Why I object to a minimum turnout clause on the AV bill

[andrewducker]

The Lords have once again inserted a "minimum 40% turnout" clause into the AV referendum.

And while the idea that "if nobody can be bothered voting on the subject we shouldn't bother changing seems, on the surface, reasonable, in fact it's a massive wrecking point.

Because it turns every abstaining person into a no vote. Worse than that - it makes it in the interest of the no voters to simply not vote.

Let's say that you're going to vote no - and the actual intentions seem likely to be 38% yes, 36% no, 26% don't care.

Now, if you vote for the choice you actually believe in, you lose.

But if all of the No votes simple stay at home - BAM - suddenly it's 100% yes, but with a turnout of of 38%, and the No votes win.

It's taking a vote on a subject that's designed to get people's real voting intentions out of them, and making it massively in the interests of one side to vote tactically (in this case, not at all). It's gaming (and obfuscating) the system, pure and simple.

Comments

[ciphergoth]

Whatever happened to "decisions are made by those who show up"?

[andrewducker]

Tell me about it!

[pseudomonas]

And here's a plan - at the elections on the same day, if we don't get a turn out of 40%, the incumbents stay in.

[andrewducker]

Exactly!

[miss_s_b]

Yes, but all the 40% clause does is make it advisory rather than binding. Which means the government will just enact it anyway.

[andrewducker]

The last thing I want is for them to be given any chance to say "Well, you may have got 100% of the vote, but all of those abstainers were _really_ people who voted yes, so we're not enacting it."

Possibly I'm just feeling over-paranoid.

[birguslatro]

I'd say you're right on the button. It's the type of vote that'll be a close one, so a few percentage points most likely will make the difference. And will it coincide with a general election, or have it's own day? As if it's not on an election day, less are bound to turn up anyway.

[andrewducker]

It's on the 5th of May. Which is the same day as the elections in Scotland, NI, Wales, and various UK local elections.

So you'll see a high turnout in Scotland, NI and Wales - all of which have numerous parties that do well (SNP in Scotland, Plaid Cymru in Wales, UUP,SDLP, and Alliance in NI). So I foresee a fairly strong Yes vote there.

According to this article:
SNP - unsure
Plaid Cymru - in favour
DUP against
All other NI parties - tentatively in favour.
Greens - in favour
UKIP - in favour
BNP - against (they support list-based PR)

[birguslatro]

I gather the 40% threshold's been dropped, so that simplifies things.

I'm actually surprised at how quickly after the election the referendum's being held. Here in NZ it was a two-vote process, months apart. The first was for if we wanted to get rid of FPP, and if so, what we'd prefer. (We did, and we said we'd prefer MMP). And so we then had a second vote between FPP and MMP. See...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_reform_in_New_Zealand

That was a good process, I felt.

In your case, because the choice is between FPP and AV, my guess would be the voters will stick with FPP because it's simple to understand, whereas AV's bloody confusing. Note the percentages in our vote for which alternative to FPP we'd like...

* Supplementary Member 5.5%
* Single Transferable Vote 17.5%
* Mixed Member Proportional 70.3%
* Alternative Vote 6.6%

Thus AV's not what most would choose if given the chance to decide, assuming the UK isn't totally the inverse of what NZ is. (Could be;) So by choosing AV instead of something sensible, the Lib Dem's may have scuppered your chance at electoral reform for quite a while.

[andrewducker]

AV is complex?

1) You rank the parties in order of preference.
2) That's it.

And the Lib Dems didn't choose AV. Their preference is for STV. AV is all they were offered by their coalition partners (who are frankly terrified of anything that might take a little power away from them).

MMP is what we have in Scotland, and I'm very happy with it. It wasn't on offer for the UK elections though.

Oh - and the latest polls are showing AV on 40% and FPTP on 30%.

[birguslatro]

You say 'parties', but as far as I can gather, it's still only the constitute members you're voting for. Is that right? As if so, a switch to AV is not going to make much difference, since you'll still get governments which can have less than 50% of voters support. (Except it'll requite a statistician to explain this in the case of AV.)

It's not the understanding of how AV works that's complex - it's the actual voting that is. People know which individual or party they prefer, and those they most definitely don't want in government. But how to rank the ones inbetween is where the complexity comes in, since chances are they know very little about them.

People will go into the booth and then try and figure out who should get their 2, and then their 3 and so on. And while they've probably tried to work this out before reaching the booth, short of having the order written down on a note, they'll most likely put the 3 or whatever in the wrong box. Which will mean at least two wrong.

The result will not be a positive feeling for a lot of voters, whereas a single tick for the candidate and/or party you want in government is. And the act of voting should leave you with a positive feeling. If you end up with AV, I'd expect voter turnout to decrease over the coming years.

[andrewducker]

People know which individual or party they prefer, and those they most definitely don't want in government. But how to rank the ones inbetween is where the complexity comes in, since chances are they know very little about them.

If you don't know or care about a party, you just don't rank them.

There are only 4 or 5 parties that are mainstream - and most people know how they feel about all of them. You know whether you're left (Labour), right (Conservative), centrist liberal (Lib Dem), green (Green), hate Europe (UKIP), and in Scotland/Wales, whether you believe in devolution (SNP/Plaid Cymru). It's not going to be mandatory to rank everyone, and frankly the ranking of the fringe parties isn't going to matter.

