Christmas telly and the Alternative Vote

I’m not going to write some long piece on AV. The airwaves and the internet are full of it.

Most of the coverage, you’ll have noticed, is frighteningly shoddy, patronising, alarmist and cheap – everything we all hate about British politics.

Plus ca change.

But I’m not seeing much on the particular aspect which concerns me, so I’ll have to set it out myself.

It is the part of AV where it works just as its supporters hope it will. It’s also the very part of AV I don’t like.

Here goes. Bear with me. It’s not too nerdy. I promise.

Think of a constituency much like that of my home-town, the Isle of Wight.

Here the natural relative majority is Tory at, say, 45%.

(By “relative” majority, I mean more votes than any other candidate, but not more than half the vote – what the Americans sometimes call a “plurality”. More than 50% would be an “absolute” majority, and in that case AV would not apply.)

LibDems are second on, say, 31%.

Labour are very much third on, say, 20%. Other parties make up the remaining 5%.

Under FPTP, the Tories clearly win. Grrr.

I don’t live on the Isle of Wight anymore. In my day, a vote for Labour was a “wasted” vote and if you were left-minded, you voted Liberal instead. Steve Ross, our Liberal guy, had a strong personal vote, so voting tactically for him made real sense. He was our MP for many years in what I think is “really” a Tory seat.

These days Steve is gone and the seat is Tory-held on a relative (not absolute) majority.

Were I to return to the Island and cast my vote there, AV supporters would seek to console me.

They’d say – vote for Labour first, then LibDem second. If all your Labour colleagues do the same, then your combined vote will hit 51%, and the LibDem will get in. Otherwise your least favourite candidate, the Tory, will win the seat with just 45% under FPTP.

This is exactly the kind of situation in which AV shows its power.

It allows a “coalition of opposition” to the relative-majority candidate.

It delivers an MP with more “support” (51%) than the relative-majority Tory (45%) of the existing system.

And that has to be fairer, right?

Well, happy as I am in this imagined scenario to see the Tories lose, I just don’t think it’s fair.

I don’t think it’s fair that the second choices of me and my Labour mates are conjoined with the LibDem vote to trump the first-choices of the Tory voters.

My Labour candidate came last. His values and views are not widely supported in the local community. So why should his supporters’ second choices count equally against the first choices of the Tory candidate, who, after all, has more support in the community than any other single candidate?

What AV completely fails to take into account is strength of feeling. I really want Labour to win. My second choice might well be LibDem, but I don’t – in anything other than the technical sense – support the LibDems. At the moment, it is fairer to say I despise them.

At the same time, I have to accept that the Tory voters probably really want the Tory candidate to win. These strong preferences ought to count for much more than my very weak and reluctant second “preference” for the LibDem candidate.

They do not. The Tory voter’s strong first preferences are trumped by my weak and reluctant second preferences being lumped together with the support for the LibDem candidate.

In precisely the real-world example where AV might “work”, it delivers results which in my view are unfair.

There’s a cartoon going round saying AV is like ranking your preferences for Parma Violets, Smarties or dog shit.

If the shop doesn’t have those Parma Violets, and if you don’t (or can’t) identify Smarties as your second preference, you might just end up with a little stripey bag of dogshit.

Of course, this is a loaded and biased example.

Because Smarties are quite a nice second choice.

What if, like me – and I think like very many others – you want your first choice so much more than your subsequent choice that all the other choices are simply gradations of shit?

If everyone has the choice of sweeties or shit, then a system under which the most people get what they think is a sweetie is the fairest one.

That system is first past the post.

One last example. It’s loaded too, but it’s also a genuine story.

I remember one Christmas with the in-laws. You know the score. Eating and presents done, and all the family – aunts and cousins and all the generations – sits down to watch the TV. It’s a sticky moment: how to decide, in the company of people who come together once every other year, which channel to watch?

On this occasion, most wanted the action film. The youngsters piped up for a kids’ programme. But the old’uns didn’t want the action film or the kids’ programme. They wanted a musical. The line of least contention – everyone’s second choice – was, if I remember rightly, a game show.

It was a proper, polite, wholesome compromise. Some ten minutes in, I was bored out of my tiny mind. I looked around. The kids were bored too. So were the adults. So were the old’uns. Nobody was really watching. Nobody was getting what they wanted.

