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

[condign.livejournal.com]

You admitted that the Fairer Votes campaign has made "inaccurate" claims, but your argument rests on the idea that making fatuous claims about the costs of implementing AV somehow renders the No folks reprobates, but making equally ridiculous (if not more so--the Australia thing really is a howler) claims about AV's benefits is no-harm, no-foul.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

(Also replying to the other comment - note that it was anonymous, so is screened.)

I agree that the Lib Dem has a couple of poor claims. I'm happy to count it as official.

I'm just saying, in my opinion, I don't think that comes anywhere near close to the level of No2AV, either in terms of the number of poor claims, the level that they stoop to (claiming Yes supporters don't like AV by misquoting; argument by emotion; etc), or the prominence that they give them.

This tendency to hold others to standards that one would not for a moment think of applying to one's allies or oneself is the attitude that I find galling in many of the official (and unofficial) supporters of the Yes campaign.

No, as I say, I don't like some of the Yes claims being made. On that note, AV supporters have been criticising claims made by the Yes campaign. Anecdotally, I've seen people on my flist disappointed with the Yes campaign.

Has anything similar happened in the No2AV campaign? Have Tory MPs stood up and said that they've no intention of bringing in voting machines, and that it won't cost £250 million (they should know)? Or that the Tories won't have an extra £250 million for the NHS should No win? Or noted that David Cameron was the "loser" in their first round of leadership election?

Maybe they have, though I haven't seen it yet. If not, that's something else to note: the misinformation from the Yes campaign gets criticised by Yes and No supporters alike; yet there seems to be a silence from No supporters on the No campaign.

That said: any theory of political malfeasance that says (a) it's a horrible travesty to link AV to potentially higher spending, cuts in services, etc. (which I agree are not necessary outcomes of AV, although each falls in the "possible but unlikely" category) but (b) it is not equally morally bankrupt to link the adoption of AV to the relatively strong economic Australian performance after the financial crisis, or to state that the most populous democracy in the world is using a "discredited" system to chose its members is one that, if it is following a system of consistent principals at all, follows one that I cannot divine.

I agree that the Australian claim was incorrect and unfair. The travesty isn't that one claim alone, it's the full extent of the list. I cannot divine making two incorrect points on a webpage equal to a large number of incorrect points in adverts and door leaflets.

Plus the issue wasn't the link to the cuts; it was the link when it's the Tories who are making the cuts whilst supporting No2AV; and the claimed cost of AV is known to be a lie, not simply a matter of opinion.

For the "discredited" point: I noted that it was no different to No2AV referring to Australia as "undemocratic", yet I don't think either is a big problem. Claiming something to be discredited is a matter of opinion (well, I guess there's the implication that it's something that everyone agrees on, though I think this would apply to all uses of the word "discredited"; either way, it applies to calling AV, and places like Australia that use it, as not being democratic).

Also note that America doesn't use straight FPTP, as you have earlier rounds - Primaries - to decide the Democrat and Republican candidates, reducing it to almost a two party system (as venta comments). This factor can't be ignored - the election process includes the primaries as well as the final FPTP round. The primaries reduce the problems of FPTP, such as vote splitting between similar candidates.

You admitted that the Fairer Votes campaign has made "inaccurate" claims, but your argument rests on the idea that making fatuous claims about the costs of implementing AV somehow renders the No folks reprobates, but making equally ridiculous (if not more so--the Australia thing really is a howler) claims about AV's benefits is no-harm, no-foul.

I just think, in my opinion, that the level of misinformation is not equal. I admit that maybe this is just me being biased. Although I've yet to see a list of Yes misinformation countering the list that I've provided - maybe I'm just not seeing it though.

[venta.livejournal.com]

note that it was anonymous, so is screened

Now unscreened. I don't screen anonymous comments, but LJ seems to have got properly picky about what it thinks is spam of late.

[condign.livejournal.com]

Sorry... missed the fact that I posted it anonymously. My error. :(

[condign.livejournal.com]

I just think, in my opinion, that the level of misinformation is not equal. I admit that maybe this is just me being biased.

Yes, I think you're biased.

The mismatch in "misinformation" is rather what I'm finding hard to believe. Not that you haven't found a list--your evidence of having looked very hard is somewhat thin--but that you think such a list wouldn't be trivially easy to produce. Someone of reasonable intelligence should be able to produce a list of "misinformation" that meets the standards you set for the "no" vote very easily.

First, a factual point: not all states have primaries. (Iowans, for example, would be fairly surprised to find out that they've been having primaries all these years.) Second, a primary is simply a nominating election, and many primaries are uncontested. It's not like the Mike Castle/Christine O'Donnell situation was typical.

So for instance:

(a) Tories use AV to choose their leader? No, they do not. The have multiple rounds of elections, yes, but this is not the same as AV (at least as relevant here), because a voter in the second round knows the result of the first round vote. See al_fruitbat's comments above for why this is important. The endless repetition of this ridiculous claim, which actually ignores the importance of interim knowledge in voting,

(b) Take a look at the first three claims here: http://www.yestofairervotes.org/pages/av-myths. That is to say, the first three bullet points of the first paragraph. Please note that all of the failings of the FPTP system also apply to AV so long as what they list as "Myth 9" is not true. The only condition under which AV eliminates the three problems mentioned is where a voter is required to vote for multiple candidates. Otherwise, AV as a system may result in candidates winning with only 1 in 3 votes cast for them, candidates retaining seats without a majority, etc. This is just basic math.

I could go on, but here's the point: I'm not actually that strongly against AV, and I recognize that these claims are BS. Or rather, they're the same thing as the claim about the cost of voting machines: a statement which is not necessarily true, but true inasmuch as it relies upon certain assumptions, those assumptions not shared by opponents on the other side. Either that or "shading" the truth by leaving out facts necessary to be coherent (such as the Tory election not being AV, at least as contemplated here).

This happens all the time in politics, and it's no big surprise. I don't think there's an "imbalance" in misinformation. I do think, however, that there is a serious imbalance in the sanctimony about it. I'm not saying that two isolated points on a website are equivalent to your "list"--though one has to point out that you've cited no sources and quoted no statements, merely paraphrased arguments--but that you're not looking critically at the arguments that you favor, certainly not with the same standards you apply to the No campaign.