AV Referendum - Why vote yes

Regardless of your feelings towards the Liberal Democrats, it is worth considering them as an example of how unfair our electoral system can be.

In the 2010 UK General Election the Lib Dems received 23% of the popular vote, almost a quarter of all votes cast. However the party received merely 8.8% of the seats in parliament. That's less than a tenth of parliament representing almost 7 million voters.

In UK today we are still using an electoral system designed for a two-party politics which has long since ceased to be representative of the nature of Britain. First-past-the-post now only serves to reinforce the old fashioned views of politics as the struggle between two diametrically-opposed forces.

This is no new problem.

FPTP is unrepresentative and unfair.

It seems that the proponents of continuing with FPTP think that people might be catching on to that. The NO2AV tactics are filled with scaremongering & false dichotomy; they are an insult to the people and pressing to the very limit of what is decent.

It may be that these tactics are used because their own arguments don't make any sense. There are two particular examples:

+ Some people get more than one vote. This is a laughable claim. Rather than one round of voting as we have now, where you can win with the support of  as the largest minority, you have a competition that eliminates candidates  round by round. And everyone votes in every round. Have you ever seen the X-Factor? 

In AV, if no candidate can get a majority of votes, whoever comes last is knocked out of the competition. Here is where the NO2AV idea comes into play. They suggest that a vote for an extreme party counts more because you get a second vote when that candidate is eliminated. What they ignore is that if your first preference candidate has not been eliminated, you vote for them again in the second round or the third round for as long as they are still in the competition. All voters get the same amount of votes regardless of how many rounds of voting it takes to get a candidate who better represents the voters of a constituency.

+ That the BNP will get in. Nonsense. It is FPTP that creates opportunities for smaller (and more extreme parties) to get elected. AV weeds out extreme or divisive candidates for ones who can represent the face of a whole constituency, not just the loudest minority in it. Our democracy is about electing one person to represent fifty thousand; one person to represent fifty thousand in debate and vote; it is not about who 'wins' since winning here means the success of a powerful minority in forcing their view at the exclusion of others.

Now AV is not the perfect solution. But it is the first step in the right direction. It means a move towards greater accountability and a more constitutional politics. Right now we have informal ways of holding members to account. It is to Labour's credit that they chose to kick out a candidate adjudged to be corrupt. However it is often the case that voters must go against their tribal or ideological loyalties to punish a corrupt candidate. AV formalises high expectations of candidates. They must appeal to more than just core votes. Parties must back candidates that can appeal to a broad spectrum, something the known to be corrupt or untruthful can't do.

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References:
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+ Peter Tatchell's 'Democracy: we've never had it so bad'; May 2010;

+ Johann Hari's 'If you get the X Factor you'll get AV'; April 2011;

+ John Cleese on PR, from YouTube;

+ The AV Debate with Andrew Neil; April 2011;

- Supporters of YestoAV:
Tim Farron, President of the Liberal Democrat; Simon Hughes, Lib Dem Deputy Leader; Charles Kennedy, Former Lib Dem Leader; Paddy Ashdown, Former Lib Dem Leader; Ed Miliband, Labour Leader; Eddie Izzard; Tony Robinson; Dan Snow; Stephen Fry; Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, Stephen Fry, Joanna Lumley, John Cleese, Billy Bragg, Eddie Izzard, John O’Farrell, Tony Robinson & Richard Wilson.

Constitutional Reforms

In the spirit of reform, this week we will take a look at constitutional reform of which AV and even the referendum itself are a great part. In particular we will look at Professor Ringen's Agenda for Constitutional Reform. The Professor's is a three-point plan:

+ First, 'Restore the House of Commons'
+ Second, to 'Reinvent Local Democracy'
+ And thirdly, to 'Straighten Out Political Funding'

Professor Ringen's first action would be to 'Restore the House of Commons'. The UK displays an immense amount of centralisation, with oversight being marginalised. Oversight suffers criticism for slowing down political reforms or new legislation. However it can temper the mistakes that can be made when decisions are made cosseted away amongst allies and yes-men. The inner circles of central authority prevent adequate scientific critique of policies, shrouding decision-making from the gaze of those elected legislators whose job it is to scrutinize on our behalf. Oversight slows these processes down so that decision-makers must explain their proposals for us to consider.

There is some very persuasive evidence, such as the from Asch's experiments that suggest the way groups are managed can have a decisive affect upon the way it's members make decisions. Furthermore, any such dynamics can be reinforced by symbolic authority and enhanced through rituals & tradition (Milgram, 2010). For example Milgram showed the power of even simple symbols like the white coat and the influence they can have.

There are some examples already of oversight reforms. Already moves have been made to give the power of dissolution over to parliament (Deputy PM, July 2010). Further, the devolved parliaments and their governing powers stand as a fine example set by the Labour Party in reforming political power.

The Professor's second action, to 'Reinvent Local Democracy' will need politics to reinvigorate the population. This will mean no longer just reacting to disaffection and taking that to be the will of the people, as some such as the aforementioned Lord Newport have; instead stimulating the people to activity and engaging them.

