I make no apologies for the fact that electoral reform excites me. I may be in the minority, but after four years studying politics and economics (the latter having more to say about voting than people might suspect), I'm following the Alternative Vote (AV) referendum campaigns with a combination of intrigue and sheer, unbridled terror.
I agree with Nick (sometimes)
Poor old Clegg is amassing quite a collection of political ghosts which, less than a year into office, are haunting him constantly. First there was the NUS pledge, the stuff about not raising VAT and most of the rest of the 2010 LibDem manifesto. Now it's his previous comments about the alternative voting system being a "miserable little compromise". Like him, I favour a move to system of proportional representation (PR), which AV isn't. Like him, I think this is a miserable little compromise. But my point is this: if you favour PR, then you implicitly accept the politics of compromise - coalitions are a lot more likely when 40% of the vote no longer delivers a massive parliamentary majority. Secondly, whilst not being PR, AV does address some of the main arguments against First Past The Post (FPTP), namely that most votes are essentially 'wasted' and that many MPs lack a strong mandate. Living in the East End of Glasgow, I have more chance of getting struck by lightning on my way to the polling station than my vote for anyone other than Labour (or occassionally the SNP) meaning anything at all. That means I'm more likely to stay at home, and that is bad for the legitimacy of the whole rotten system, Willy Bain's mandate aside.
It's as easy as 1, 2, 3...
Voting under AV is not complicated. It's blindingly simple. If you are capable of ever making a decision based on your preference for one thing over another, and are able to indicate this preference to another human being through the medium of numbers then trust me, you've got this cracked. There will be instructions on the ballot paper and the nice people at the polling station will explain it to you. If you cannot read, follow basic verbal instructions or use a pencil to jot down some numbers, you might end up spoiling your ballot and not getting your vote counted. In which case, good: you are clearly a moron and you shouldn't be voting anyway. Does that sound a bit harsh? Well, if you accept that we restrict the right to vote to people over the age of 18 for reasons such as "they need to understand exactly what it is that they're doing", then AV gives us an extra safeguard in that respect. In the unlikely event that you can't carry out a task that most 5 year olds could, perhaps its best that you steer clear of the ballot box for now.
Decisions, decisions...
On a more serious note, preferences are really important. They form the foundation of politics and economics. In the case of economics, it tends to be fairly simple. Prefer Pepsi to Coke? Buy Pepsi, don't buy Coke. Prefer beer to whisky but like the odd dram now and again? Buy mostly beer, but take a wee nip when you're in the mood. Every day, people make lots of decisions, informed by their preferences, and vote with their wallets. When it comes to politics however, things get a bit more complicated. You might want lower taxes but more spending on the NHS. You might want either massive investment in education so your kids get the best or, failing that, you'd prefer no state education at all so that you can pay less tax and spend what you save of private schooling. Trying to reconcile the preferences of millions of people into a coherent programme for government is not easy. It's impossible in fact, there will always be winners and losers. Hence Churchill's famous quip about democracy seeming the worst system of government until you look at the alternatives. You'll never be able to please both the Labour man from Lanark and the Conservative from Canterbury, but hopefully they'll agree on a system to decide who gets what, which is where democracy comes in.
Politics isn't black and white
Now, you may be asking, what does AV have to do with all this? Well, you might not get to express your preferences on each decision in parliament, or even about individual areas of policy, but you get your preferences considered between candidates and parties. Take this hypothetical scenario. There are three parties in your constituency, lets call them "black", "grey" and "white". 40% of people support the black party, 35% support the white party, with the grey party picking up the remaining 25%. Under FPTP, black wins. That's fair, right? They're the most popular party after all. The policies of the other two were clearly not good enough, or they would have won. But politics is rarely a black and white choice. What if the grey party is of a slightly lighter shade, with their policies being more similar, on balance, to those of the white party? What if everyone who voted for grey and white, despite preferring one to the other, would rather have either of those parties over the black party? This is where those all important preferences come in. It's clear that the grey party is not the most popular, so we eliminate them. Rather than casting their voters aside however, we go back and ask them again, this time limiting their choice to black or white. It turns out they'd all rather have white to black, so their votes get transferred. White wins, 60 to 40.
