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Author Topic: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?  (Read 4116 times)

Max White

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #15 on: April 29, 2011, 01:57:09 am »

You're right in that that argument is not a good one, but there are other arguments that have been bandied around:

-More hung parliaments. Very few people are fans of the current conservative/lib dem coalition, yet with AV we'd see more governments like it.
-Smaller parties fare better, but all smaller parties fare better, including extreme ones like the BNP.
--This is compounded by the fact that, under FPTP, lots of people whose first choice is a smaller party don't vote for them because they don't have a chance, and instead vote for their favourite of the candidates who have a chance. Under AV, this would change.
-There are very few other countries (3?) that use AV, presumeably for a reason. Furthermore, I have heard (though I in now way present this as an absolute fact about all australians) that a large number of australians, who use AV, do not like it.
-Some people's vote will count for more than others. There will be some people who only have their first choice count, and others who have their first, second, third, etc considered.
-As simple as our current system (say who you would most like) results in a lot of people not understanding it (there are tales of people who think you have to 'vote them off'). The new system has a lot more ways that peole can get it wrong (e.g. do you give your favourite candidate the biggest number or the lowest one).

Most Australians who have a problem with it, say so because it means they need to spend an extra 30 seconds ticking boxes, and that is because for one of our ballets you need to fill in every single box. The system proposed here is that if you want, you only need to tick a single box. Few who complain do so because of the political environment it creates.

Also, while it might give some power to radical parties, this is ok, because this is what people voted for, and as such it is a reasonable thing to say that are not as radical as your personal views proclaim them to be. Although this is notan endorsement of the BNP.

And finally, if as a nation there is a large enough of a problem that confusing ballet slips cause a significant swing in votes, you should vote for who ever is most invested into education. Might solve your extremist problem too!

Earthquake Damage

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #16 on: April 29, 2011, 02:30:27 am »

Is point was, that way, the least popular candidate would win, because simply no one else thought of them enough to vote for them, thus giving them 'zero' points from most voters. Alternatively, you would not allow write in votes, but...
And if you don't allow write in votes that's a problem in and of itself.

Derp.  My bad.
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knaveofstaves

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #17 on: April 29, 2011, 02:39:12 am »

Also, while it might give some power to radical parties, this is ok, because this is what people voted for, and as such it is a reasonable thing to say that are not as radical as your personal views proclaim them to be. Although this is notan endorsement of the BNP.

Of course the BNP opposes AV, which isn't some Yes propaganda point, nor is it the BNP picking the side they don't believe out of consciousness of their own toxicity. They really oppose it because they really don't want it. AV wouldn't help the BNP. The Daily Mail disagrees, which is an excellent reason to think it's true.
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Max White

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #18 on: April 29, 2011, 02:46:42 am »

I'm not exactly up to scratch on the integrity of your political parties, or news sources, I just know from memory that BNP is meant to be very much right wing...

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #19 on: April 29, 2011, 02:55:06 am »

I'm not exactly up to scratch on the integrity of your political parties, or news sources, I just know from memory that BNP is meant to be very much right wing...

My political party is the Democratic Party. The Obama-Biden one.

But I have the BBC and the Guardian in my daily news reads, right next to the New York Times and the Washington Post. And, yes, I'm watching the BBC's coverage of the wedding right now. XD
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olemars

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #20 on: April 29, 2011, 03:40:55 am »

I'd considered a system like that. Give each candidate a rank then add up all the cumulative ranks and the lowest score wins. Though, I wouldn't put it past a lot of people to get confused by it.

The system we have around here works partially like that. We have proportional representation and not elections for each individual representative though. You vote for a party/list, and the proportion of the vote each list gets determines the number of representatives from that list for that district. Each list is a piece of paper with the party/list's nominees listed according to the party/list's priority. By default each name gets one list-vote, but you can tick the name, giving that nominee an extra list-vote. At the tally, the nominees are ranked primarily by their list-votes, then by their preset priority.


The basic voter will just enter the booth, pick his preferred list from the shelf inside the booth, stuff it in an envelope, drop it in the ballot box and leave, civic duty complete. The advanced voter will pick his preferred list, then spend a good half an hour choosing which names to tick, maybe writing in a few names at the bottom, before stuffing it in the envelope.

