AV: Yes or No?

James Robinson · Post by **James Robinson** » Wed May 04, 2011 6:09 pm

The mega irony is that all these Tory posters are going up all over the place with the slogan: "VOTE FOR CHANGE".

Oh, and do VOTE FOR CHANGE.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed May 04, 2011 6:11 pm

Rhys Benjamin wrote:

It must be said that your existence provides good evidence that the British public are indeed too stupid for AV.

Rhys Benjamin · Post by **Rhys Benjamin** » Wed May 04, 2011 6:13 pm

James Robinson wrote:The mega irony is that all these Tory posters are going up all over the place with the slogan: "VOTE FOR CHANGE".

Oh, and do VOTE FOR CHANGE.

Keep up. That was last year.

Soph K · Post by **Soph K** » Wed May 04, 2011 6:50 pm

Lol. YEAH JAMES, THAT WAS SO LAST YEAR! Lol.

Paul Howe · Post by **Paul Howe** » Wed May 04, 2011 6:51 pm

If you believe the polling, AV will be rejected by a heavy margin. When the referendum was announced the polling was pretty evenly split, no doubt reflecting a situation where most people hadn't given serious consideration to the issue and hence were there to be persuaded.

Its depressing that they appear to have been persuaded by the froth of disinformation and outright lying which constitutes the no campaign. Its depressing that people who know their own arguments are complete nonsense (the campaign leaders are intelligent people who don't believe their own propaganda, regardless of how many raving simpletons they can get to repeat it) are nevertheless happy to engage in a campaign of relentless lampoonery if they think it will help them win. And its depressing that the British public appear to have been convinced so comprehensively: these aren't deeply held historically entrenched beliefs, most people were blanks slates coming into this and the comprehensive shift of opinion we've witnessed is unfortunate evidence of the power of propaganda over rational argument

By the way I'm not calling anyone voting no an idiot: there are sound arguments to be made for both voting systems, but I doubt most people casting their vote tomorrow will have considered them.

And if lampoonery isn't a word it bloodly well should be.

James Robinson · Post by **James Robinson** » Wed May 04, 2011 7:47 pm

Rhys Benjamin wrote:
James Robinson wrote:The mega irony is that all these Tory posters are going up all over the place with the slogan: "VOTE FOR CHANGE".

Oh, and do VOTE FOR CHANGE.
Keep up. That was last year.

Maybe so, but I went past 3 on the way back from work TONIGHT!!!

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Wed May 04, 2011 8:52 pm

Charlie Reams wrote: It must be said that your existence provides good evidence that the British public are indeed too stupid for AV.

If we do vote no, which now seems most likely, we will have shown that we don't deserve a better system.

Mike Brown · Post by **Mike Brown** » Wed May 04, 2011 8:57 pm

Oliver Garner wrote:If we do vote no, which now seems most likely, we will have shown that we don't deserve a better system.

I'm not sure you can infer that, Oliver. People may have sound reasons for supporting FPTP, or perhaps they're not comfortable with the alternative being offered (pun not intended). To say people don't deserve a 'better system' is a bit OTT, in my opinion.

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:05 pm

Rhys Benjamin wrote:

Re: The first part (switched off when they got the horse racing bit) - It is trying to say that being part of the coalition is leaving Clegg and co off scot-free despite their ridiculous policies whilst the good ol' Tory's are taking all the blame even though their punitive policies will somehow save the world. Not so. The Lib Dem's popularity is in freefall, and probably rightly so. But as Gowers said in his piece, why should the popular anger surrounding Clegg's tuition fees broken promise shape the country's politics for the next 50-100 years?

The cost argument: A reader wrote into The Times on Tuesday to make the observation that when politicians want something, money is no object but when they don't, it is completely unaffordable. He then suggested that Qadafi should claim that he wanted democracy but then say it is too expensive.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:08 pm

Mike Brown wrote:People may have sound reasons for supporting FPTP

They're certainly keeping quiet about them!