What kind of party would you like?
Is this fairer? Yes, it is - slightly. Lets return to an earlier example and elaborate it. Imagine that you're holding a party for nine friends, and you can either buy a bottle of whisky, a box of wine or a case of beer. So you ask them what they want. four of them love whisky. Of the remaining five, three love wine and two love beer, but all five would drink anything other than whisky as they can't stand the stuff. You begin by asking for a show of hands and whisky comes out the winner. "Wait a minute", comes the cry from the others, "we all hate whisky". After a quick discussion between themselves, they return with a suggestion: "forget the beer, we'd all rather have wine over whisky". Do you grant them their wish? Well it depends, would you rather have 4 really happy people and 5 really miserable people at your party? Or 3 really happy people, two quite happy people and the four whisky drinkers who may or may not like wine? By counting second preferences, you've ensured that there's at least one less miserable sod at your party. "That's ridiculous!", I hear you cry, "why not buy half a bottle of whisky, a couple of bottles of wine and a six-pack of beers and make everyone happy?". You're absolutely right, which is why I'd take PR any day. Unfortunately it's not on the table, but that won't stop me from making an analogy out of it.
A Process of Elimination
Let's imagine for a moment that PR is not an option at this referendum because it's the least popular choice compared to AV and FPTP (I don't believe this for a second. Nor, I suspect, does David Cameron, but stick with me on this). As such, PR has been 'eliminated' from the referendum already. Does that mean that I, and other supporters of PR, should be excluded from voting on AV or FPTP because no-one else wants our preferred system? Of course it doesn't. We can't get our first choice, but we can express a preference for one of the other two. To give a real world example, look at the French Presidential elections, where multiple rounds of voting are used. After each round, the candidate coming last is eliminated and people return to the ballot box. The process continues until someone gets over 50%, by nothing more sinister than a simple process of elimination. That's pretty much how AV works, only you save on the hassle of having multiple elections by gathering the second round votes of the eliminated candidates at the same time as the first. I'll admit that in this case, AV is more appealing than the French system on the grounds of what it would cost. in each constituency with several candidates.
The NO Campaign
There are some quite persuasive arguments against AV out there. Yet strangely, the NO campaign seem at pains to use them, instead resorting to the kind of childish gutter-politics that is normally the reserve of NUS conferences. Whilst I wouldn't normally want to give them extra publicity, their case is so pathetic that anyone with half a brain will hopefully see through it. First there was this:
Ignoring the fact the the £250million figure seems to have been plucked out of thin air and widely refuted, the principle of it is alarming. Armed Forces or democracy. Didn't you know you can't have both? The only rational explanation I can think of is that the NO campaign got some great discount-rates from Fashista and Junta Communications Inc., what with them having lost that lucrative Mubarak account last month. Then there was the heart-string plucking baby ad. Steven Baxter of the New Statesman already has this one wrapped up here. Parliament costs us about £500million a year. The 2005 election cost £80million. I'd like to think that we can still afford these types of luxuries, even if we can't have libraries any more. And if we're spending this on making the decisions about how the rest of the £700billion of public money is distributed, I'd like to think that we can splash a bit extra on ensuring that we have the right voting system in place.
You B'stard
Then came last night's broadcast. If you missed it, you can watch it (and hit 'dislike') here:
First we get Rik Mayall giving us his usual comedy, with some other laughable stuff thrown in. He gives us a dumbed-down argument against coalition government, which, depending on your views, is a compelling case against PR. Did I mention that AV is not PR? Good. Next up, it's back to the old horse-racing analogy, long-time favourite of those who support FPTP (its where it got its name, after all). We see a neck-and-neck race between Labour and the Conservatives, with the LibDems a long way behind and the BNP bringing up the rear. Yet somehow, the LibDems win. Let me be clear about this: it's bat-shit crazy. Perhaps, if the leaders had 35% of the vote each, the LibDems had 30% and the BNP had 10% and perhaps, if the LibDems were the second preference of all the BNP voters (reconsider that possibility for a moment), then yes, the LibDems might have won it under AV. But the way it's portrayed in the video is shamelessly misleading. Finally, we get shown how teachers are useless and children are stupid. This goes a long way towards explaining why the former are teachers and why the latter are not allowed to vote. A case for better schools perhaps, but not against AV.
