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[Non-UK readers: we're having a referendum on May 5th about whether or not to alter the voting system used to elect Members of Parliament. The alternative on offer is, appropriately enough, the Alternative Vote system, sometimes called Instant-Runoff voting.]
There's an argument sometimes used¹ in favour of retaining First Past The Post voting, which runs like this: under AV, people who support minor parties get to have all their votes counted, whereas those who support major parties only get their first vote counted. This, say the No2AVers, is unfair.
This is what we in the computer industry call FUD: an acronym that normally expands to Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, but which I prefer to expand to F**ked-Up Disinformation. It's a nonsensical argument, designed to sow fear rather than to stand on its merits. It is, in plainer language, bollocks. To see why, let's look at it in more detail.
Let's suppose that in a certain constituency there are five parties standing: the Red and Blue party, who will get most of the votes between them, and the Infra-Red, Ultra-Violet and Soft-X-Ray parties, who are lucky to get votes from their mums. You vote Blue, then UV, then Infra-Red; I vote Soft X-Ray, IR, and then Red. You are mainstream; I am a whacko pinko extremist. Or maybe I just like the way the SXR candidate's rosette illuminates her skeleton. Whatever.
In the first round of voting, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the SXR party. Nobody has a majority, so the SXR candidate (who received the fewest votes) is knocked out. She gives a moving concession speech from her bed in the oncology ward.
In the second round, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the IR party. Again, nobody has a majority. The IR candidate has the lowest number of votes, even counting the second-place votes he picked up from the SXR candidate, so he's out. The Blue candidate is once more still in the game, and picks up a few second-choice votes from the IR candidate.
In the third round, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the Red party. The split's now Blue 40%, Red 43%, UV 17%. The UV candidate is knocked out, and everyone takes their sunglasses off.
In the fourth round, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the Red party. It turns out that more UV supporters can live with the Blue party than the Red party, bringing the total up to Blue 51%, Red 49%. The Blue candidate heads off to Westminster, secure in the knowledge that at least 51% of the constituency have some level of support for her and her policies.
The numbers and the number of rounds is immaterial; the point is that we both got to vote the same number of times. In this case, that was four, but in general it's as many times as necessary to get a clear result. The only difference is that your vote didn't change between counts, whereas mine had to (because my candidate wasn't running any more). You are exactly as well-represented as me. This is an improvement over the situation in FPTP, where you are much better represented than me; you can express your support for the Blue party without reservation, whereas I have to choose whether to vote for the party I really like (the Soft X-Ray party, with their innovative "barium enemas for the under-5s" health policy) or to vote for the Red party, who I really don't like very much but who at least stand a chance of keeping the hated Blue party out.
[I am grateful to Conor McBride for introducing me to this argument.]
AV isn't a perfect system, but you're doing your side no favours by lying about its faults.
¹ Including by Foreign Secretary William Hague on the Today programme this morning. The presenter, in a display of either craven spinelessness or shocking ignorance, failed to challenge this assertion; hence this post.
There's an argument sometimes used¹ in favour of retaining First Past The Post voting, which runs like this: under AV, people who support minor parties get to have all their votes counted, whereas those who support major parties only get their first vote counted. This, say the No2AVers, is unfair.
This is what we in the computer industry call FUD: an acronym that normally expands to Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt, but which I prefer to expand to F**ked-Up Disinformation. It's a nonsensical argument, designed to sow fear rather than to stand on its merits. It is, in plainer language, bollocks. To see why, let's look at it in more detail.
Let's suppose that in a certain constituency there are five parties standing: the Red and Blue party, who will get most of the votes between them, and the Infra-Red, Ultra-Violet and Soft-X-Ray parties, who are lucky to get votes from their mums. You vote Blue, then UV, then Infra-Red; I vote Soft X-Ray, IR, and then Red. You are mainstream; I am a whacko pinko extremist. Or maybe I just like the way the SXR candidate's rosette illuminates her skeleton. Whatever.
In the first round of voting, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the SXR party. Nobody has a majority, so the SXR candidate (who received the fewest votes) is knocked out. She gives a moving concession speech from her bed in the oncology ward.
In the second round, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the IR party. Again, nobody has a majority. The IR candidate has the lowest number of votes, even counting the second-place votes he picked up from the SXR candidate, so he's out. The Blue candidate is once more still in the game, and picks up a few second-choice votes from the IR candidate.
In the third round, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the Red party. The split's now Blue 40%, Red 43%, UV 17%. The UV candidate is knocked out, and everyone takes their sunglasses off.
In the fourth round, your vote is counted for the Blue party, and mine is counted for the Red party. It turns out that more UV supporters can live with the Blue party than the Red party, bringing the total up to Blue 51%, Red 49%. The Blue candidate heads off to Westminster, secure in the knowledge that at least 51% of the constituency have some level of support for her and her policies.
The numbers and the number of rounds is immaterial; the point is that we both got to vote the same number of times. In this case, that was four, but in general it's as many times as necessary to get a clear result. The only difference is that your vote didn't change between counts, whereas mine had to (because my candidate wasn't running any more). You are exactly as well-represented as me. This is an improvement over the situation in FPTP, where you are much better represented than me; you can express your support for the Blue party without reservation, whereas I have to choose whether to vote for the party I really like (the Soft X-Ray party, with their innovative "barium enemas for the under-5s" health policy) or to vote for the Red party, who I really don't like very much but who at least stand a chance of keeping the hated Blue party out.
[I am grateful to Conor McBride for introducing me to this argument.]
AV isn't a perfect system, but you're doing your side no favours by lying about its faults.
¹ Including by Foreign Secretary William Hague on the Today programme this morning. The presenter, in a display of either craven spinelessness or shocking ignorance, failed to challenge this assertion; hence this post.
the sad thing is that
I very much fear this referendum will go the Wrong way. Still, at least the Tory Scum will render themselves unelectable for another decade after the next few years of them brutally raping our fine country.
-mat
Re: the sad thing is that
Oh, I don't know, if your country's anything like mine (which I think it is) their unelectability is likely to be extremely temporary.
no subject
...
Re: ...
I'd like to believe that, but all too many people are willing to accept and repeat any argument that supports their pre-existing point of view, confirmation bias being what it is. I accused Hague of lying above, but the sad truth is that it may well just be motivated cognition - he's deliberately blind to the faults in the argument, because he wants FPTP for other reasons (presumably because it benefits the Tory party).
Incidentally, the Yes2AV campaign's FAQ (http://yes2av.wordpress.com/frequently-asked-questions-as-per-electoral-reform-society-booklet/) fails to address this argument head-on, and their AV myths page (http://www.yestofairervotes.org/pages/av-myths) responds to it in a totally inadequate way, making a very shaky analogy to buying chips.
Re: ...
Excellent logical argument; thanks!
Re: Excellent logical argument; thanks!