More thoughts on voting

[andrewducker]

Over on communicator's journal there's been a fair bit of discussion of AV. communicator is against it, and the discussions have been really good for helping me think about various aspects of it. There's nothing like finding someone with an opposing viewpoint willing to discuss something in good faith to help you work things through.

Anyway, the thing that occurred to me is that I've basically been doing invisible AV every time I vote.

After all, with AV you make as many votes as you want in preference order, and if your first choice is knocked out then your votes get moved onto your highest ranked remaining option, and so on until either there's nobody left in the running you felt you could vote for, your vote is on someone who breaks the 50% barrier, or someone else breaks the 50% barrier.

And with tactical voting under FPTP, you do much the same thing, only you have to guess which parties are going to be left in the running for the "final round" (which is the only round).

So I could (for instance) look at the list, and in my head say "I'd like to vote Green, but they're going to get about 3% of the vote, so how about the Lib Dems, nope, about 20% of the vote, what about Labour - ooh, they've got a chance of winning, I'll vote for them."

The differences being (a) I'm having to guess what percentages the parties will get. (b) I can't see from previous elections what parties are people's real preferences for election (c) Nobody can tell that my vote for Labour was _actually_ a vote for the Greens, and that I'd prefer a Liberal party to a Left one (although they can see that I'd prefer a Left one to a Right one).

So there's all sorts of information hiding going on, and guessing, rather than having all of the information out in the open.

Now, with AV you still have some information hiding - because you can't tell from my ranking of Green->Lib-Dem->Labour that I _really_ like the Greens, kinda like the Lib-Dems, and will hold my nose for Labour if I absolutely have to. I might have thought they were all amazing, and the difference between them was marginal.

But there's less information being hidden, and I think that's a good thing.

Comments

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Exactly.
I also think that communicator has utterly missed the point about why Lib Dem members/supporters are advocating AV. It's not because we think it'll give the party any kind of advantage (that may be why some of the leadership are supporters of it, but not most of the grassroots). Rather it's the other way round - we're members/supporters of the Lib Dems because (among other reasons) we support a change to a preferential system.
In fact a switch to AV is likely to damage the Lib Dems proportionally *more* than the other parties, I think - we might well lose a lot of seats where we have soft support because "X can't win here!"
The "can't win here!" and "two horse race!" lines - our two most powerful campaigning tools - will be utterly useless once AV comes in, and we'll no longer be able to run as a party of protest, but have to actually make a positive case rather than a negative one. Which I think is a good thing.

(But then communicator's understanding of Lib Dems generally seems very poor - most of us are actually to the left of Labour, as is the party itself. It's just that given the choice between a right-wing vaguely Liberal government like this one is, and a right-wing illiberal one like the last one, we'll choose the lesser of two evils rather than pretending the last thirteen years didn't happen and Tony Blair was some great leader of a socialist utopia).

[andrewducker]

I also suspect that the Lib Dems will do badly in the next election.

And yes, I'm not attached to the party - I'm attached to the idea of liberty. I voted for them because their views on civil liberties and vote systems were the closest to mine, not because I feel a duty to do so. If the voting system change meant they ceased to exist, and new parties came into existence, that would be just fine by me.

[skington.livejournal.com]

They're a junior coalition party. They'll do badly in the next election. That's as close to a cast-iron law as you'll get in politics.

If they can get AV (which should make it easier to elect LibDem MPs in the future, after the backlash is over), and have the experience and gravitas of having been in government, they should benefit in the long run.

[andrewducker]

Yeah. I don't expect a resurgence for a couple of elections.

But hopefully AV will pry things open a bit in the long run.

[dpolicar]

So, would you consider an "Allocate 100 points among all the candidates" kind of polling still better?

[andrewducker]

That penalises people in the middle ground, and hands more power to dogmatic people.

