Alternative Vote

[chrestomanci]

Last time I looked, about 50 countries, or a bit more, use FPTP. That included, as I understand it, the US for all federal elections, including the Senate and House of Representatives. It also included Canada and India. And, the Democratic Republic of Congo.

A lot of countries use FPTP, but hardly any of them are in Europe.

I think the reason for that is that most other countries in Europe have experienced periods of dictatorship or military occupation due to the two world wars. When the oppression ended the people of those countries wanted to restore democracy, and they wanted it to be good and fair, so they put together committees of political philosophers and the like to choose a system.

None of them chose FPTP for parliamentary elections because it is so obviously unfair.

Out of the shared suffering and pain of the second world war, we got the NHS, but because our democracy survived it was not re-cast into a new and better form, unlike the rest of Europe. When we had a committee to investigate electoral reform (Jenkins), our politicians where able to ignore the outcome because there has been no recent memory of oppression.

It is probably an exaggeration but it looks to me as if FPTP is mostly used in countries that copied their electoral systems from the UK a long time ago, or are the sort of Banana republic where it suits those in power to not allow minority views to be represented.

[Georgy291]

i still see you all fail at understanding what AV is mainly Saracen.

you dont have to priorities EVERYONE. If you want you can only put down the ones you want, thus not giving a "vote" to any of the ones you dont want. Its just a way of saying, i want that one, if not i wouldnt mind that one. NOT, this is the order of my preference

[Saracen]

....

It is probably an exaggeration but it looks to me as if FPTP is mostly used in countries that copied their electoral systems from the UK, or are the sort of Bananna republic where it suits those in power to not allow minority views to be represented.

I'm not sure I'd use banana republic to describe a lot of them, but minor countries for sure. As for the "copy from the UK" bit, that's dead on, I'd guess. It's the old Imperial/Colonial influence. But, they could have changed them, and didn't. I mean, Australia uses AV, albeit with compulsory voting, and the old Colonial influence didn't stop them. More likely in fact that it motivated them to change.

And if you extend the FPTP from simple to dual plurality, you'll include even France.

There's so many alternatives we could have looked at, including the French run-off system. So, why just stick us with AV without a proper, informed debate first? Because it's a cosy little back-room stitch-up.

[Saracen]

i still see you all fail at understanding what AV is mainly Saracen.

you dont have to priorities EVERYONE. If you want you can only put down the ones you want, thus not giving a "vote" to any of the ones you dont want. Its just a way of saying, i want that one, if not i wouldnt mind that one. NOT, this is the order of my preference

After all I've said, you really think I don't know you don't have to vote for everyone?

You do not have to express any second preference. In fact, you don't need to express a first preference either - not everyone votes. But if you do, you can express 1, 2 or more preferences, depending on how many candidates there are. But under the circumstances I described above, even if you do express a second preference, whether it gets taken into account or not depends on whether your first preference is eliminated or not. And that means that a candidate could be elected by virtue of a second preference designed to keep someone out (i.e. a form of tactical voting), whereas someone else's second preference is ignored.

But is it an order of preference. If your first choice is eliminated, your second choice stands and you get no more until that second choice is eliminated, when your third choice gets your vote.

It might be someone's fifth choice that gets a candidate over the line, while the second choice of a voter behind the second-placed candidate is never looked at.


I understand AV just fine, thank you.

[BobF64]

We should just scrap the whole voting idea completely.

Candidates can fight to the death for the constituents amusement, the incumbent MP has the advantage of a shotgun, the rest have sticks.

[oolon]

Candidates can fight to the death for the constituents amusement, the incumbent MP has the advantage of a shotgun, the rest have sticks.

I bet 5 quatloos on the newcomer.

[Saracen]

We should just scrap the whole voting idea completely.

Candidates can fight to the death for the constituents amusement, the incumbent MP has the advantage of a shotgun, the rest have sticks.

I rather like that idea, but the incumbent ought to have the stick and the challengers the shotguns.

