#yestoav?
On 5 May, the whole of the UK will vote in a referendum for the first time since 1975
At the moment, I’d say I have my foot in the #yestoav camp, but there are questions I still have to work out the answers to.
The will of the most votes or the will of the proportional majority (namely 50%)?
While alternative vote (AV) isn’t the most proportionally representative voting system, it is unfortunately the only one on the cards, and it doesn’t look like we’ll have much chance to alter it anytime soon if we end up sticking with First-past-the-post (FPP), so, ‘should we vote yes to AV?’
In May of last year, The Guardian reported that an analysis by The Electoral Reform Society concluded that if AV had been implemented in the last General Election, the minority parties would have had exactly the same number of seats and the Liberal Democrats would have gained just 22 more. The impact of this report is largely irrelevant because each camp acknowledge that AV would have an impact – #notoav like to say that it would lead to more hung parliaments (and fewer stable governments) while #yestoav insist it’s a fairer system which is more representative, proportionally, than FPP. The ability of our politicians to reconcile a hung parliament is something I’d have faith in them to do sufficiently, or at least something they should all learn to be capable of. If it progresses into more of a 3-party system, then that’s what they would have to end up doing more often anyway – if the electorate come to that decision, we must accept it.
I think I would have to agree that hung parliaments and coalitions lead to instability (in the initial stages, at least) and it becomes troublesome as to who you blame if each party’s manifesto is largely disregarded as the coalition seeks ‘compromise’ – but I don’t think it can necessarily be something we should seek to avoid if it means sticking with an unfair electoral system. I’ll reiterate, vox populi.
It becomes apparent that we have to move away from worrying about hung parliaments and whether or not AV may increase them, and instead concentrate on whether or not the alternative vote provides a fairer system than First-past-the-post does currently.
So, is it actually fairer?
In my mind, it will certainly put people off from the traditional tactical vote, which is caused, typically, because the voter has become so frustrated with the safe-seat constituency he lives in, that his vote will becomes thought of as wasted. When the likelihood of toppling a safe-seat constituency is so slim, it’s easy to see how people might arrive at this point of annoyance; they end up voting for their second-choice party candidate (who has a slightly better chance of toppling the safe-seater than their preferred choice) or an ‘extremist-nutter’ candidate out of anger. People will be able to vote for their first choice (even if it is a minority party) knowing that there’s a shot they might actually get elected because the constituency will be voting honestly. With the preferential system (ranking candidates 1,2,3,etc.), second, third and fourth choices will be where better, more engaging voting tactics will come into play; those that prefer Labour (which may traditionally may be third in their constituency) might put Lib Dems (which may be traditionally second-place) as their second choice as they’d prefer a Lib Dem candidate to a Tory one, this may lead to a safe-ish Tory seat being toppled in their favour. This would mean that the hypothetical winning Lib Dem candidate would have proportionally more people in favour of him/her as their MP, and would have gained their seat of that basis – proportionality being judged to be fairer.
I’m struggling to decide whether or not this preferential system (AV) is a decent enough way of collating the vox populi, or if it is better than FPP in terms of pushing us towards the arguably fairer system of proportional representation. Will AV give us better proportional representation that FPP does currently? Is proportional representation even a fairer system? The will of the most votes (FPP) or the will of the ‘sort-of’ proportional majority (AV), which is fairer?
Those against AV will say that it gives more weight to lesser votes (paraphrasing Winston Churchill), and they may quote the fact that the BNP are in favour of it as perfect justification to vote #notoav. Such tactics – and I’m referring to the ‘BNP-card’ – undermine logic and rational and in no way help their cause. I’m sure the Nazi Party had at least one decent policy, and to imply that an idiot cannot stumble upon a good thing is to simply ignore fact.
Under AV, if no candidate reaches the 50% mark, they disregard the lowest candidate’s votes and redistribute them using their voters’ second choices. This process continues until one candidate attains 50%.
Now this talk of ‘lesser votes’ troubles me. Are we to say that everyone who votes for a minority party is an idiot? Sure, I’ll accept anyone who votes for the BNP are either racist or fooled thanks to their own stupidity or miseducation, but is every minority party the same? To be honest, I don’t actually know; although the Christian Party is also one to avoid. If a BNP vote is of a lesser value than one of the main parties and thusly their second choices should not decide an election result, then that reason must surely be that those people are immoral, unjust and/or stupid – if that is the case, then I’d have to say that I consider Tory votes to be ‘lesser votes’ too; I don’t think the three main parties should be immune from this kind of rational/criticism, which quite rightly leads me to have one leg in the AV door and the other leg clinging onto what it recognises and is used to, FPP.