And the reason they already know this is that FPTP is _hell_, because there's constant tactical voting. If you're in an area that's Lib-Dem/SNP split, but you're a natural Conservative voter then you need to know about the others already - but you're not able to make a vote for the party you care about at all.

It's not that AV is wonderful (it's not) it's that FPTP caused massive upset at the elections the last few times, and patently returned unfair results.

If there was a choice between FPTP, AV and MPP I'd be going for MPP. But we don't have that choice.

As it is, AV is ahead in the polls by 40% to 30% right now. I really hope it stays that way.

[birguslatro]

If you don't know or care about a party, you just don't rank them.

But you'll need to know, because that's where the tactical voting will now shift to. ie. Explain how you'll rank the seven parties you've given above, and why they're in the order you've given.

If there was a choice between FPTP, AV and MPP I'd be going for MPP. But we don't have that choice.

No. Which is really my whole point - you've blown your chance at decent electoral reform. (Meaning the Lib Dems - it ain't the Conservative's fault if the other party takes whatever bones they throw them.)

You'll either get AV, which won't make much difference to the kind of governments you've been getting, or you'll be stuck with FPTP. Either way, the opponents of electoral reform will be able to say you've had the electoral reform vote, and this is what the voters chose.

[andrewducker]

you've blown your chance at decent electoral reform. (Meaning the Lib Dems - it ain't the Conservative's fault if the other party takes whatever bones they throw them.)

There was no chance for anything more. The Conservatives were opposed to even that - it was apparently the hardest thing on the list to get, and they only got it because Labour were offering it, and the LibDems threatened to walk if they didn't get it. There was absolutely no chance for anything more, because the two main parties see it as absolutely against their interests.

It's a sad state of affairs, but I can't see how we could have got a better one.

Oh - and where I am, I'd vote LibDem-> SNP-> Labour, and stop. If none of those get in, then the Conservatives have won, so I don't need to move any further down the list.

[birguslatro]

It's a sad state of affairs, but I can't see how we could have got a better one.

No vote would've been a better option, as then there'd be a chance of a better one in a few years time. Now there won't be, so you'll be stuck with your band-aid at best.

[andrewducker]

The last time that a change in vote was proposed in parliament was in 1963, I believe.

I'll take AV over waiting another 48 years.

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

i think the 40% turn out requirement is to make the referendum binding.

So a win for the Yes campaign on 39% of the vote is still a win. The difference between a win on 39% of the vote and and 41% of the vote is that with 41% of the vote the legislation comes into force automaticall.

If turn out is below 40% the relevant minister has to decide whether to accept the will of those of the people who can be bothered.


The relevant minister is one N Clegg.

[andrewducker]

Is that what it says though? Does it pass the choice back to the relevant minister? Or does it pass it back to the commons to vote on?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Academic now but my understanding was it went to the minister but I'm just picking up (informed) tittle tattle from activists.

[andrewducker]

Very glad it's sorted now. Well, apart from winning the damn referendum...

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

Yes, the small matter of the referendum.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that's wicked, and you're right.

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

Surely the obvious solution is to require a majority of those voting and at least 20% of the electorate voting yes.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That would be less crazy than a direct quorum, absolutely, but why should it be that way? What's wrong with the people who care enough to vote about this making the decision?

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

I thought AV was supposed to be more representative... and yet implementing it would, you believe, require less than 20% of the electorate to accept it. (50%+1 of 40% voter turnout is, of course, almost exactly 20%.)

-- Steve recalls that the Ontario plebecite on electoral reform required a 66% supermajority of votes cast to have a binding result; and the binding result was to keep FPtP rather than the STV system proposed. At least that result is indisputable... a razor-thin margin on a low turnout would be bitterly challenged by the losing side and simply make the issue more of a mess.

[andrewducker]

AV itself is _not_ PR.

It means that you get a better idea of what people's real wishes are (i.e. I could vote for the party I really want to win, and _then_ for ones that I think might actually have a chance), but that doesn't make it proportional.

And it will require a majority of voters to vote for it. If people do not vote they are indicating that they don't care what voting system is used. 21% voting X, 19% voting Y, 60% voting don't care means that more people care for X than Y.

[skington.livejournal.com]

This is exactly the same trick as was pulled on the first Scottish devolution referendum, if I remember correctly.

Checks

Not quite, but it's the same idea: the Yes vote needs to work harder than the No vote. 1979 devolution referendum.

[andrewducker]

This isn't quite as bad as that - insofar as it's 40% turnout, not 40% yes vote, and it doesn't stop the bill dead, just makes the vote non-binding.

It's still very frustrating though.

[alitheapipkin.livejournal.com]

Good point!

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think if you are going to introduce turnout thresholds, requirements for super-majorities or minimum approval thresholds then this should be across the board.

Turnout for council elections never gets about 35% but councillors are allowed to sit and vote on spending many billions of pounds.

We don't have a writen constitution in the UK that we've accepted. It's an evolved system, much of it originating in times when most men and no women had the vote, so it doesn't have the weight of historic popular approval.

We aren't being asked to change our mind, this is the first time we've been asked for our opinion.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

I feel like the incentive not to vote is much weaker than you make it out to be, given that the No vote is a bunch of people, not a unit: if we have 38% yes, and the No vote split between anything up to about 95% non-voting, it would be a binding and particularly humiliating defeat for the No campaign.