, with http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldbills/026/2011026.pdf as the reference.

Part of me wonders whether it's a good thing that it's framed as a Yes/No question - it makes it all about AV, rather than AV versus FPTP. The No2AV campaign have exploited this by focusing on criticisms of AV, even though many of them apply to FPTP. Anecdotally, I see people saying things like "I want PR instead of AV, so I'm voting No" - even though that ought to mean they're voting Yes to FPTP in this referendum.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Anecdotally, I see people saying things like "I want PR instead of AV, so I'm voting No" - even though that ought to mean they're voting Yes to FPTP in this referendum.

Well yes - this was rather the point of my multiple polls up there :) I think there are people who believe they're going to be voting in poll 2 or poll 3, whatever the wording, not poll 1.

[hoiho.livejournal.com]

Anecdotally, I see people saying things like "I want PR instead of AV, so I'm voting No"

It's not anecdotal - Lord Owen, ex leader of the SDP, is explicitly fronting a campaign called "No To AV, Yes To PR":

http://www.no2av-yes2pr.org/

[alien8.livejournal.com]

ref AV : http://neilharding.blogspot.com/p/10-facts-about-alternative-vote-av.html

kinda needed to counter the garnage being put out atm.. - the no campaign is so full of BS that I'd vote yes to AV just to annoy them.

No, AV isn't perfect - not by any stretch. But it's a change in the right direction. Changing to AV+ at least, or PR from it will be less of a hurdle.. IMHO etc.

[condign.livejournal.com]

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.

[alien8.livejournal.com]

oh and let's not forget that the Political parties use AV for electing their own leaders!

If first past the post had been used for the Conservatives, David Davies would be the leader now...

good enough for them but not good enough for us? PAH!

NL

[bondagewoodelf.livejournal.com]

Btw, in the Netherlands we have 'AV', sort of. That's why I think our voting system here is fine as it is ;-)

[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.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

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.)

[condign.livejournal.com]

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.