Alternative Voting measure fails in UK referendum

Canada needs AV. We need to keep the MP system we have, so no PR, but at the same time we need to fix FPTP.

In Etobicoke Centre the Liberal MP lost by 26 votes. I'ms ure the 7,000 people who voted NDP would much rather see the Liberals in then the C Onservatives, but FPTP gave Conservatives the win even though the riding is obviously centre-left leaning.

If you don't like a single Frank Ocean song, you have no soul.

This is the kind of lie the No campaign loved. Say there's 5 candidates, no one gets more than 50% first time out, so the bottom placed is dropped. If most of their voters put, say the Conservatives or Labour as their second preference, then they would get the extra votes!

Or is there some kind of innate assmption that anyone who votes for a minor party will automatically rank the parties in reverse order, smallest to biggest? That's the only possible way your scenario could arise and it's a total fallacy.

As I've said, 70% of the electorate voting against the winning candidate is not most people's votes mattering and it's not in any way whatsoever fair. Yet it so so often happens here.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

Plus, AV is good for anyone who dislikes the "main" two parties, since it increases the chances of third parties getting in (as there is less tactical voting).

Actually it increases the tactical voting since preferences can be abused as Take Thats to the big parties - but that isn't a bad thing. Under FPTP, it becomes very difficult to get rid of a particularly-loathed incumbent. Unless there's a singular clear-cut alternative, which there often isn't, the vote will be split. AV makes it easier, because the hated person will be low on the preference list of most people, meaning it becomes more open among the others.

My name is Addy. Please call me that instead of my username.

As I said it is only my interpretation and I am probably not explaining myself very well so I will have another go.

If say Conservatives get 4o% of the votes, Labour gets 30%, Lib Dems get 20% and the Fish Party get 10%. Even if everyone who voted Fish put Conservative as their second preference I would still say that those votes were counted twice and as such is a violation of the One Man, One Vote principle unless you also take into account the second preferences of the other three parties.

Another problem I have is the 50% target for winning. This only makes sense if you make voting compulsory as just because someone doesn't vote, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't have voted for the party with the largest percentage.

For the record I have no political allegiances to speak of and I live in an extremely safe Conservative seat. As such my vote for the Lib Dems was totally wasted (I wanted a Lib/Lab coalition as I thought it would be interesting).

They were not counted twice. Fish Party was removed from the ballot (and thus could not win) and their second votes were counted. If we presume that everyone who voted Fish Party had Conservative as their Number 2, then the will of the people has been carried out. If you were to stick to "one man, one vote" and include everyone else's second preferences, you've now given everyone two votes. Hardly "one man, one vote". The votes were not "counted twice"; they were counted once and after seeing that no, not even half the people there want the Tories in power, they go onto the second preferences of the Fish Party.

Let us say that everyone in the Fish Party had Labour as their Number Two. So, a majority has still not been reached. So they take out Liberal Democrat, and their second preferences are taken and thus a winner between Labour and Conservative is decided, according to what the people actually want. If Labour then win, it is clear - the people did not want a Conservative at all.

And if someone does not vote, that is their own problem. Why, the AV campaign had a voter turnout of... what was it, 40% or something? Who's to say the other 60% wouldn't have said "yes"? Clearly, this means that the entire thing needs to be redone. And the same applies for First Past the Post elections, too.

AV is essentially a multiple-round system, knocking out the least popular candidate each time. The only difference is instead of re-opening the vote each time you note down who you would vote for in each round if the candidate you wanted gets knocked out in advance.

Everything is best in moderation.

You know what Great Britain needs?

An electoral college.

:P

I didn’t vote against AV because I like first past the post, I don’t particularly, I just like AV less than first past the post (and I truly despise proportional representation but that is a separate issue). I apologise that I didn’t make that clear originally.

It may just be me but the way your describing it still seems to be that the votes for the discarded parties are being counted multiple times. If you are going to use a ranking system for voting then a better way would be to give each preference a points value (first preference 4 points, second preference 3 points, etc.) add up all the points for each party and the party with the most points is the winner.

I wouldn't be adverse to a multi-round system if everyone got to vote in the second round rather than just the supporters of the loser. It is this point that I object to most.

edited 7th May '11 4:21:10 PM by SebastianGray

Ok, we'll annex them next Tuesday.

But they'll need a new name. How does Airstrip One sound?

Why do you hate proportional representation?

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

If I am honest I have never been quite sure why I dispike PR as much as I do. I think it could be because I greatly dislike party polatics and, the way I understand the system, I feel that it would give too much power to the party system. I could be wrong ofcourse and if it could be proved otherwise I may look at it again.

Everyone's votes get counted a second time in the second round. It's just that the people who didn't vote for the losing candidate have their votes counted for the same person as the first time round.