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:09 pm

Mike Brown wrote:
Oliver Garner wrote:If we do vote no, which now seems most likely, we will have shown that we don't deserve a better system.
I'm not sure you can infer that, Oliver. People may have sound reasons for supporting FPTP, or perhaps they're not comfortable with the alternative being offered (pun not intended). To say people don't deserve a 'better system' is a bit OTT, in my opinion.

Yeah, I'll retract that remark, simply because it lowers myself to the level of various people on both (but mainly the NO) campaigns who have used smear tactics against the opposing view. But those who go on the claims such as that thousands of sick babies may have been saved if we hadn't had this referendum/3rd placers would win (as if an election is somehow a race)/removes omowov to make their decision don't for sure.

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:27 pm

If I could vote, I'd vote "Yes" to AV, with "No" as my second preference.

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Wed May 04, 2011 9:30 pm

Kai Laddiman wrote:If I could vote, I'd vote "Yes" to AV, with "No" as my second preference.

Most original.

Adam Gillard · Post by **Adam Gillard** » Wed May 04, 2011 11:07 pm

I know I'm jumping in to this discussion a bit late, but a poll done for The Guardian yesterday (4 May) predicted 68% 'No' and 32% 'Yes'. The poll on this thread (admittedly of 31 people) predicts 84% 'Yes' and 16% 'No'. Quite a discrepancy there. Any thoughts?

My own musings: The people on this thread are mostly young and into word games (the latter generally requires a modicum of intelligence). I wonder if either or both of these things make one more likely to vote 'Yes'.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Wed May 04, 2011 11:21 pm

It's not looking good. You can now get 20/1 on the yes vote winning.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Wed May 04, 2011 11:45 pm

Adam Gillard wrote:I know I'm jumping in to this discussion a bit late, but a poll done for The Guardian yesterday (4 May) predicted 68% 'No' and 32% 'Yes'. The poll on this thread (admittedly of 31 people) predicts 84% 'Yes' and 16% 'No'. Quite a discrepancy there. Any thoughts?

Basically, idiots vote No, and most people are idiots.

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Thu May 05, 2011 12:34 am

It's a puzzle.

Kai Laddiman · Post by **Kai Laddiman** » Thu May 05, 2011 6:45 am

Oliver Garner wrote:
Kai Laddiman wrote:If I could vote, I'd vote "Yes" to AV, with "No" as my second preference.
Most original.

ty ty

Peter Mabey · Post by **Peter Mabey** » Thu May 05, 2011 8:56 am

Follow the links from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison ... ng_systems for some indication of the situation in the real world.

Of course, the only system without complaints about unfairness is the One Man One Vote one practised in Ankh-Morpork. The Patrician is the One Man, he has the One Vote, and complaining is inadvisable.

David Williams · Post by **David Williams** » Thu May 05, 2011 9:03 am

AV may be "fairer", but there are plenty of sound reasons why people might want to vote "No". Maybe they don't like coalitions. Maybe they think that the "correct" party tends to win elections under FPTP. A new improved system that would have meant Gordon Brown was still Prime Minister is a hard sell. Maybe they think it's a cobbled up improvised fudge being foisted on us to get the LibDems to join a coalition. Maybe they don't like the idea that the big parties may start to weaken their stance against the likes of the BNP if there are second choices to be harvested.

I'm sure everyone here is more clever and logical than the rest of the population, but logic only takes you so far. That's democracy.

Ian Fitzpatrick · Post by **Ian Fitzpatrick** » Thu May 05, 2011 9:53 am

If AV gets the go ahead, how many people will bother with second, third etc preferences - I'm not sure I would!

If everyone does that then it's the same as FPTP and no candidate is likely to get 50%.

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Thu May 05, 2011 12:51 pm

Ian Fitzpatrick wrote:If AV gets the go ahead, how many people will bother with second, third etc preferences - I'm not sure I would!

If everyone does that then it's the same as FPTP and no candidate is likely to get 50%.