If I hand 20 points to the Greens, 30 to Labour and 50 to the Lib Dems, then the person who puts 100 points into the BNP just won. I'm having to think tactically, and work out what other people's moves are before declaring mine, and I want to avoid that kind of thinking.

I like the Scottish system (vote for a local MP, and a national party, MPs are then added to the least proportional parties until things are more in line with the national proportions), and I could live with STV (which seems to do a pretty good job of mixing proportions and locality).

[matgb]

See, I used to like AMS/top up systems, but they do seem to create conflicts within Westminster system assemblies. There was a commission that recommend scrapping it for Wales in favour of STV, but Hain instead went for banning people on the List from standing in individual seats, because of dubious allegations that list candidates were abusing position and concentrating on the seat they want to compete for next time.

I also dislike that single member seats with top up lists give more power to party heirarchies--even within the Lib Dems it gives control to longer standing members regarding placement and similar, whereas STV gives power to voters once it's bedded in.

It works well in Garmany to an extent, but does perpetuate two main parties, which if that's what you want is fine, but...

[andrewducker]

It doesn't seem to be perpetuating two main parties in Scotland. And I don't mind party hierarchy, so long as it's easier for new parties to come into existence.

I can see advantages to STV, but I like that the Greens have two seats in Scotland, whereas under STV I doubt that 4% of the vote would translate into any seats at all.

[matgb]

Scotland already had a four party weirdness, but in each district it will slowly settle down into a two way fight--you effectively have two main parties with an us/them approach, SNP vs Labour.

With pure FPTP for district seats, that's an advantage to incumbents and creates an incumbent vs challenger effect in most seats as time progresses.

I'd need to look at vote contentration for the Greens, but they would definitely be getting seats in England under STV. Biggest advantage of STV is that a new party doesn't ever have a problem growing voter support as there's no possibility of a transfer, people will be worried about 'waste' in some circumstances--effectively a top up vote is the same as a list vote, and that can lead to direct tactical voting campaigns as the Greens managed in the NW in 2009 for the EU elections.

Scotland has an advantage right now that the politics are both new and fluid.

But AMSs generally have a two main party witha bunch of contentrated sub or minority parties, sometimes with regional strengths. PRetty much exactly the same as FPTP as you can see in Germany.

AV+ gets around that partially, but STV removes it.

[andrewducker]

Sorry, yes. For individual seats I'd move to AV rather than FPTP.

[greenfieldsite.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. Those in favour of AV are arguing that it gives minority party supporters more votes in a constituency contest. I think there is something in that. People who choose to vote for minority parties under FPTP are knowingly disenfranchising themselves from casting a tactical vote that might count. Under AV they can both express their first preference and then their vote will also count in the final outcome.

It isn't clear to me that this is necessarily an unfavourable element of AV, but even if it is, it is countered by FPTP disenfranchising people who want to cast their first preference for minority parties (or a major party likely to come third) but instead have to vote for a compromise option for their vote to count.

However, AV doesn't give powers to minority voters in excess of those that they could choose to exercise under FPTP.

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

The problem with AV is it disenfranchises the investment bankers. 1,2, 50,000, 5,000,000. Basically they're all the same number.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether AV is truly the system I want, but I think it's leagues ahead of FPTP, and I'll support it as a stepping stone measure. It's really disappointing seeing some of the (childish) arguments that have been thrown against it; I like AV, and I could come up with better reasons.

It isn't too confusing: most people in this country are educated, and you don't need an A level to rank some candidates in order of preference. I am seriously concerned that the politicians think us a nation of idiots incapable of making complex decisions. Either that or they would prefer us to be unable to make a proper decision.

It isn't bad for democracy: it's better, as it allows us to better express our opinions. In addition, the line that David Cameron used about people who support smaller parties having their votes counted more: what rubbish! They get the same number of votes as the person who sticks down a single preference for a major party: one.

It's only bad because it's new, it doesn't maintain the status quo, and it's slightly more complex to count (although I would argue considerably less complex for voters).