h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm going to break my own rule about not meddling in foreign politics and post this link here:

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/02/does-the-alternative-vote-bring-tyranny-to-australia.html

It appears that there's a lot of outright dung being spoken in the UK about the AV system. This blog, by the irreplaceable Antony Green (election night gnome and lucid explainer) might help a bit. Or it might not. Whatever.

Anyway. I'm happy to discuss, if anyone wants to do so. (Iago?)

Very interesting.

I'm not sure I'm prepared to discuss- even though I read that entire blog entry, I don't quite know/understand what the Alternative Vote really entails. Though I do like the sound of the election not being decided immediately... and the more "liberal" absentee voting you have down that way.

Nobody else seems prepared, either.

Would you like me to explain the AV system? No? Never mind, I'll have a go anyway.

A simple example would be a contest with three candidates. Each voter numbers these in the preferred order, writing '1' against their preferred candidate (Fred), '2' against the one they would be able to tolerate (Mary), and '3' against the complete and utter waste of space they can't stand (Tony).

At the count, the '1' is looked at first. This is the 'first preference vote'. If one of the three candidates gets 50% or more of the first preference votes, that's the end of the process; that candidate is elected.

But let's say Fred gets 41%, Mary gets 39% and Tony (inexplicably) gets 20%, thereby proving that lunatics do vote. Tony can't win, hurrah, but neither Fred nor Mary has the magic 50%. So ballot papers with '1' against Tony are re-examined to see who got '2' against them - the second-preference vote. After those preferences are distributed, Mary has 51% and Fred has 49%, so Mary is elected as the person who might not be the outright most popular, but she is the most generally tolerated.

The real fun comes when you have a dozen or more candidates and you have to work out which of the six useless ones most deserves to come stone cold last.

#3 "Tony" - a coincidence surely?

We have MMP here, which is a 2 tier system. It combine First Past the Post (FPP) and Proportional Representation (PR) = Mixed Member Proportional (MMP). We vote for a constituency representative and for a 'list' representative.

It does mean that government is almost bound to be a coalition, but I'm yet to be convinced that's a bad thing. Thatcher wouldn't have done what she did, if she'd had to negotiate with coalition partner/s. And in wartime coalition governments are the norm - indicating that they need all the wise heads...

Mind you, it does allow some idiots to hold sway on some issues, as has been the case here in recent years.

We have a Referendum in November, at the same time as the next Election, to decide whether MMP continues, or if we go back to FPP. From talking to longer-time Kiwis than me, I get the feeling it'll be adopted permenantly

Is the UK considering the same system as Australia?? to look at UK voting websites.

Fb

I do like the MMP system. Here in the ACT we use a variant of the Hare-Clark system with multi-member electorates, which is a sort of localised PR when you think about it, which i do at times because I'm like that. But I digress. It's what the UK calls AV at the federal level and in most states, and it beats the stuffing out of FPTP.

A I understand it, the UK is looking at introducing the Australian system, but a version that's used in NSW and Queensland state elections with *optional* assignation of preferences. Personally, I prefer to give preferences to all candidates but I've never lived in Qld or NSW so I don't know if there's any significant practical difference.

(And FB, I forgot to say that it's a complete and utter coincidence that I had Tony losing badly. )

Thanks for explaining. That sounds like a decent voting system- and certainly more representative of the constituencies than say, an outdated electoral college that can put someone in office without a majority of the "popular" vote. In fact, I like the idea of voting that way in a primary, especially if we allowed every voter to select the candidate for each party, if that makes any sense? So that if I were, for example, a registered Democrat (we don't need to register with a party to vote in primaries in IL, so while I'm registered to vote I am not registered with a party), I could still look at the Repub candidates and say "this guy's a kook, this Barbie doll is useless, this guy is actually relatively harmless" and help hold some of the kooks back.

No national elections here now- though I voted last week for mayor. But various crazies in elected offices and their politics of spite always have me looking to the next election to some extent.

It sucks to have to vote based on who will do the least amount of harm. But sometimes there's no other choice. It's particularly important not to entrust our future to the kind of people who don't even believe we're going to *have* one. How can you debate long-term goals with people who think the world is about to end?

