Tag Archives: Alternative Vote

Domestic (UK), Politics, Voting Reform

I’m Voting Yes to AV

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Why I am voting yes on the 5th of May

  1. The Alternative Vote is not perfect but it is more democratic than the system we currently use.
  2. It ensures that our elected representative has the approval (except under fairly unlikely circumstances) of at least 50% of the people who could be bothered to vote.
  3. If we don’t vote for this small improvement in out electoral system, any hope of the major change that is required will be lost for a generation.
  4. Voting for AV will seriously upset the Tories and John Reid – got to be a good thing.
  5. I don’t like kittens 😉

This is much important for our democracy than some people think. Resist the urge, those of you who support Labour to stick one to Nick Clegg, he’ll get his just desserts soon enough.

Just vote tomorrow, and vote ‘Yes’ .

Domestic (UK), Politics, Voting Reform

AV is the Only Game in Town.

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Jonathan Freedland in today’s Guardian tells us why we need to vote yes to the Alternative Vote on May the 5th. Most people in favour of a proportional system of electing our government will fully acknowledge that it is in Nick Clegg’s words a ‘Baby step on the way to Electoral Reform’. But it is a crucial step, it is the first step on the way to meaningful reform and if we do not take it, there will be no more steps for a long time.

We can argue the merits of Single Transferable Vote over the Additional Member System ’till we are blue, red, yellow or green in the face. We can agree that either would be infinitely superior to AV, but what we can’t do is refuse to vote for AV because it doesn’t give us everything we want.

Jonathan Freedland concludes with this lesson from Australia:

Of course AV is miles from perfect, even if it does allow voters to express more fully their true preferences; most reformers would prefer PR. But it’s naive to think that defeat next week would keep progressives’ powder dry, allowing for a future push for full-blooded electoral reform. That’s rarely how politics works. It’s success, not failure, that breeds success.

That lesson was taught in 1999, when Australia held a referendum on whether to remove the Queen as head of state. The alternative on offer was another “miserable little compromise” – with MPs, not the people, electing a new head of state – and some republicans preferred to let it fail and wait for something better. They’re still waiting – and Elizabeth II is still Queen of Australia.

Let’s not let the perfect be the enemy of the good

Politics, Voting Reform

Alternative Vote +

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AV+

Alternative Vote Plus as the name suggests works in a similar manner to The Alternative Vote system with a top up of members chosen at a regional level from open Party Lists. The system was the one proposed by the Jenkins Commission, set up by the last Labour Government. Roy Jenkins took his brief seriously. Tony Blair’s purpose for the commission was  to kick voting reform into the long grass. He was very successful in doing this.

Basically for elections to the House of Commons the system would involve reducing the number of seats to about 500 with the members elected by the Alternative Vote method , i.e. you rank your candidates in order of preference and as the votes are counted the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and his or her second preference votes are allocated to the candidates indicated. This process carries on until one candidate has over 50% of the votes.

You would also have a second vote on a regional (possibly county) level where you can vote for a party or if you prefer a specified member of that party on the party list. This is the plus part of AV+.  About 120-140 additional members would be elected this way.

Like it’s parent, I can’t get ultra enthused about AV+. It is an improvement on first past the post (almost anything bar a suspension of elections would be) and should give a more proportional outcome to an election.

In its favour:

  • it keeps the tie of the M.P. to a geographical  constituency, albeit a slightly larger one than at the moment, unless of course we want to have more M.P.s.
  • it does produce a more proportional representation than straight AV
  • people other than me would argue that it should keep minority extremist parties out of parliament.

Against it:

  • it is not fully proportional.
  • the ballot paper is more complicated than at present.
  • it would still be likely to produce a single party government.

My objection to it is basically that it adds a lot of the complexity to the ballot paper and counting of the Single Transferable Vote or Additional Member System, without giving the proportionality that they do.

Politics, Voting Reform

Voting Reform

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Voting Reform has been in the news of late.

Various Labour and Conservative ‘Big Beasts’ have united to oppose any change in our current system of electing the House of Commons. I find it interesting to note that the Senior Politicians who have come out against electoral reform are all, well, senior in years, Margaret Beckett, Ken Clarke, David Blunkett, John Prescott to name some of the more prominent members of the group. They hardly represent the coming generation of politicians.

This has raised a few questions that I need to try to answer for myself

So these are my questions to answer.

  • Is the AV system worth fighting for?
  • Should we be looking at other – more radical systems
  • Are the Tory proposals to cut the number of MPs by 50 anti-democratic?
  • Shouldn’t we be doing something about the House of Lords as well?

I’ll make a series of posts trying to answer these questions.

Let us take them one at a time – AV first.

It is an improvement on the current system, in that it allows the voter the opportunity to cast their primary vote positively for their party of choice rather than negatively, voting against a particular party. As such it may help a few Green and UKIP candidates keep their deposits. It also means thy by the time an M.P. is actually elected, at least 50% of the people who actually cast their votes will have expressed some sort of preference for him or her. This compares with the current parliament where I believe only 3 M.P.s even managed 40% of the vote in their constituencies.

We can see from the Electoral Reform Society that had AV been in use at the last election it would have resulted in a few more LibDems a few less Tories and about the same number of Labour. Essentially It would have made no real difference.

Whilst can’t get all that enthusiastic about AV, it would for the first time allow me to cast my vote positively for the party I actually support rather than negatively, to prevent a Tory being elected. (I have somehow or other contrived to live my entire life in areas that are LibDem/Tory marginals.) It is also the only thing on offer so I will be voting for it come the referendum in May.

There are other and I think better systems that I think we should consider which I will get round to discussing in another post.

To list the ones that I think are worth considering :