Unless you live in a polling station, the time it takes to write down a few extra numbers isn't going to add significantly to the bother it causes you to vote, when you consider the bother overhead of getting there in the first place. I'm surprised the No Campaign didn't use this though.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Thu May 05, 2011 12:55 pm

Jon O'Neill wrote:I'm surprised the No Campaign didn't use this though.

Yeah, it would tie in quite well with their "you're too thick" angle.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Thu May 05, 2011 2:04 pm

For what it's worth, I think this has been my favourite ballot paper ever.

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Thu May 05, 2011 3:53 pm

Ian Fitzpatrick wrote:If AV gets the go ahead, how many people will bother with second, third etc preferences - I'm not sure I would!

I think the figure here is over 90% .

Martin Bishop · Post by **Martin Bishop** » Thu May 05, 2011 6:57 pm

Adam Gillard wrote:I know I'm jumping in to this discussion a bit late, but a poll done for The Guardian yesterday (4 May) predicted 68% 'No' and 32% 'Yes'. The poll on this thread (admittedly of 31 people) predicts 84% 'Yes' and 16% 'No'. Quite a discrepancy there. Any thoughts?

Countdown-ability correlates to a flair for maths and logical thinking. This in turn is linked to an ability (and willingness) to understand the arguments for/against AV.

It's amazing to me how many otherwise intelligent and educated people are in the no camp. This week at work I've found myself thoroughly exasperated by a group of my work colleagues, whose opinions I'd normally respect. They persist in their beliefs that AV is good for the BNP, that 2nd preferences aren't worth anything, that the system's too complicated and we should stick to one person one vote. The whole thing is really depressing.

James Doohan · Post by **James Doohan** » Thu May 05, 2011 7:48 pm

Liam Tiernan wrote:
Ian Fitzpatrick wrote:If AV gets the go ahead, how many people will bother with second, third etc preferences - I'm not sure I would!
I think the figure here is over 90% .

From my experience of working at election counts here, the figure is nowhere near as high as 90%. 75% would be a generous guesstimate. There doesn't seem to be any official figures available online though, which is a shame

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Thu May 05, 2011 8:11 pm

Only once in 1,500 AV elections in Australia has the third place party won.

Ian Fitzpatrick · Post by **Ian Fitzpatrick** » Thu May 05, 2011 8:17 pm

Oliver Garner wrote:Only once in 1,500 AV elections in Australia has the third place party won.

May be slightly different over here with only three main parties. I can see the Lib Dems clearing up as Tories won't second pref Labour and Socialists won't second pref the Tories!

Rhys Benjamin · Post by **Rhys Benjamin** » Thu May 05, 2011 8:20 pm

Labour supporters won't second pref The Conservatives and vice versa. The second one will be more tactical.

40 mins to polls close - so get a move on and vote no!

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Thu May 05, 2011 8:34 pm

James Doohan wrote:
Liam Tiernan wrote:
Ian Fitzpatrick wrote:If AV gets the go ahead, how many people will bother with second, third etc preferences - I'm not sure I would!
I think the figure here is over 90% .
From my experience of working at election counts here, the figure is nowhere near as high as 90%. 75% would be a generous guesstimate. There doesn't seem to be any official figures available online though, which is a shame

No official guesses

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Thu May 05, 2011 9:03 pm

Ian Fitzpatrick wrote:
Oliver Garner wrote:Only once in 1,500 AV elections in Australia has the third place party won.
May be slightly different over here with only three main parties. I can see the Lib Dems clearing up as Tories won't second pref Labour and Socialists won't second pref the Tories!

Yes in some marginal constituencies that will happen. But all the second preferences from the other candidates won't catch somebody in a predominantly Labour or Tory seat. Some people contributing here seem to think that the first round vote is completely discarded when the second round of counting starts.