Professor Ringen makes it clear that he thinks the current system is inadequate for the devolution of power. The devolution of power downwards is an idea that has started to take root in the UK; National Devolutions under Labour followed now by the delegation of powers to parliament and councils. These moves have been joined by others in pushing decision-making beyond the central forums. The referendum puts choices into the hands of people; pushing for greater community action removes the leash a little from local councils and even the debates sought to engage people with politics far more personally.

However none of these reforms will serve us well unless they help to clean up corruption. Professor Ringen suggests that :

'All political funding [be made] public. Ban all donations from individuals, businesses and unions and distribute public money as vouchers to voters for them to give to their party of choice or to throw away'

The Speaker Mr Bercow has so far put his foot down over any incidents in parliament. He has been very active in trying to improve the image of parliament, right from his first sitting as Speaker where Mr Bercow began his public image reform agenda:

'There is simply far too much noise. The public doesn't like it and neither do I.'

Since then parliament has been active in its attempts to be seen as reforming its public image, with former MPs being jailed for corruption (BBC, January & March 2011).

Whether any these reforms can be followed through will be a point on which the eventual success or failure of the coalition will be determined. It is not to be forgotten though that this reform process is one that began back during Labour's time in office. As Labour learned and as Professor Ringen stressed, reforms need public will behind it if not outright activism. Labour struggled to get their social reforms turned into activism but the Coalition is riding on the coattails of public outcry for change. Whether these policies and this activism can mesh and follow through, remains to be seen.

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References:
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+ S. Milgrim's 'Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View; Harper & Row, 2010.

+ 'Appendix 2: Letter from the Deputy Prime Minister to the Chair of the Committee'; July 2010; in Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill - Political and Constitutional Reform Committee;

+ Speaker Bercow's First PMQs on YouTube;

+ BBC's 'MPs' expenses: David Chaytor jailed over false claims'; January 2011;

+ BBC's 'Former MP Jim Devine jailed for 16 months over expenses'; March 2011.

AV Referendum - The Cases

In the noticeable absence of clear and concise explanations of the pros and cons for voting Yes to AV and No to AV (and therefore a vote for maintaining the first-past the post system), for the sake of clarity here are the cases in short for AV and FPTP:

For FPTP: First-past-the-post is the system currently in place, consisting of a single round of voting, where a simple largest minority of votes is enough to gain victory.

+ The simplicity of vote counting is a positive of this system, allowing for a clearly understood result and a fast resolution.

+ This system follows the one member - one constituency form of representation. This system provides a simple and straight-forward link between people and their representative in parliament.

+ FPTP however, can produce effects that are not straightforward. For example it drives all parties away from centrist positions, encouraging partisan tactical voting against a candidate rather than for and candidates can be elected on very small percentages of the vote. This particularly favours very well organised minority parties.

+ Follow this link to a Electoral Reform Society report on FPTP.

For AV:  The Alternative Vote is the system it is proposed to switch to. It consists of an elimination process, set over as many rounds of voting as is necessary to find a clear winner who represents as close to 50%+ of voters as possible. In order to speed the process of voting, rather than voting again for each round, the voter lists their preferences on their ballot paper. As the voter's preferred candidate is eliminated, their vote is moved to their next preference.  This is the reason for AV's other name, Instant-runoff Voting (IRV).

+ This system demands more of elected representatives than FPTP. In that system candidates only need more votes than their opponents (the largest minority), where as with AV candidates must represent a majority of (or close to) voters in their constituency.

+ AV maintains the one member - one constituency link and its clear connection between voters & representatives.

+ AV could lead to a solidifying of the positions of the major parties since the system lends itself to parties that are able to develop broad support. This does however decrease the power of extreme minority parties. It also does not guarantee the end of safe seats as candidates that appeal to broad base could have a much stronger position than before.

+ Follow this link to a Electoral Reform Society report on AV.

The Balance:

'The Electoral Reform Society thinks that, on balance, the massive failings of FPTP severely outweigh the advantage of its incumbency'

'The [Electoral Reform] Society has long argued that AV is the best system when you're out to elect a single winner'

On the balance of arguments, AV appears to be simply a more refined and more formal approach to the aims of FPTP. It uses more complex counting and a preferential voting system to formalise the aims of FPTP such as local links for MPS, MPs as the representatives of a majority of their voters and greater accountability through this higher standard for electoral victory & the need to appeal to broader support.

Nobody should be under the impression that AV is proportional, because it isn't. The reason those who support proportional systems are being encouraged to vote yes is because a yes vote represents a path to securing further reforms in the future eg. an Elected House of Lords.

It is also untrue that AV encourages further coalition, as it is in fact closer to FPTP in its two-party system tendency to make the work of third and minor parties much more difficult. In fact it does this much better than FPTP where well organised local extreme groups can have a much bigger affect than their little support should allow them.

It could also lead to some seats being much more safe than they are now, if a candidate is able to appeal to a very broad base of support, beyond the traditional core vote. This could however be limited in further reforms, for instance with the introduction of term limits for members of parliament to prevent seats staying with particular members indefinitely.

In all, the case for AV appears to be stronger. It seems to do all the things that FPTP aims to do, but better. It also represents a vote for a break from the political past, as a rejection of corruption and a demand for greater accountability & reform.