It used to be more flexible than that (you could cross out names as well, eliminating a list-vote), but the top-dog politicians apparently didn't like the possibility of getting bumped down from their no. 1 spot, so they've dumbed it down a good bit under the pretext that it was "too complicated" or something. They also got in a rule that the first two or three names can be pre-ticked so that they will always come out on top.
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Simmura McCrea

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #21 on: April 29, 2011, 04:03:51 am »

I'm not exactly up to scratch on the integrity of your political parties, or news sources, I just know from memory that BNP is meant to be very much right wing...
The Daily Hate and Fear Mail is about as unreliable as it gets. Lots of screaming about immigrants and AIDS and house prices and gays. The BNP are right-wing nutjobs obsessed with keeping Britain "pure".

Slightly more on topic, I'm probably going to vote yes, if only to annoy all the people who say No.
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MonkeyHead

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #22 on: April 29, 2011, 04:40:33 am »

I am strongly against it. I live in a rural part of Wales which is very Welsh nationalist and a rock solid Plaid Cymru seat in all elections, which is a great thing for me as I feel they stand up more for what matters in this community. I have a VERY stong socialist background and had been traditionally a Labour voter while living in an industrial south wales community but made the switch to Plaid when I moved to North wales around 10 years ago. AV or FPTP would make little or no difference to the political landscape in my part of the world. However, I will be voting no for a few reasons.

Reason 1:  I really cant get my head around why someone who would finish second, third or lower in a "popular vote" could end up the winner. To me it feels a bit undemocratic... "sorry Mr First place, Mr Third place had more second preferences so they get the job...". Suppose this comes down to a personality trait where I feel that its first place or nothing - if the candidates in second or third place were good/strong/popular enough to get elected, then they would have been in first place. I was going to write a further reason about worry regarding more coalitions/minor extreme candidates, but its already been mentioned above...

Reason 2: AV is not the proportional representation system that most of the big players in voting reform have been gunning for in the UK for some time. Voting yes to AV will mean little or no possibility of further reform for a LONG time, as those in power will see a positive result as an endorsement of AV, not of an endorsement of continued system redesign (well, thats how I see it at least). Voting No would send a message that voters in this country arent happy with a half arsed measure, which brings me on to reason 3...

Reason 3: I rang the LibDem head office and asked for a manifesto following the election. They said "Sorry, we have sold out"... During the Blair years, his self assured do gooder nature made me seriously consider voting LibDem. Oh how glad I am I didnt back that horse. A party that styles itself as a liberal reformer has IMHO abandoned all its principles to cosy up next to their political polar opposites for thier moment in the sun. This isnt to say I felt they should have formed a government with Labour - Personally I would have liked to see a Minorty conservative overnment made to work hard by a majority opposition, with no coalition. The LibDems wanted proportional representation, which I would favour. The Conservatives offered them this small concession just to get into power, and they took it. Anyone else notice how many of thier core principles the LbDems have now abandoned (e.g. Tuition fees) just to keep thier masters happy? So, yes, just to oppose the slimy sell outs, chiefly Nick Clegg,  a no vote... :)

Max White

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #23 on: April 29, 2011, 04:50:54 am »

Counter reason 1.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y3jE3B8HsE
That explains it, and has already been posted. It is also worth watching this,
http://www.youtube.com/user/CGPGrey#p/u/3/s7tWHJfhiyo
It shows how the current system can work against your preference, as voters will be split between two similar candidates, so a more radical view might win, because they get all the votes for that specific view, despite being a minority.

Counter reason 2.
You are saying something like it is fact, but without evidence, this is opinion. Can't really argue opinion.

Counter reason 3.
Well that is some what of a cognitive distortion, as a single instance does not mean that the two party system is better.

Sowelu

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #24 on: April 29, 2011, 04:56:23 am »

It is so incredibly irrational that you can't say "I like A and I like B, but I REALLY don't like C".  Under the current system, if A and B campaign equally, they'll split a lot of votes, while C who stands alone won't have his votes split.