Rhys Benjamin · Post by **Rhys Benjamin** » Fri May 06, 2011 4:03 pm

43 results in now:

YES 29.9%
NO 70.1%

Chris Corby · Post by **Chris Corby** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:32 am

I am back from my mini holiday, and the results are in. Overwhelming rejection of AV. Cannot believe that the voters of UK Ltd. have more sense than most of the contributors to this debate on here. I actually was on holiday with a relative who was all for AV until we had a long discussion over a beer (if only we could have done that here) on how it worked. It took ages to convince him it was bollocks, but convince him I did. However, I cannot have a go too much. I had to laugh on Tuesday morning listening to me, sorry I mean David Cameron on Today (around 8.20pm if you want to listen to it on i-player) being interviewed by John Humpreys where he put the exact points you were collectively making to Cameron about multi-votes to get the response "You are wrong John. That is actually quite worrying. If the lead brodcaster on the BBC doesn't understand the system, and you are explaining it to the public, that is worrying."

Earlier in this post there was the amusing cartoon about the pints of beer and the coffee vote, where under first past the post everyone went for a coffee. The YES campaigners only went and made a film about this to demonstrate the unfairness of the FPTP system!

When I said to Liam that he did not have the AV system that we were proposing in Ireland he said that I was "wrong". I hesitated to say that he was wrong as he lives there, but apparently only three countries in the world have the AV system that we were proposing and Ireland wasn't one of them. So there. Factually, over 50% of the countries in the world that elect governments have the FPTP system.

Finally, in case you haven't already guessed, I will nail my colours to the mast. I think FPTP has many faults so the challenge is to come up with a better system, it's just that AV was not it. In the UK, there has been no government in recent times where it has secured more than 50% of the popular vote so in a sense every one of our governments has been a minority one. If you then argue that if the total results polled produce Labour 37%, Conserative 33% and LibDem 25%, UKIP, 3%, BNP 2% this should mean that Labour should have 37% of the seats, Conservatives 33% etc. etc. then we would always get a coallition government because no-one would achieve 50%+ (and of course to be fair, BNP should get 2% of the seats too - around 12). I appreciate that the AV-ers will say under that system every candidate ends up with over 50%, I agree but it's the way that they get there that I cannot agree with.

Ian Volante · Post by **Ian Volante** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:39 am

Edinburgh Central voted yes, I feel glad that my immediate peers saw sense.

As for Chris's points above, I fully agree that AV was a shite choice for a change, but better that than politicos trying to convince everyone that we rejected change for the rest of my life.

Michael Wallace · Post by **Michael Wallace** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:55 am

Chris Corby wrote:David Cameron being interviewed by John Humpreys where he put the exact points you were collectively making to Cameron about multi-votes to get the response "You are wrong John. That is actually quite worrying. If the lead brodcaster on the BBC doesn't understand the system, and you are explaining it to the public, that is worrying."

Can't believe you're still arguing about this multi-voting bollocks, but if we're appealing to authority then I'll take Ipsos/MORI over a guy who has a rather obvious vested interest.

Charlie Reams · Post by **Charlie Reams** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:56 am

Chris Corby wrote:Cannot believe that the voters of UK Ltd. have more sense than most of the contributors to this debate on here.

Maybe you should reflect further on that. We've demolished every argument you made, insofar as you made any at all, and you just continued to repeat the same thing over and over. This strategy works pretty well on a certain portion of the electorate, but apparently not so well on C4C.

Chris Corby wrote:I actually was on holiday with a relative who was all for AV until we had a long discussion over a beer (if only we could have done that here) on how it worked. It took ages to convince him it was bollocks, but convince him I did. However, I cannot have a go too much. I had to laugh on Tuesday morning listening to me, sorry I mean David Cameron on Today (around 8.20pm if you want to listen to it on i-player) being interviewed by John Humpreys where he put the exact points you were collectively making to Cameron about multi-votes to get the response "You are wrong John. That is actually quite worrying. If the lead brodcaster on the BBC doesn't understand the system, and you are explaining it to the public, that is worrying."

David Cameron is, after all, an independent and omniscient arbiter of all arguments on voting reform. It's completely impossible that he would lie to confuse the public.

