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

I was struck by that too the other day. I haven't seen any opinion polls or anything like that yet.

Given that we're already seeing tonnes of polls about the American election which won't happen for another 18 months and has only one declared candidate.

Post 76 has a lot of common sense, but seems to suggest that the FPTP system has a bias towards Labour, and that AV will increase this. I don't understand. Please can someone explain this to me?

So the referendum is next thursday..and when we finally get this hoo hah out the way there'll be about 3 or 4 days to get the discussion on the main media...that's where it needs to be.

I've heard it mentioned about twice on 5live the popularist radio station I waste far too much time listening to. Its been wall to wall wedding stuff this week.

I'm still quite torn..but coming around to AV more. It really does need to be rammed home to people that they also have the choice of just putting a 1 for one candidate..so all this stuff about it being complicated..can be put to bed. God I only discovered that from reading this thread.

It's kind of convenient that this wedding thing has hijacked any sort of discussion until the very last minute...not that I'm a conspiracy theorist

Can I vote No .... then put Yes as my second choice?

See post 60 but you told it better.

I like AV because it reduces the need to vote tactically. It annoys me that where I am now I have a choice of supporting the conservatives by voting lib dem or choosing labour, and that's all the expression I can give to my vote really.

Here's an interesting blog on the subject. Partisan, but still.

http://gowers.wordpress.com/2011/04/20/is-av-better-than-fptp/

In my past comments I have suggested possible weaknesses in AV.
However I shall be voting for AV for the following reasons:

1) As a protest vote:
(i) I am unhappy with my governments decision to spend money it
hasn't got, on another open ended overseas campaign. (ii) I am not
100% happy with some major restructuring in education, the health
service and elsewhere which haven't been clearly thought through and
which will necessitate increased restructuring costs in the short
term. (iii) ...

2) Since politics is all about short termism and self interest, then
I feel no conflict of interest in basing my vote on "short term"
issues.

3) By voting for AV the political parties will have to work just a
fraction harder to get a clear majority (as other have mentioned it
will not significantly change the political landscape), which cannot
be a bad thing (?).

4) Voting AV should increase, however slight, the chances of
candidates that are independent of the major political parties.
There seems to be a lack of intelligent critical debate in
Parliament, where there is too much following of party lines. I don't
want my MP to be another meaningless party sheep. I want more
independently minded and intelligent Members of Parliament.

5) For various reasons I find myself unable to vote for the Tories,
the Lib Dems nor Labour the next time round (although this depends
somewhat on the specific individual party "representative" elected to
run in my constituency).

6) Having over 50% of the constituency (that vote) in favour of the
elected candidate is not inconsistent with representative democracy.

7) If the first past the post system has got Britain where it is
today, then ...

Thanks for your excellent post tarrantoes. It's great to get a bit of debate going here about it and people giving good solid reasons for their decision.

No 7. I think that goes to the heart of it in terms of what we have..and whether or not it could be better or worse. That's my dilemna.

>> Solnushka ... I like AV because ... Here's an interesting blog on the subject<<
Thanks for the link



The blog is from the Cambridge Maths Professor Timothy Gowers. In
his (lengthy) blog he reasons that AV is fairer and more democratic
than the FPTP system, and strongly advocates voting yes in the
referendum. A poll of "voting experts" voted for AV:
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/CPNSS/projects/VPP/Home.aspx.

In my next post I will try to condense his arguments.

This post makes use of some of the ideas contained in Prof Gowers
blog (see above) - which I simplify to three key points.


1) In the May 5th referendum we are given the opportunity of voting
for one of two constituency voting systems FPTP or AV.

Note: The referendum has NOTHING to do with proportional
representation. Both FPTP and AV allow electors to vote in or vote
out their local MP. Discussion of which party will win the most
seats / will form the Government is IRRELEVANT to this referendum.
In general elections for both systems you have ONE CONSTITUENCY VOTE
that enables you to participate in the election of your LOCAL MP.
YOU as a constituency elector have no influence on what happens
outside of your constituency.


Constituency Elections
2a) First Past The Post (FPTP) is a MISNOMER and is MISLEADING.
There is NO FIXED POST. It is better labelled as the "Who Gets the
Most Votes" system. In the 2010 UK election MPs were elected with
percentages of constituency votes ranging from 29.4 % to 72 %. How
democratic is 29.4% of the vote? Further information:
http://www.lightrefrain.net/election2010/

2b) The Alternative Vote (AV) can be better labeled as the "First
Past The 50% Post" system. That is the candidate who gets more than
50% of the constituency vote wins. This may involve more than "one
round" of selection. Hence the AV system is nearer to First Past
the "Post" than FPTP!


3a) The current "FPTP" system is recognised to be FLAWED. In
practice this FLAW is mitigated by TACTICAL VOTING. However tactical
voting leads to voting for NEGATIVE reasons - your voting choice is
determined by who YOU DON'T WANT to be elected rather than who you
want to be elected.

3b) The AV system OVERCOMES THIS FLAW by allowing for second or third
choices. Hence there is NO NEED FOR TACTICAL VOTING within the AV
system.


OVERALL CONCLUSIONS:
The AV system is a FAIRER and more DEMOCRATIC than "FPTP" for
constituency elections.

In AV you will be voting for POSITIVE reasons whereas for "FPTP +
TACTICAL VOTING" you will be voting for NEGATIVE reasons.

The thing that concerns me is that 95% of the electorate reading that would just blank over or glaze over at that stuff.