Everything is best in moderation.

Surely a representative and fair voting system is more important than dislike of party politics?

(Apologies if misinterpreted your post.)

edited 7th May '11 4:40:33 PM by IanExMachina

By the powers invested in me by tabloid-reading imbeciles, I pronounce you guilty of paedophilia!

I suppose you could be right, it just still seems to be wrong somehow, I am having difficulty explaining myself. If each round was held on a different day with allowances for campaigning in-between I feel it would be far better.

As I said I don’t truly know why I dislike PR, it is just a gut feeling I get about it that puts me off. I will have to think about it and get back to you on that.

RE:59 But who wins? The "major parties", the folks who get boosted ahead by the 1 and 2 votes. So I can look at it several ways:

• The "One man, one vote" thing only works in the frame work of FPTP. A preferential system does't have a single tick so catchphrases about single ticks need not apply.

• The majority guy gets to win. The people who voted for them first isn't getting screwed out of anything compared to FPTP unless you have the case where the winner is the guy who would actually lose if it was an enforced two party election and not actually being the representative of the majority of your constituency sucks more.

• The different value of the preference order places equates the system to a point allocation system (but without some of that's systems problem) in the effective power it places in each individual voter's hands.

Also, the fact that a full order of preference is given makes the system equivalent to a multi-round system but removes the possibilities of tactical voting and general dickishness. You vote someone as your first choice, if they're still around, their still your first choice and the people who had their first choice vote for their second. The only difference is maybe some choice of tenses.

Ii voted Yes in the Referendum in the hopes that if it passed it would set a precedent for further voting reform down the line.

Alas it was not to be.

Could you explain that one?

This is called a cumulative count vote and shares the same main problems as FPTP: Dishonest voters will win (by throwing all their votes to one tactical candidate,) and if your favorite candidate loses then all the other candidates you like will get stiffed, wasting your votes.

I actually liked CCV years ago, before I read about IRV.

SLAY THE HERETIC

Eric,

The problem with Proportional Representation seems to be that it lets the party decide which members stay and which members go. So however vile the fictional Mr Harry Hardcastle may be he will never lose his seat while his party wants to keep him.

Tenebrais beat me to commenting on your first post, so...

I'm having some trouble elucidating my exact thoughts too The only thing having multiple-rounds on multiple days would do is a) be a rather large waste of taxpayer money, b) make elections take far longer then they do now *

^{Since the formation of government could be forced to take multiple weeks after the first election day}

, c) have troubles with voter turnout (what if the Fish Party voters have to work on Election Round 1, but not Election Round 2?) and d) not change a whole lot from simply having AV. If we presume that everyone who voted for a party in Round One will vote for that party again, they're just signing the ballot again *

^{if they can vote again, and don't have to do other things}

. The Fish Party voters might well just not vote for anyone else, making Round Two useless.

CCV has the same problems as FPTP. It's like giving someone two votes; the only real way they'll be useful is if you put both of them towards a "smart party". *

Incidentally, I'm still using your example from earlier. Not for any special reason besides illustrative ones.

edited 8th May '11 4:40:52 AM by AllanAssiduity

I will definitely have to think about these things. The systems that I suggested myself weren’t ones that I want to see introduced, I just think they are better than AV. Really unless a vote has a turnout of over 50% of the electorate then it isn’t really affair vote anyway, whatever system it is fought under.

If I am honest my true feeling on politics is that while I am fascinated by it and like to discuss it wherever possible I do consider myself to be of bellow average intelligence and not have an adequate understanding of the issues to make a proper decision on these matters. The main reason I vote is because I have always been told that I should and it has got to the point that it has become as natural to me as breathing, even if I don’t really care who wins as all the major parties are the same and the minor parties are a bunch of weirdoes.

Its peoples choice whether or not they turn out to vote. I don't see how turnout figures into it. If you don't turn out and speak, how is anyone supposed to listen to you? Are they supposed to read your mind?

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

I agree with a lot of this, really. But my limited understanding is enough to give me a general idea of why I'd prefer AV. I'd agree, but a large part of a lack of voter turn-out is voter apathy. If someone is apathetic enough to not vote, it is likely that if you forced them to vote, they'd just fold their ballot.

I think Australia has a mandatory-voting-or-face-fine thing...

-edit-
^ There are some people who work through the times when the voting occurs. I don't know if you can vote in advance, so...

edited 8th May '11 12:34:38 PM by AllanAssiduity

There's Postal Voting, and Proxy Voting as well (I think).

Keep Rolling On

It's actually impossible to remove tactical voting in any election with 3 or more candidates. IRV requires different tactics than FPTP, but it's still there. See here.

Belief or disbelief rests with you.