By the way, I saw yesterday evening the Conservatives already announcing that this puts the question of voting reform to bed for a generation. So well done to everyone who voted No in the hope of getting Proportional Representation, your tactical genius is rivalled only by Kevin Keegan.

David Williams · Post by **David Williams** » Sat May 07, 2011 1:00 pm

Chris Corby wrote: I actually was on holiday with a relative who was all for AV until we had a long discussion over a beer (if only we could have done that here) on how it worked. It took ages to convince him.

Is it remotely possible that saying he agreed with you was the only alternative to slitting his wrists?

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Sat May 07, 2011 1:19 pm

Chris Corby wrote:I had to laugh on Tuesday morning listening to me, sorry I mean David Cameron on Today (around 8.20pm if you want to listen to it on i-player) being interviewed by John Humpreys where he put the exact points you were collectively making to Cameron about multi-votes to get the response "You are wrong John. That is actually quite worrying. If the lead brodcaster on the BBC doesn't understand the system, and you are explaining it to the public, that is worrying."

Yes, I accept John Humphrys got it wrong (2:22:30), but here's a transcript:

DC: "If you go to an Alternative Vote system, you start counting some people's votes more than once, and you end up, in the words of Winston Churchill, getting..."
JH: "No you don't."
DC: "Yes you do."
JH: "That simply isn't true, that you count votes more than once."
DC: "Yes you do, you count all the votes, and then you start eliminating..."
JH: "That's right..."
DC: "And then you start eliminating candidates and then you count people's second preferences."
JH: "And I have a second preference, as well as you, as well as Justin here, and everybody else, and you count them again as well, so you don't count some people's votes more than others."
DC: "No, no, again, John, actually you're wrong, you're completely wrong, that is not the way it works. It is complicated, but..."
JH: "No it isn't, it's terribly simple."
DC: "You're wrong, John. If you vote for a Labour candidate, and I vote for a Monster Raving Loony candidate, and Monster Raving Loony comes last, my vote..."
JH: "He drops out. Monster Raving Loony's gone."
DC: "Yes, so my second preference is then counted, whereas..."
JH: "So's mine."
DC: "No, it isn't. It isn't, that's where you're wrong."

John Humphrys was indeed wrong - his second preference vote won't count unless and until his first preference is eliminated. I don't know if he misunderstood the rules or he just said the wrong thing, but what if instead he'd said "So's my first preference vote" in the penultimate line above? Then it would have been a perfectly sound rebuttal to Cameron's point. In the first round, Humphrys' first preference vote counts once, and Cameron's first preference vote counts once. In the second round, Humphrys' first preference vote counts once, and Cameron's second preference vote counts once. Everyone gets to make the same number of votes.

JimBentley · Post by **JimBentley** » Sat May 07, 2011 1:24 pm

Graeme Cole wrote:John Humphrys was indeed wrong - his second preference vote won't count unless and until his first preference is eliminated. I don't know if he misunderstood the rules or he just said the wrong thing

Yep, agreed, I think he wanted to get a quick and short rebuttal in and hadn't really thought it through. Either way, having listened to it, I don't get the impression that Cameron "won" that argument at all.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sat May 07, 2011 4:43 pm

Chris Corby wrote:I appreciate that the AV-ers will say under that system every candidate ends up with over 50%, I agree but it's the way that they get there that I cannot agree with.

I've never been happy with this particular argument myself. They have over 50% of the counted votes when compared directly against the other candidate in the "final" but if I rank Tory over BNP and they're the final two, neither really have my support.

Chris Corby · Post by **Chris Corby** » Sat May 07, 2011 4:55 pm

David Williams wrote:
Chris Corby wrote: I actually was on holiday with a relative who was all for AV until we had a long discussion over a beer (if only we could have done that here) on how it worked. It took ages to convince him.
Is it remotely possible that saying he agreed with you was the only alternative to slitting his wrists?

I checked this with him. You are right David.