Sorry for drifting ff topic...

Thoroughly enjoyed that, cheers Ivan.

I'm undecided about AV: I hesitated voting Lib Dem because of their advocacy of it and that was before their parliamentary party became treacherous scum. I'd love to say my current hatred of the Lib Dems won't affect my vote, but I'd be lying. I just can't seem myself voting for something they stand to gain the most from.

I'm not sure AV holds as big a moral advantage over FPTP that its advocates are claiming: the choice seems to be a candidate few are happy with but most can live with, or a candidate many want but many hate. I don't see that as the decisive win most AV advocates make it out to be.

Antony had a good point when he talked about how ridiculous some of the British commentary has been and how there are strong undertones of prejudice with idea of Britain taking on an Australian idea (his description of Australia as a new country but an old democracy was lovely - got to admire someone who can include such prose in a very lucid description of quite a tricky political structure) and that might sway me to voting yes - the people leading the no campaign are, by and large, idiots and/or bigots.

He's also right to point out how many of the points raised in opposition so far are irrelevant: constituency sizes and extra confusion delaying the result, potential for hung parliaments, postal voting all exist independent of voting systems: Canada is a good example of all of those under FPTP.

Mind you, there's a lot of stuff said by pro-AV folk that isn't true either: the system doesn't eliminate safe seats, nor does it make every seat competitive (no system could do that) and when you're not popular enough to win a plurality of votes you can't claim to be representative of your constituency.

It's incorrect to talk about the UK as a whole a multi-party parliament too - the Lib Dems still haven't cemented their place in the political establishment and, tellingly, they don't have any core constituencies that will always be yellow. Under a resurgent Labour or Conservative party they stand to lose heavily (at the next election they'll likely be facing both and flirting with annihilation) because they are the second party for most but the first party for few. In Scotland and in local elections, the situation is a bit different because they are truly multiparty affairs but in most UK-wide elections it comes down to Labour vs Tories.

I guess I've got 10 weeks to make up my mind. I'll be as interested as anyone to see which way I choose.

Pc, I don't think you're off-topic as such. How one feels while voting is a side-effect of the electoral system, after all.

Iago, I agree; AV isn't in any way morally superior to FPTP, but I do think it's *fairer* than FPTP. Under FPTP, someone can win with the support of less than half the voters and be heartily despised by everyone else; under AV, the successful candidate is at least *accepted* by more than half the voters. It's a more conciliatory outcome.

Things AV will not do:

It will not eliminate safe seats. That comes down to how the electoral boundaries are drawn. Some areas do just lean one way or another.

It will not prevent stupid, ignorant and/or venal people from being elected. The voter has to try to weed them out.

It will not guarantee the election of a competent government. Nothing can do that, sadly.

It won't get stains out of the hearthrug.

It won't stop people grumbling about the electoral process, which will never please anyone.

One fun thing AV can do:

It gives people the opportunity to scare the major parties, by putting a less likely candidate first and the least appalling of the major parties second. An MP who knows he/she is in Parliament because of preferences ratehr than primary votes has to work harder to keep the seat next time around.

I also wonder, with a touch of glee, how those people objecting to an Australian electoral system cope with casting a vote at all, seeing it's a secret ballot which was another one of our innovations.

Good luck deciding how to vote in the referendum. I'll be watching with a very geekish interest. As, no doubt, will Antony Green. I'll post a link to anything else he says about it all, as and when it appears.

Dragging back off topic-ish again for a moment. I need to have an election related vent.

We just had a mayoral election here in Chicago, and of course the candidate with the most money won. On the one hand, there's been so much graft and patronage here already, it can't really get worse. And on the up side, at least he's not one of these whacko Republicans. But he's just such a slimy, snarky douchebag. And IMO completely untrustworthy.

But on the other hand, not a screw-the-poor/middle class kind of guy, so at least there's that.

At least you know he's a douche already, which might be better than finding that out once he's ensconced in the job. And he might be objectionable, but at least he's not a fascist.