It's pure insanity to keep the current system, when it's so broken this way.  ANYTHING ELSE AT ALL would be better.
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Starver

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #25 on: April 29, 2011, 05:04:24 am »

I'm in the UK.  I'm also in a (parliamentary) seat which is pretty much a cert to be for a given party.  It would be, even with AV.  (As it happens, I also like the current incumbent, I've got no problem with him being our MP under any system, and he isn't a party-toady (nooffencetoourveryownToady!), but that's an aside.)

There's all kinds of talks about "wasted votes" under FPTP.  But they aren't wasted.  If you were to vote for the one-issue party with which you most relate then you count as support for it.  It may not win, but it shows a significant amount of support.  The problem is with people's voting techniques.  They would go for OIP, but 'knowing' (believing, certainly) that they won't win they have a chance to reinforce the status-quo and vote for the incumbent or 'protest vote' by going for the usual major opposition.

People also tend to not vote for the candidate they like most, but vote for the party (usually in an "if they put a dead stoat up for conservative/labour/lib-dems/whoever's-the-usual-winning-party, they'd still win" situation) or even for a particular party leader!!!  Or they protest vote against a particular party/leader.  Either way, they might well be losing the opportunity to get the MP that they would have actually been able to 'use' more (either a moderate in a party that they don't like the extremism of, or a firebrand in a party that they think should be doing more.


None of that is an argument against AV, because you can do similar things (for better or worse) in AV.  On the other hand, I'm a little concerned about the possibility that every candidate (who is seriously trying to win, at least) would, under AV, be not just trying to keep his own core supporters sweet but also try to 'spread bet' his promises so as to grab a few second-preference votes from other candidates' natural set of supporters.  Especially the people whose first-preference votes are already pretty likely to be discarded because they're primary supporters of some fringe party.  Thus Lab, Con and Lib (or at least whichever two of those three are the regular "first and second" in the area) candidates are all going "Yes, we like the [Health Service/Reduction Of Public Spending/Education* <delete as inapplicable>]" for their core voters but go on to say "and we're also going to be tough on immigration" to catch the BNP lot's interest, "cut down on pollution" to get the Green Party, and possibly even leach into the the "third party" mantra to catch some second preferences for when they get culled.  Perhaps even copy their direct opposition in case they drop out.  In other words, spread themselves thin.  And then when it comes to fulfilling the promises, they won't be able to do it all.  (Which probably means they won't be favoured so well next time the elections come around, which means that some other party that promises all and can't provide gets elected, and so it goes round.)

But, again, it all depends on how people react tot he opportunities, and vote.  It'll take a few elections (two or three at a minimum, i.e. more than a decade, not including by-elections) for both parties and people to work out what they should be doing under the new system.  And (as I've already said) some people don't know what to do with the current system, so they'd probably take far longer.


The 'advantage' to AV is that one can more easily see which direction people would like, though.  "Labour controlled, with the second cumulative party to drop out being Green" should mean that people are more into environmental issues, which the Labour guy/gal needs to make sure they take note of.  "Conservative controlled with second cumulative party being BNP" has its own message.  (As would Lab/BMP and Con/Grn, in the previous examples, first part doesn't really matter.)  "Liberal controlled with second party being Luke Skywalker Fanclub" might mean something.

The order by which the culls occur, together with how the votes redistribute, gives more of an idea about natural tendencies.  And perhaps next time round people will be more inclined to 'waste' votes on a party that was more significant than they believed.


Note that I wrote the above two ways.  One of them "FPTP is like <foo> but AV is like <bar>", which looked like I supported AV most, and the other being "AV is like <bar> but FPTP is like <foo>", which looked like I supported FPTP most.  I've re-re-written it, and it worked most naturally in "currently, but if..." order but please don't try to read the natural preference into it.


Do you know what voting reform I'd really want, though?  It can be done in FPTP and AV, and even full-on PR (which has its own problems, so I'd go for half-house by national PR, half-house by direct (double-sized) constituencies to avoid losing your own "point of contact" MP).