But what about all the extremists?
Let me return to the BNP for a moment, as they seem to feature heavily in arguments against AV and indeed PR. In the case of PR, it's the fact that they might win seats. In which case, so be it. Isn't that how elections are supposed to work, votes = seats? If the BNP are so awful, change the law to prevent them from standing or better still, just don't vote for them, but don't try and rig the voting system to their disadvantage. The same argument applies to everyone who votes Green, UKIP, SSP or Monster Raving Loony Party. Just because you have the audacity to hold a less popular view, doesn't mean your vote counts for less. On the subject of AV however, the argument is perhaps a little stronger at first glance. The NO campaign's objection is that it's the second preferences of the 5% or so who support the BNP that 'decide' the outcome of the election. Well, yes and no. If their second preference goes to one of the mainstream, front-runner parties who are almost neck-and-neck, then yes, possibly. But if you are so opposed to people voting for the BNP and would rather they had voted for a 'normal' party, then in a way, you've got your wish, because now they have. Bear in mind that people often vote BNP in protest. They might be unhappy with levels of immigration but not necessarily card-carrying fascists; they know the BNP won't win, but vote for them anyway to rattle the establishment. If, on the other hand, they are died-in-the wool Neo-Nazis, then it's highly unlikely they'll give anyone mainstream a second preference, bearing in mind that AV doesn't require you to write anything more than a "1" if you don't want to. So whilst there is an outside chance that your local skinhead might get the casting vote, he can't chose the BNP. His second preference only decides the outcome if there are another two parties who are virtually tied by virtue of everyone else having voted for one of them, and his second preference is enough to tip one of them over the 50% mark. Anyone who has watched an AV election count in progress will know that when things are really close, it's only when the 3rd place candidate is eliminated that someone makes it over 50%. When things aren't so close, the person who had the most votes after the first round tends to also have the most votes at the end by virtue of being the most popular candidate.
Why You Should Vote YES
I'll admit, there's a little part of me that says to hell with AV because it's not PR. The thinking is that if you accept AV now, the miserable little compromise, then you won't get a say on PR for another generation. Referenda are few and far between in the UK, after all. But a NO vote can also be seen as tacit consent for the existing system. Rejecting AV doesn't equate to accepting FPTP, but you can be sure as damnit that it'll get portrayed that way by those who find that the current system suits their political interests. The sad fact is that both Labour and the Conservatives like FPTP because it perpetuates the political pendulum that has seen them swap power backwards and forwards between themselves for the best part of a century. Of course, things might be different when PR works in their favour, such as in the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh assembly, but their support for PR at Westminster would be like the proverbial turkeys voting YES in the referendum on winter festivals. A change to AV is a step in the right direction, in that it shows that alternatives exist, that people want change, and that the electorate is clever enough to be trusted with a newfangled voting system that might just make things fairer.
Voting YES can have a real and positive impact on UK politics. Firstly, safe seats will become a lot less safe. This is particularly relevant to Scotland, where you could just about slap a red rosette on a turnip and watch it get elected in some constituencies. Too many MPs are carried by a minority, with no real incentive to work hard for their constituents' support. Secondly, it forces parties to seek wider support, instead of targeting all their resources and policies at the small number of floating voters in a handful of marginal constituencies. With second, third and fourth preferences potentially all counting, parties and their candidates will have to engage with every voter to secure a win. Having a more engaged electorate is better for democracy in and of itself. But perhaps most importantly, it will give more people a voice in elections. It's no coincidence that the safest seats tend to see the lowest turn-outs; voters just don't see how casting a vote for someone who can't win as being worth their while, and to a large extent they're right. Either that, or they have to resort to tactical voting, by second-guessing what everyone else is going to do and choosing their second or third preference who has a shout. AV removes the guess work and makes everyone more enfranchised. It's good for the voter in that their vote has more chance of mattering, so they're more inclined to vote. More people voting is better for democracy - I hold that truth to be self-evident.
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