Charlie Reams wrote:
Chris Corby wrote:Cannot believe that the voters of UK Ltd. have more sense than most of the contributors to this debate on here.
Maybe you should reflect further on that. We've demolished every argument you made, insofar as you made any at all, and you just continued to repeat the same thing over and over. This strategy works pretty well on a certain portion of the electorate, but apparently not so well on C4C.

"Disagreed with" is not the same as "demolished" so I accept the former and reject the latter. And for "certain portion" substitute "vast majority".

Michael Wallace wrote: Can't believe you're still arguing about this multi-voting bollocks, but if we're appealing to authority then I'll take Ipsos/MORI over a guy who has a rather obvious vested interest.

Michael, thanks for that. A good read, especially the references. Wish I had seen this a week or so ago but the argument is over now I suppose but all this bitching seems to be about the interpretation of whether a ballot paper that shifts from one party to another, maybe several times, is having more than one vote or it is just voting once but indicating other preferences if the favoured candidate cannot win.

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Sat May 07, 2011 5:13 pm

Let's say that each borough/district/locality which voted on Thursday's election was a seat and each campaign was a party. The NO party would have won 430 out of 440 seats (97.7%) with only 69% of the vote. That is evidence enough that FPTP in the form it is used for Westminster elections is unfair and weak. With AV defeated, the only way is PR.

Clive Brooker · Post by **Clive Brooker** » Sat May 07, 2011 5:36 pm

I'm prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this, and assume that he genuinely doesn't understand how AV works. If so, it's a pity Humphrys made his slip when he did.

Oliver Garner · Post by **Oliver Garner** » Sat May 07, 2011 6:54 pm

Clive Brooker wrote:I'm prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this, and assume that he genuinely doesn't understand how AV works. If so, it's a pity Humphrys made his slip when he did.

Rather proving the NO campaign's point

Graeme Cole · Post by **Graeme Cole** » Sat May 07, 2011 7:03 pm

Oliver Garner wrote:
Clive Brooker wrote:I'm prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this, and assume that he genuinely doesn't understand how AV works. If so, it's a pity Humphrys made his slip when he did.
Rather proving the NO campaign's point

"Alternative Vote: so complicated even the Prime Minister doesn't understand it!"

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Sat May 07, 2011 10:10 pm

Clive Brooker wrote:I'm prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this, and assume that he genuinely doesn't understand how AV works.

You can be certain that he knows exactly how it works. That's why he's against it.

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Sat May 07, 2011 10:28 pm

Chris Corby wrote:
When I said to Liam that he did not have the AV system that we were proposing in Ireland he said that I was "wrong". I hesitated to say that he was wrong as he lives there, but apparently only three countries in the world have the AV system that we were proposing and Ireland wasn't one of them. So there. Factually, over 50% of the countries in the world that elect governments have the FPTP system.

The President is directly elected by secret ballot using the Alternative Vote, the single-winner analogue of the Single Transferable Vote.

Did you not read my reply. When applied to a single-seat election (such as the Presidency) STV is AV.

The first Irish presidential election was held on 14 June 1945

Ok, so I was a few years out. I forgot that that the first president was elected unopposed.With such superficial research skills it's no surprise that you can't understand AV. You obviously haven't tried very hard.

So there.

Chris Corby · Post by **Chris Corby** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:04 pm

Liam Tiernan wrote: So there.

Made me smile.

Liam, this forum is discussing AV when it comes to electing members of our Parliament from constituencies. Correct me if I am wong but when you do this (Dáil Constituencies) you use proportional representation, don't you? How you elect your President is not relevant to this discusssion, any more than it is me describing the system as to how the Conservatives or Labour parties here elect their leaders.

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Sat May 07, 2011 11:38 pm

Chris Corby wrote:
Liam Tiernan wrote: So there.
Made me smile.

Liam, this forum is discussing AV when it comes to electing members of our Parliament. Correct me if I am wong but when you do this you use proportional representation, don't you? How you elect your President is not relevant to this discusssion, any more than it is me describing the system as to how the Conservatives or Labour parties here elect their leaders.