RON.  Vote RON.  "Re-Open Nominations".  Currently, if you have a protest against the incumbent, or replacement for a retired/died incumbant, you can either vote for someone else (who you wouldn't normally vote for, but you reckon is a good signal to the 'ruling' party) which risks giving that party kudos you don't really think should be given, spoil your vote with a message of derision that will probably never make itself felt or not vote at all.  Not voting at all could be (and often is, by those enjoying the low turnout of their competitors) interpreted as showing no confidence, but is likely as much composed of general apathy.

Imagine, though, that you really don't like one party, but you hate the rest.  If you voted RON and RON came up trumps (but your party, your area generally being in agreement with you, at least comes in second) then that's a successful process.  Under AV, you could vote RON, Your Party, ...other parties.  Or even RON, Your Party and nobody else!  You should even be able (assuming you had no issues with your party, which might be a minority, but you'd rather not support anybody else if you didn't have to) go for Your Party, RON and then all the others in some sequence or other, which says "This one please, but if not them I'd rather have nobody than the other lot".  This would only work if Your Party was culled, but the second-choice RONs would build up when they did, if this was a common opinion.

The problem with RON is that if he wins (under whatever system), you need to run another election.  Could be costly.  But if it's what the people want...  And if it sends a message, most people may de-RON (#...they do RON, RON, RON, they do RON, RON...#) their follow-up vote if they consider having have made the point.
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Starver

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #26 on: April 29, 2011, 05:09:36 am »

It is so incredibly irrational that you can't say "I like A and I like B, but I REALLY don't like C".  Under the current system, if A and B campaign equally, they'll split a lot of votes, while C who stands alone won't have his votes split.

It's pure insanity to keep the current system, when it's so broken this way.  ANYTHING ELSE AT ALL would be better.
You wrote this (or at least I read it) after I started putting down my thoughts on RON, but it reminds me of something else I was going to say about that.

Under AV if you put down choices "2, 3, 4, 5" (prefer no-one, rest in that order) it would be an invalid vote (you have to have a first preference).  And I suspect that this also means that putting down choices of "1, 3, 4, 5" (prefer one party, no real second choice, but the rest in that order) would end up invalidated at the "get all 1-supporter's second choice!" stage.  Never mind "1, 9, 10, 11" voting.

That's where I'd consider RON to be put in.  Well, except the latter case, unless there are seven RONs to choose from or it isn't spoiling the ballot to put all the digits 2..7 in the RON box. :)
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Max White

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #27 on: April 29, 2011, 05:11:53 am »

*Wall of text crits you for MEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEW damage!*

Starver

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #28 on: April 29, 2011, 05:23:55 am »

*Wall of text crits you for MEWMEWMEWMEWMEWMEW damage!*
I tried a TL;DR; version.  It didn't end up saying anything that wouldn't have prompted more questions[1].  Sorry.

[1] Not that that one is question-less, either, but you didn't want it twice as long, did you?
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olemars

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Re: UK AV referendum. Yes or No?
« Reply #29 on: April 29, 2011, 05:46:02 am »

None of that is an argument against AV, because you can do similar things (for better or worse) in AV.  On the other hand, I'm a little concerned about the possibility that every candidate (who is seriously trying to win, at least) would, under AV, be not just trying to keep his own core supporters sweet but also try to 'spread bet' his promises so as to grab a few second-preference votes from other candidates' natural set of supporters.  Especially the people whose first-preference votes are already pretty likely to be discarded because they're primary supporters of some fringe party.  Thus Lab, Con and Lib (or at least whichever two of those three are the regular "first and second" in the area) candidates are all going "Yes, we like the [Health Service/Reduction Of Public Spending/Education* <delete as inapplicable>]" for their core voters but go on to say "and we're also going to be tough on immigration" to catch the BNP lot's interest, "cut down on pollution" to get the Green Party, and possibly even leach into the the "third party" mantra to catch some second preferences for when they get culled.  Perhaps even copy their direct opposition in case they drop out.  In other words, spread themselves thin.  And then when it comes to fulfilling the promises, they won't be able to do it all.  (Which probably means they won't be favoured so well next time the elections come around, which means that some other party that promises all and can't provide gets elected, and so it goes round.)

You mean they're not doing this now?
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