I do sometimes wonder if we could ever get an electoral system that prevents appalling people from being elected, but it might not be possible in conjunction with democracy. Sadly, the sort of person who wants to be in charge of things is often exactly the sort of person who shouldn't be in charge of things.

Here's a couple of fresh blogs from Antony Green. In this one he explains some of the practicalities of AV better than I ever could.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/02/how-the-alternative-vote-works.html

Here, in a profound shock for everyone I'm sure, David Cameron is shown to be talking absolute twaddle.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/02/do-australians-really-want-to-abandon-the-alternative-vote.html

>>David Cameron is shown to be talking absolute twaddle<< Surely not?

And here's another one.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/02/correcting-more-misrepresentations-of-alternative-vote-practice-in-australia.html

I must admit to having a very geeky semi-crush on Antony Green. I especially like the line 'My first reaction to this was typically antipodean, bovine and scatological, but for politeness I'll just describe the above quote as rubbish.'

Why do I get the feeling that Antony Green, rather than any of my own politicians/commentators, will be the one who sways my vote? That's a pretty sorry state of affairs, not because I have a problem with being schooled by an Australian (I frequently am in other things) but because our guys are making such a bad job of it.

I think it's particularly telling that a lot of the no campaign is focusing on absolute irrelevancies like not being able to declare on the night (can't say I care about that aspect) and the stuff about postal voting. It makes me think they don't have any better arguments.

Ivan, can you enlighten me about this - why is the deadline 2 weeks after election day? Green says something about getting as many people's votes in as possible and issues with postal services in remote areas but that seems to be a bit of a cop-out: difficulties with the post would be the same for someone two weeks later. If the problem is with getting postal ballots out then why not extend the notification period? None of this has an impact on our election, I'm just curious.

I'm still concerned about how the electoral system opens up to smaller parties and that can destabilise the electoral system and I've yet to see anyone counter that point.

Antony Green is ever so persuasive sometimes, and he's fun to watch on election night because he's so visibly excited about things.

I agree, the bit about 'not being able to declare on the night' is irrelevant. As a rule we know who will form government by the end of the night, even if there are some seats where the outcome is unclear. There comes a point in each seat's count where one of the candidates is *most likely* to win after preferences have been distributed; that's usually the cue for that candidate to get all exultant and make amusing television.

The bit about postal votes... Well, let's start from the fact that Australia Post is a joke. They're highly unreliable. Add to that the fact that a postal vote doesn't have to be cast until election day itself (though it can be posted earlier if the voter chooses). So a vote cast on the day needs time to get to a booth to be counted. If the vote is coming from a place where there's one postal delivery a week (or less frequent than that), there has to be at least a week's wait. The second week is (in my personal view) down to the fact that Australia Post will probably lose the thing and need to look for it.

The two-week window is a bit of a relic; communications are now better than they were across most of the country but there are still pockets where an early cut-off would disenfranchise people. These are places where a light plane visits once a week or fortnight, drops off a mailbag and picks up anything the 10 or 15 residents want to send. Getting changes to the Electoral Act through Parliament will never be a priority as the government that attempts it will be open to charges of trying to rig things.

There's nothing to stop the UK setting things up so postal votes must be received before or on polling day. There aren't huge slabs of UK territory that could be called 'extremely remote and isolated'; it's just a matter of people taking a ballot paper to a postbox.

The two-week delay doesn't hold up the formation of government. After the last election we had a 17-day hiatus, but that was nothing to do with the count; it was down to the result being a 50/50 split between the two major parties (Labor and the permanent Liberal/National coalition *spit*) and a couple of Independents needing to decide who they'd support on the floor of the House.

Allowing small parties into the process doesn't destabilise the electoral system. In fact, by providing competition it means MPs have to work harder to keep the voters happy because they know there are alternatives other than a bluish Tweedledee and a reddish Tweedledum. (Me, I generally vote Green as my first preference with Tweedledum second; enough of us around here do this to make it clear to our local Tweedledum that she has to keep the Green fans happy and not just her direct supporters.) In actual practice, though, the small parties only end up in the Senate; the Senate vote is via a form of state-based PR rather than AV. The Senate is the 'house of review', and that's where in my opinion there *should* be a multiplicity of views represented.