We had chosen our channel under a kind of impromptu AV. I remember wishing we’d done it on a show of hands: old-fashioned first past the post. At least then we’d have gone for the channel which made the biggest single group of people happy. Instead we were all sitting there politely enduring the compromise nobody wanted.

Strength of feeling matters. First choices matter. That’s why I’m voting No to AV.

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7 thoughts on “Christmas telly and the Alternative Vote

  1. “If everyone has the choice of sweeties or shit, then a system under which the most people get what they think is a sweetie is the fairest one.

    That system is first past the post.”
    If people genuinely think all the parties besides their favourite one are shit, then they are free to vote that way under AV – only make one vote – and the result will be the same as it currently is.

    I don’t see how anyone would be less happy under AV, and I think a lot of people would be more happy and have more control over the outcome.

  2. Thanks for your comment Cerys. You are quite right that people could decide “only (to) make one vote” under AV and the result would be the same as under FPTP.

    But my point is not that voters are indifferent between other candidates. It is that voters, if they are like me, greatly prefer their first choices. And AV does not recognise that important difference in weight.

    Under AV, if it were to be adopted, I would indicate my preferences. Firstly because even if I think all the other candidates are shit (I hate that word!) there are gradations of shit. But more importantly, as others would do so, I’d be churlish not to do the same – not least because second and subsequent preferences carry, as I have argued, disproportionate weight. If others can punch above their weight with their second and subsequent preferences, then I’m going to join them.

    The question for me is not so much one of our “happiness” in expressing our preferences. It is whether the system under which we express those preferences would intrinsically be fair. Or, given that all systems are flawed, would it at least be fairer than the existing system? My contention, for the reasons given, is that AV is not the fairer option. Therefore I’d be “happier” without it.

  3. Not everyone is like you. I’m a paid up member of a political party and there are still usually two or three other candidates I’d be more than happy to have elected who aren’t from my party. I could give my true choice under AV but can’t under FPTP.

    It’d be nice to be able to weight the later preferences on the basis of how much you like them but no system that is used (that I’m aware of) allows you to rank candidates AND choose your weight of support for them. Certainly approval voting, the other AV variants (Condorcet etc) and the Borda count don’t.

    I’m also not sure that you can really say that second preferences carry disproportionate weight. AV is also called instant run off voting. It’s as if you have a virtual election after each elimination – one less candidate and everyone goes again. If your candidate’s still in then it’s like you voted for them again, if they were eliminated then either it’s like you turned up to vote for someone else or you didn’t turn up the the run-off. Same weights. Actually running all these elections would make it crystal clear how it is actually perfectly fair, but would also be rather expensive and time consuming given that it can be done all on one ballot… It’s not voting twice, it’s being told that you picked a loser and to perhaps reconsider.

    Also regarding the IoW situation, I wouldn’t find that unfair for two reasons. Firstly then the Tories would have to woo the second preferences of the rest – offer some scraps of meat for the LDs or Labour (pick one and roll with it) and if they can moderate themselves then they can grab that last 5% easily. Secondly, Labour votes in FPTP would be massively depressed from their natural number because of the “two-horse race” aspect of the seat. But who’s to say that there isn’t a lot of Labour support just hidden away in the LD figure? It could be LD propping up a Labour MP. The arrangement could go to pot if an LD or Labour IoW MP had some kind of scandal and the Tory could have another go.

    Besides which, the MP represents his constituents, not just the ones that voted for him. Having someone winning on, let’s say, 30% of the vote but who is reviled by the other 70% imo is less qualified for that job description than someone who can attract support from 50% of the electorate.

  4. Thanks Duncan. Hope you don’t mind if I comment “inside” your text below. My comments in italics.

    Not everyone is like you. I’m a paid up member of a political party and there are still usually two or three other candidates I’d be more than happy to have elected who aren’t from my party.
    I could give my true choice under AV but can’t under FPTP.

    Blimey. You’re a broad-minded fellow. I am much more partisan. Obviously AV would suit you more than it would suit me. However we need to know whether generally I am right in supposing that most people greatly prefer their first choice.

    It’d be nice to be able to weight the later preferences on the basis of how much you like them but no system that is used (that I’m aware of) allows you to rank candidates AND choose your weight of support for them. Certainly approval voting, the other AV variants (Condorcet etc) and the Borda count don’t.

    Trouble is, weighted systems lose their clarity and simplicity. In any case, a weighted system is not on offer.