I said:

Its's a simple system. We've had it here for 80 years. It's really not that difficult to understand.

You said:

Really? I thought Ireland had the STV (Single Transferrable Vote) system which is simliar to AV but not the same

I said:

Wrong again. It's how our Presidential elections are decided.

You said:

but apparently only three countries in the world have the AV system that we were proposing and Ireland wasn't one of them.

I said:

The President is directly elected by secret ballot using the Alternative Vote
The first Irish presidential election was held on 14 June 1945

You said:

How you elect your President is not relevant to this discusssion

Actually it is, since we're talking about understanding how AV works, but you've chosen to ignore that fact since it no longer suits your purpose.

So, having lost the point on the facts, you then try to change the parameters. I think I'm beginning to understand how this politics lark works.Maybe you could be Rhys' election agent in a few years time.

Chris Corby · Post by **Chris Corby** » Sun May 08, 2011 9:12 am

Liam Tiernan wrote:
Chris Corby wrote:This is a great ding-dong, bringing out the best and worst in all of us. I am genuinely surprised by some of the vitriol spouting forth from our collective mouths. Politics or religion - can't beat it! Back to my real general election result and the BNP "multi-vote" argument. Remember we had this:

LD 16,806 43.7%
Con 14,116 36.7%
Lab 5,061 13.2%
UKIP 1,243 3.2%
BNP 1,213 3.2%

Let's say a voter, we'll call him Jono, goes into vote under the present system and votes BNP. He adds 1 vote to the BNP party and that's it, his election is over. 1213 votes is not enough to take the seat. At the declaration, his one vote is included in the BNP's grand total. Under AV, he votes like this: 1 BNP, 2 UKIP, 3 LAB, 4 LIB DEM and stops there because he can't bring himself to vote Conservative.Counting starts. It is still 1213 votes for BNP (being last in this poll). His BNP vote does not go in the bin but is passed to the UKIP pile. The UKIP vote has now gone up 1. Jono has added 1 vote to BNP and 1 vote to UKIP. Under FPTP the only way this could happen is for one person to vote BNP and another person to vote UKIP. But we haven't stopped there. On the third count, his ballot paper in the UKIP pile is now added to Labour. So far, he has now incremented 3 parties by one vote each. Finally his ballot paper in the Labour pile gets passed to the Lib Dems adding 1 to their total. So his ballot paper has added one vote to four parties, which wil be reflected in the final tallies.

Now to me he has had the power of four voters. But I am keen to listen to arguments why this is not so.
Wrong. Since the BNP candidate has now been eliminated, he still has one vote, which has transferred to the UKIP. Its's a simple system. We've had it here for 80 years. It's really not that difficult to understand.What I find difficult to understand is how a party with a 25% share of the vote nationally can end up with less than 4% of the seats.Nationally that adds up to a discrepancy of over 100 seats. And that is a real election result I'm quoting. Can anybody reasonably justify that?

Liam, your selective editing would do a Sun journalist proud. The first time you mentioned AV was in response to the above post. I was talking about a real constituency election result, which you quote suggesting that's what you want to reply to. If you had said "It's a simple system. We have used it to elect the Irish president for 80 years" there would have been no confusion on my part at least. But can we please stop this? Even I'm getting bored and it's not very exciting for the others...

Clive Brooker · Post by **Clive Brooker** » Sun May 08, 2011 11:23 am

Liam Tiernan wrote:
Clive Brooker wrote:I'm prepared to give Cameron the benefit of the doubt on this, and assume that he genuinely doesn't understand how AV works.
You can be certain that he knows exactly how it works. That's why he's against it.

Maybe he does. But I'm sure there are many thousands of highly intelligent people who merely think they do.