My vote is one vote in this referendum. Meaningless.

The people taking part in the referendum won't have the information available to their brains to make any sort of meaningful decision.

After the wedding and its hangover there'll be about 3 days to convey these complexities.

The referendum is a joke.

My prediction.

Tiny participation in referendum.

FPTP limps home.

(Can I put a bet on anywhere about it?)

Tiny participation would favour the activists, the people who are motivated to actually go and change things. I have a sneaking suspicion that, if turnout is low, AV could just win it.

My earlier point about not seeing polls is important - the few polls that have been out there and claiming a 16 point lead for the no campaign haven't shown their methodology and whether they're polling everyone or likely voters: I suspect there'll be quite a big difference between the two.

>>Post 76 has a lot of common sense, but seems to suggest that the FPTP system has a bias towards Labour, and that AV will increase this. I don't understand. Please can someone explain this to me?<<

Any non-proportional constituency based electoral system will lead to electoral bias to one or other of two big parties.
Neither FPTP or AV are proportional. Both retain the constituency link.
FPTP is currently biased toward Labour. In the past it has been biased toward the Conservatives. The bias in FPTP can been seen by the different level of swing needed for either of the two major parties to take an overall majority of seats.

There are several factors involved.
One of them is constituency boundaries/sizes. Which is why the Tories want to "Equalise" them. This won't help much as they've succumbed to their propaganda which rather overstates it's effect.

Another and much more significant source of the bias is safe seats and the lack of genuine marginal seats.

AV may create a small number of marginals out of what are currently safe seats. And also it could create new safe seats. Low numbers of marginals and all these safe seats lead to hung parliaments.
If we have to have hung parliaments better they come from a proportional system.

Whilst at a constituency level AV may seem fairer, the way it does this is by funnelling preferences toward bigger parties, giving distorted landslides.
(Landslides punctuated by hung parliaments, sound familiar?)
Labour is best placed to benefit from this funnelling, not so much because it's the de facto party of the centre, but because it's already a big party that isn't the Tories. Allowing it to get votes from "working class" BNP bigots and woolly-thinking Greens, angry Liberals and communist fruits.
In that sense it has a "Labour bias", some might quibble with calling it such.

Pro-AV people call this "reaching out beyond the core vote". And regard this a positive thing.

I don't. I don't see anything good about the Conservatives shifting further to the right to pick up UKIP votes, about (Blue?) Labour "reaching out" to voters they lost to the BNP.
Nor do I see anything better about the big parties picking up these votes as they already do via "tactical voting" by not changing their policy at all.
It's not "an end to tactical votes", it's institutionalising them.

>>Note: The referendum has NOTHING to do with proportional
representation. <<

True.


>>Discussion of which party will win the most
seats / will form the Government is IRRELEVANT to this referendum.<<

False. Candidates from constituency elections go the the house of commons, where the party with largest number of members is allowed to seek to govern the entire UK.

Whilst in principle elections are on which candidate a voter believes will best represent their constituency, are de facto races between parties for government.

Researcher U2...

You really ought to say this on a 5live phone- in next week, before thursday. The millions who actually count will be all agog.

The total disgrace is the way this has been put on the back burner.

Some people say the Lib Dems sold their souls to get this referendum...I reckon the Tories are laughing in their faces.

What are the odds on FPTP being retained..co-alition falling apart...another election..Tories get an overall majority..Lib Dems destroyed...business as usual?

Shall we open a book?

@ Post 93.
This had ocurred to me before, but a few implications are now filtering through my brain:
1. It is in the interests of the LibDems, and other pro-AV groups, to keep the whole referendum quiet.
2. It is in the interests of the anti-AV groups to shout and be sensationalist, even at the expense of actual truth, especially when the opponents might be reluctant to loudly contradict because of the above.

It's not a very edifying train of thought for anyone concerned.

It doesn't really matter a ts about whoever interests is to get all shouty. The reality is that the vast majority see this issue as a total yawn. And we've a wedding to get excited about..

So we've a few days left to get really excited about dreary old democracy.

Any half wit would have known that there is no great appetite for change so this thing would always be low on the agenda of the media..crikey air time needs to be filled with Alex Fergusson, Wegner and weddings.

If AV pull it off in the next few days...Hats off.

As I've already said, AV is a sop to change.

More important is the issue of constituency sizes and the number of MPs being reduced from 650 to 600.

Boundary changes will mean a lot of inner city constituencies disappearing (many such constituencies base their size on outdated voter rolls and voter registration has been falling for years), this means less Labour MPs.

Not necessarily a bad thing IMO

But, we need to be careful about overall numbers of MPs. Increasingly, we see governments "tying-in" MPs. What I mean by that is, when an MP gets promoted to Minister or becomes a Parliamentary Private Secretary they cannot vote against Government. Even if this means going against the wishes of their constituents. During the last Government, Labour MPs met campaigners against Post Office closures in the morning and promised their support. In the afternoon they voted in line with the Govt to close the Post Offices (are you watching Hazel Blears?)

At the moment, the number of Ministers and PPS's stands at 92 but it has been going up in the last twenty years with the creation of new ministries and splitting up departments. Factor in the number of MPs reliant upon Ministerial favour for seats on Committees and we start to approach the point where real democracy breaks down.

The job of MPs of *all* parties in Parliament is to hold the Government to account, scrutinise legislation and act as a check to unbridled power. When Government itself starts to outnumber ordinary MPs, we have a problem.

By all means, reduce the number of MPs but government must also shrink in size accordingly.