[danroyle]

And now many have FPTP? What voting system is used for the Mayor of London elected? How are all the party leaders elected? It isn't FPTP.

i DIDN'T say i liked FPTP either i said i was voting no as AV is no better than the current system


if i had to choose one way to vote i'd look at the D'hondt method as an option. Luckily i'm not in charge so dont have to choose

[Lucio]

None of them chose FPTP for parliamentary elections because it is so obviously unfair.

Ooh ooh I have to bite on this one I love unsupported assertations!

To begin, the word unfair in statistics means a bias towards a certain result that can be proven. There is most definitely no inherant bias in the FPTP voting system, as each vote is counted once and once only, and the margin to win is the same for each candidate (and is always directly propotional to the number of candidates standing)

That isn't to say there aren't issues with FPTP, such as wasted votes, the fact that in most cases the % of votes to win represents less than 50% of the people who vote, and that analysis on a country-wide level indicates a disparity between the number of votes cast and the number of seats won by a particular political party, but none of these issues stem as a result of an unfairness in the method.

AV on the other hand, actually has a statistical bias built in, due to the way in which candidates are eliminated in a set order. By starting with the opinions of the smallest minority, it gives a disproportionate power to that group, not to mention since it's not mandatory to vote for more than one candidate, within that minority, not everyone's voice is treated equally.

[Barrichello]

Great news, 69% on the no vote, common sense prevails.

[BobF64]

Great news, 69% on the no vote, common sense prevails.

I wouldnt necessarily say common sense, especially if you read all the politicians comments on it.

So far, apparently, its an "endorsement of FPTP" and "demonstration that the public dont really want electoral change", neither of which I believe are true.

Id find it far more likely that people see it as either an attempt at change for changes sake or just dont trust politicians to actually use it to effect further, proper electoral changes.

[Terbinator]

Great news, 69% on the no vote, common sense prevails.

If your version of common sense has 1+1=3.

[petercook7]

If your version of common sense has 1+1=3.

haha, love that.

[Repressor]

What is wrong with having the outcome that most people prefer?

[Saracen]

What is wrong with having the outcome that most people prefer?

Nothing. But now that we, the people, have spoken, politicians will now commence arguing about what we said, and what we really meant by it. And, naturally, most of them will end up convinced that what we said was what they wanted to hear.

Those that don't want to change will take this as the people saying "We love FPTP to bits and don't want anything else, ever. So there."

Those that do want to change will take this as the people saying "We desperately want change, but not to AV" .... but that's okay because few of the politicians want it either.

So the yes camp will see it as encouragement to be more daring and the no camp will see it as ending the subject for all time.

It's already started, and for about the first time in the AV campaign, I found myself agreeing with Chris Huhne, in his discussion with John Reid, who asserted that we, the people, want FPTP. Mr Reid, the only thing you can really read into the results of this referendum is our view on the question we were asked, which, for reference's sake, was

"Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the 'alternative vote' system instead of the current 'first past the post' system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?"

The answer can be taken as meaning we do not.

But this does not necessarily mean we want FPTP.

The truth will be that some people want to stay with FPTP, but others want reform, but not AV.

And the latter is true of some yes voters too, in that they want reform, but not AV, which they see as a step in the right direction.

So .... if some of those that want reform voted yes to go part way, and some that want reform voted no because they want a different reform, it's small wonder that the reformers couldn't win.

Perhaps a sensible attempt at reform would start by asking

"Do you want the United Kingdom to reform the system currently used for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?"

If that gets a yes, and it may well do, then we need to decide what reform.

But all this no does is say no to the question actually asked.

[BobF64]

But all this no does is say no to the question actually asked.

Yes, this is exactly the problem, the question was too simple on a rather complicated potential change.

Answering "No" is not an endorsement of FPTP and its not necessarily a rejection of AV, just as "Yes" was not necessarily an endorsement of AV.

They would have done better to ask more questions.

- Do you think we should remain with the current system?
- Do you think we should change to AV?
- Do you think we should change another system, other than FPTP and AV?
- Do you think politicians will screw it up regardless of what option is chosen?

Well, ok, maybe not the last one.