Lets run the Humphrys/Cameron interview forward a bit. Here's a transcript of this ficticious interview:

JH: "Prime Minister, can we go back to your Monster Raving Loony example for a moment. Let's say the first round has finished and the MRL candidate has the fewest votes. Anyone who voted MRL can now vote for someone else in the second round. Would you say that's how AV works?"
DC: "Not quite, under AV all the second preferences are specified before the first round of counting starts."
JH: "OK, but is it effectively the same, in that it will end up with the same result?"

This is the (unfair) AV/exhaustive vote hybrid I alluded to a few days ago. Perhaps I underestimate people, but I don't think it's that obvious to someone non-mathematical why it wouldn't be equivalent to AV.

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Sun May 08, 2011 8:25 pm

Chris Corby wrote: If you had said "It's a simple system. We have used it to elect the Irish president for 80 years" there would have been no confusion on my part at least.

I did, here, in my very next post, in reply to your first assertion that I'd got it wrong. You must have missed it.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sat May 14, 2011 2:04 pm

I wonder how awkard multi-seat constituency STV ballot papers are in practice. You might have six seats in a constituency and the main parties might all field six candidates. Then you've got all the minor parties and indpendents. That's going to be a pretty big ballot paper.

Liam Tiernan · Post by **Liam Tiernan** » Sat May 14, 2011 6:43 pm

Gavin Chipper wrote:I wonder how awkard multi-seat constituency STV ballot papers are in practice. You might have six seats in a constituency and the main parties might all field six candidates. Then you've got all the minor parties and indpendents. That's going to be a pretty big ballot paper.

The highest number of candidates in the last general election was 18 in the five-seater Wicklow constituency. You' can see here that four of the top five in the first count (i.e. FPTP) got elected. The exception was the Sinn Fein candidate, who like most extremist candidates, struggled to pick up second and subsequent preferences. That's the exact opposite of the argument that AV would greatly favour small extremist parties such as BNP. Incidentally, I've read that under STV the optimum number of seats to ensure as little large-party bias as possible is ten.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Sun May 15, 2011 2:12 pm

Liam Tiernan wrote:The highest number of candidates in the last general election was 18 in the five-seater Wicklow constituency. You' can see here that four of the top five in the first count (i.e. FPTP) got elected. The exception was the Sinn Fein candidate, who like most extremist candidates, struggled to pick up second and subsequent preferences. That's the exact opposite of the argument that AV would greatly favour small extremist parties such as BNP. Incidentally, I've read that under STV the optimum number of seats to ensure as little large-party bias as possible is ten.

It's quite interesting looking at that to see how STV works in practice. I suppose my ideal of not having part names listed on ballot papers would require too big a memory feat from voters when you've got all those candidates.

Rhys Benjamin · Post by **Rhys Benjamin** » Thu May 26, 2011 3:42 pm

One more input -

I did a survey today at school with 50 people, and I retired to count the votes. I provided the totals and the reactions were (under First Past The Post) "I'm happy with that." Under Alternative Voting, the reactions were, "that's fucking well messed up, blad, innit, man?"

Jon O'Neill · Post by **Jon O'Neill** » Thu May 26, 2011 3:54 pm

Rhys Benjamin wrote:One more input -

I did a survey today at school with 50 people, and I retired to count the votes. I provided the totals and the reactions were (under First Past The Post) "I'm happy with that." Under Alternative Voting, the reactions were, "that's fucking well messed up, blad, innit, man?"

Well that's that sorted then.

Gavin Chipper · Post by **Gavin Chipper** » Thu May 26, 2011 6:27 pm

Chris Corby wrote:
Michael Wallace wrote: Can't believe you're still arguing about this multi-voting bollocks, but if we're appealing to authority then I'll take Ipsos/MORI over a guy who has a rather obvious vested interest.
Michael, thanks for that. A good read, especially the references. Wish I had seen this a week or so ago but the argument is over now I suppose but all this bitching seems to be about the interpretation of whether a ballot paper that shifts from one party to another, maybe several times, is having more than one vote or it is just voting once but indicating other preferences if the favoured candidate cannot win.

There was nothing new there that hadn't already been pointed out on here regarding whether AV gives some people more votes.

AV?