    I’m also not sure that you can really say that second preferences carry disproportionate weight. AV is also called instant run off voting. It’s as if you have a virtual election after each elimination – one less candidate and everyone goes again. If your candidate’s still in then it’s like you voted for them again, if they were eliminated then either it’s like you turned up to vote for someone else or you didn’t turn up the the run-off. Same weights. Actually running all these elections would make it crystal clear how it is actually perfectly fair, but would also be rather expensive and time consuming given that it can be done all on one ballot… It’s not voting twice, it’s being told that you picked a loser and to perhaps reconsider.

    You’re right. The weights are the same. I hesitated with my choice of words, but decided to say “disproportionate” because my key argument is that giving my second preferences the same weight gives it undue importance. It should not, in my view, have the same weight as other’s first preferences. (Except maybe yours, as you seem to be very open-minded!)

    Also regarding the IoW situation, I wouldn’t find that unfair for two reasons. Firstly then the Tories would have to woo the second preferences of the rest – offer some scraps of meat for the LDs or Labour (pick one and roll with it) and if they can moderate themselves then they can grab that last 5% easily.

    I think I would be more impressed by the “wooing” argument if it were not simultaneously claimed by AV supporters that only a few key marginal voters decide the election. This has the effect under the current system of moving all the parties to the centre. “I agree with Nick.” We don’t need AV to get parties to moderate themselves.

    Secondly, Labour votes in FPTP would be massively depressed from their natural number because of the “two-horse race” aspect of the seat. But who’s to say that there isn’t a lot of Labour support just hidden away in the LD figure? It could be LD propping up a Labour MP.

    Yes I do like this aspect of AV – it would enable us to see more clearly what the “natural” support of smaller parties might be. It wouldn’t be perfect of course – I might vote Green imagining they wouldn’t get elected, followed by Labour in the hope that Labour would get the message that I value the environment. Therefore AV might inflate the Green vote.

    The arrangement could go to pot if an LD or Labour IoW MP had some kind of scandal and the Tory could have another go.

    Besides which, the MP represents his constituents, not just the ones that voted for him. Having someone winning on, let’s say, 30% of the vote but who is reviled by the other 70% imo is less qualified for that job description than someone who can attract support from 50% of the electorate.

    Well, although you give 30% in this example to make your point forcefully, it really is the same example as the one I’ve given. I might “revile” a Tory candidate who gets elected on a minority vote. But for the reasons I have given, I don’t think it is fair to trump that win with a system of aggregated opposition. I’m not sure it is valid to claim that the winning AV candidate would be “someone who can attract support from 50% of the electorate” because I don’t support the choice to give equal weight to second and subsequent preferences. Making such a claim for AV begs the question; you can only really make it if you already support the system. If you don’t already support it, it feels like an empty claim.

    By the way, I notice that you use the phrase “attract support from 50% of the electorate” rather than “someone who gets 50% of the vote” – which I think I have seen others do. It seems to me subliminally to acknowledge that such a candidate hasn’t really won 50% of the vote as we ordinarily understand it… as if you and other AV supporters are yourselves uncomfortable with the idea of counting second/third/fourth preferences as actual votes.

    But perhaps I’m reading too much into your choice of words, and I don’t want to nit-pick.

    In the end, if I am right, the AV/FPTP debate turns on whether or not one is happy to assign full-vote status to second and subsequent preferences. You clearly are happy. I am not. Even if the Tories paint my beloved Island blue.

  5. Hi Dominic,

    You commented on an AV post of mine a little while back, but it got lost in the spam. I’ve found it now and responded at http://www.futureeconomics.org/2011/02/my-definitive-view-of-the-av-debate#comment-818

    I guess it all seems a bit late for now, but actually the nature of democracy is going t0 be an increasingly hot topic as the coalition narrative falls apart. If you take a neutral stance (ie you know nothing about the strength of preferences and the fairness or otherwise of what is being voted for) then AV produces on average results that conform more often with standard criteria of group preferences. On average means that sometimes these results will still seem unfair or perverse, as in your examples. So there are always counterexamples to any example.

    So is proportional representation the answer? I would say it was preferable, since in theory support for political parties is then matched by representation. But it’s hardly the whole answer, since people are not just equal to their party political preferences and politicians have their own agendas. We also have to look at closing the gap between voters and politicians. I like the ideas of randomly-selected virtual assemblies and limited-time political careers.

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